Peranakan Cuisine in the Whole Earth Restaurant, Singapore

Throughout Southeast Asia, Chinese Buddhist vegetarians kept Bill very well fed. He finds out more about this other vegetarian movement – and tries lots of food.

Download internet radio report (5 mins 02 secs): Travelling and Eating Vegan in Southeast Asia: Chinese Restaurants (MP3 3.64MB) (other sound file formats)

This is the final of three reports from Bill’s travels. Please follow these podcasts and blogs for more reports; or enjoy an episode of The Vegan Option about this Southeast Asian trip.

Bill on Chinese Vegetarians

From Singapore to Thailand, I ate plenty of Chinese food. In both the trading areas which face Sumatra across the Melaka Straits, and in the big cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, there were so many vegan or almost-vegan restaurants that I sometimes stumbled across them without having to seek them out. Until I got to veggie-friendly Chiang Mai at the northern tip of my journey, they were all run by the Buddhist Chinese.

As a bonus, they often took local speciality dishes and veganised them, giving me a culinary journey.

Curious about what motivated this, I talked to the managers and chefs.

This contrasts a little with Thai Buddhism. This has a tradition that every man should become a Buddhist monk at least once in their life, so I had plenty of chances to talk to former monks as well as monks currently wearing the orange robes of Thai monks. They told me that they do eat meat placed in their begging bowl, and that they believed this tradition was what based in what the Buddha did. So where did the idea of vegetarianism come from? I visited Dr Peter Flügel, a lecturer in Jaina studies in London’s School of Oriental Studies, to get his answer.

To hear more, I hope you will listen to the report.

But is Chinese mock meat really vegan? Operation Pancake

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, the Quarrygirl vegan foodie blog had been doing an undercover investigation of supposedly vegan restaurants. They tracked fake meats that tested positive for egg and milk back to suppliers in Taiwan. Contaminated vegan food has become a big enough issue there for ministers to try to strengthen and enforce labelling laws.

This is an international problem, affecting Chinese food from Taiwan to the USA. But how much does it affect the Chinese food travellers eat in Southeast Asia? I asked the International Vegetarian Union co-ordinator for the whole of Southeast Asia, Susianto Tseng.

“Yes, the Chinese vegetarian restaurants in Indonesia also purchase some mock meats from Taiwan, but most of them are purchased from Malaysia’s and Singapore’s manufacturers. We have heard about the contamination of mock meat made in Taiwan so that IVS [Indonesia Vegetarian Society] informs the vegetarian in Indonesia to be careful and aware of that.”

So there is a possibility that the meal will not actually be vegan. But this is always going to be a risk, and both the level of contamination and the risk seem low in the context of other SE Asian restaurants.

I was very glad that the Chinese diaspora were there to feed me in my travels.

See also …

• Hail, Seitan by Caitanya Bhagavat Das of the Hare Krishna movement in Utah, USA
• Ting Jen’s legendary history of China and vegetarianism on the IVU website, with a letter from a missionary in 1889.
• Buddhist Cuisine on Wikipedia
• List of vegetarian restaurants run by followers of Supreme Master Ching Hai, a modern asian religious organisation with a vegetarian leaning

My thanks go to Dr Peter Flügel of SOAS, University of London, to Chong Keng Hoon from Luk Yea Yan in Penang, to Jack from Whole Earth restaurant in Singapore, and to the kin who ate all the mock meat whilst I interviewed Jack.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can easily subscribe to future Verdant Reports podcasts here.

Pre Rup

Bill toured the temples of Cambodia, and found a foodie Frenchman running a vegetarian restaurant.

Download internet radio report (4 mins 53 secs): Travelling and Eating Vegan in Southeast Asia: Cambodia (MP3 3.33MB) (other sound file formats)

This is the second of three reports from Bill’s travels. Please follow these podcasts and blogs for the other two; or enjoy an episode of The Vegan Option about this Southeast Asian trip.

Bill on Cambodia

Eating on the tourist trail in Cambodia took a bit more effort. It was harder to communicate because fewer people spoke English, I had learnt even less Khmer than Thai, labels were rarely in English, and the usually useful Vegan Passport failed me in Cambodia.

This is all a little frustrating, because communication is more important in Cambodia. My guide book had already warned me that many Cambodians do not understand vegetarianism, so I wanted to be sure I was clear. Many food stalls lacked a supply of water, so street traders cannot wash pots after cooking meat, or blenders after making milkshakes, even if you could ask them to.

User Simpson Yellow added some useful phrases to the Happy Cow Cambodia notes page. Nicolas pronounced “Dtai bon-lai” (“only vegetables”) for us. If you know Khmer, and can advance our collective knowledge by confirming the information already out there and telling us how to make sure, please do add them in the comments – or better still, to the Happy Cow notes page.

(The UK vegan society would love to hear from you if you can translate the Vegan Passport text into Khmer.)

The major tourist sites have their own vegetarian restaurants. In Siem Reap, I discovered the western-style V&A and Nicolas’ Chamkar with its Khmer cooking.

My guide and translator Em was invaluable, not just for the history of the monuments I visited and communicating with restaurants, but for a window into Cambodian culture. I asked him to tune the radio into Khmer stations and explain the songs. One stuck in my memory: the singer was a bridegroom worried about his wedding night because his bride was not a virgin. Worse for the groom, the ex-boyfriend was a his best friend. Em described the conflict between the countryside that expected virgin brides and the pressure of the cities. As culture changed, Cambodian women were caught between expectations.

When I cycled around temples, I would keep myself going with snacks and fruit. The famous rule for staying healthy on local food is “peel it, boil it, cook it, or forget it” – which meant forgoing all the pre-sliced mango sold on a stick in plastic bags. I did cave in and try it when I was about to go home, and it was very tasty. Going back, I would have brought a sharper knife for peeling mango.

One of my many regrets about Cambodia is not stopping by a greengrocer stall and trying all the exotic varieties of fruit. I tried only one. It was awful. It was like eating a dry sponge. Another taste I have yet to acquire from Em is the sharp tang of unripe mango, neatly sliced with sauces.

You may wish to read other people’s experiences, such as the Vegan Undergound trip earlier this year, and the VegNews tour in 2006. Both stayed longer and went to places I did not, including the capital Phnom Penh.

My thanks go to Nicolas, Ananda (voice of the Time Out New York Kitchen Report infographic), and the Elephant Nature Park mahouts for your contributions.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can easily subscribe to future Verdant Reports podcasts here.

Download internet radio report (4 mins 53 secs): London Vegans are told that they are slimmer, but might lack calcium – MP3 – other sound file formats

(This is a pilot podcast. Your feedback is welcome.)

Contributors:

• Paul Appleby from EPIC-Oxford
• Dietician Marty Davey of vegfamily.com

For more information, you can download Paul Appleby’s slides from the talk as a Powerpoint file or a PDF.

For more about getting enough Calcium, see:

• The Vegetarian Resource Group on Calcium in the Vegan Diet
• The UK Vegan Society on calcium.
  
• The American Dietetic Association dispels myths about vegan sources of calcium (but cites spinach as a source) and provides a vegetarian food guide which includes more information about vegan calcium sources.
• The CalciYum! recipe book is out of print but available from second-hand booksellers online and off.

Thanks to friends for feedback and help, to contributors (including Dr Stephen Walsh for an interview which was not used),  and to London Vegans for allowing us to record at their “last Wednesday” meeting.

If you appreciated this podcast, you can easily subscribe to future Verdant Reports podcasts here.