World Food Tourism Day: Lettuce stalk the veggies overseas

Even as vegetarians’ choices while travelling overseas are still not the order of the day, maps and apps are leading them to greener pastures.

Years ago, for Indian vegetarians travelling abroad, fear was a constant companion -- the fear of not finding their daily dose of vegetarian food. The fear of surviving with bread and bacon, duck and dessert.

As the world marks World Food Tourism Day, cuisines are turning tables and a universal language is rising from the pot.

Raji Sunderkrishnan, for instance, in spite of being a vegetarian, has been able to enjoy local cuisines in most of the countries she has travelled to.

"The easiest has been the Mediterranean region, with its abundance of fruits and vegetables,” she says.

She has savoured a huge variety of vegetarian food there. “Countries in the Middle East, too, have cuisines that incorporate vegetables, lentils and pulses, and grains," she recollects.

Raji narrates interesting episodes she experienced in Iceland and Japan. "When I visited Iceland in 2010, outside of its capital Reykjavik, food was highly local, with seafood and lamb being the focus. Iceland's topography and geology are not conducive to growing crops, so they used to import tomatoes and potatoes," she says.

She ate French fries or potato patty, along with tomato soup and bread, for three meals a day for three weeks. “For me, the travel experience took precedence over finding a variety of food,’’ she says.

Be it falafel in the Middle East, ratatouille in France or vegan sushi in Tokyo, Indian vegetarians are lapping it all up.

Indeed, the culinary borders are diminishing. A new world palate is binding the global culinary culture.

"In Japan, it was challenging to find vegetarian food on the ground as easily as my research made it seem," Raji remembers.

But she managed to taste a fair bit of local food over her three weeks there, even if most of the options were Japanese desserts and baked goods. “Both of which are excellent,” she says.

“Some chefs kindly whipped up vegetarian options upon request, and okonomiyaki in particular was my favourite."

"But a fun incident was when I ordered a bowl of chopped cucumber, and it was served with a garnish of bonito flakes aka katsuobushi (smoked and dried tuna)," Raji says.

She finds travelling as a vegetarian always leads her to the unexpected. “There’s never a dull day.”

For Kitty Iyer, another avid traveller from Bengaluru, finding vegetarian food while travelling abroad has never been a wild goose chase.

"I may not have had choices, but it was never an issue finding it. Even in a remote island tour in the Philippines, we got rice and some stir-fried veggies," she says

⁠In a predominantly non-veg country, does she look for restaurants that serve vegetarian food? “Yes,” says Kitty. “There are always vegan and veg restaurants in predominantly non-veg heavy countries.”

Kitty doesn't look out for Indian restaurants really... "but maybe at the end of the trip when we are bored of eating pizza and falafels (two easy forms of veg food)," she says.

She had difficulties finding vegetarian food while travelling in 2017. "Now there are more choices," she notes. “I have anything that is available. The most common food available are pizza and falafel.”

Last year, Kitty travelled to a tiny coastal village called Kas in Turkey. "Not in the usual Indian travellers’ map there," she points out.

She didn't expect too many vegetarian varieties. “We had even taken some ready-to-eat food. But to our surprise, we found three vegan restaurants in that space and the food was incredible."

Another instance where she enjoyed good vegetarian food was while on a safari in Masai Mara in Kenya.

"The safari team had packed us the most delicious picnic lunch with veg fried rice, some dessert, some pizza starters and some sandwiches. Imagine getting to eat the best veg food in the middle of a jungle!” she remembers.

Kitty feels that if someone says finding vegetarian food is tough, that's because they are fussy. "If you aren't particular of what the food has to be, or which vegetable it is, there's so much choice."

She, in fact, struggled a bit (“more because of judgement”) in Karaikudi more than abroad. "The non-veg scene is so big that the veg food was 1/10th on the menu, approximately," she says.

The metaphor 'Grass is greener on the other side' is not quite true. Truly, one can find green in everything, garnished with the aroma of spices while admiring Mount Fuji or relaxing in Jungfraujoch, the saddle of Switzerland.