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Are you a recent vegan and on your way to Hungary? Are you fretting about what to eat? My friend Csilla turned vegan overnight after watching the HBO special "I am an animal." I haven't seen it, but I hear it's not for the faint of heart. Csilla had nightmares for days. In any case, Csilla's conversion to pure vegetarianism came shortly before her trip to Hungary to visit relatives. Hungarian food tends to be very animal-heavy, and so Csilla wondered what she would eat, and figured she'd have to go to a store and load up on fruit and crackers. So ENN (We Iz Animals, Hear us Bray) did a bit of investigative journalism and found that, yes, you can be vegan in Hungary and you can even eat out! Very cool.
If you'd like a list of the places you can visit in Budapest and not be faced with dead animals on a plate, check out this link. This is the Happy Cow page covering Budapest, and it lists 17 vegan-friendly restaurants. Not bad, huh? See? You won't starve. Want more? Check Budaveg.
Now, if you eat at someone's house, it might take considerable effort to get them to understand you don't eat animals. They might shake their heads and think you are crazy, or malnourished, or both. It won't matter that you look slender and healthy, all rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, and that your cholesterol is low and you are the poster child for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. They will still shake their head and try to feed you some beef. You might decide that a little white lie is best ("I'm allergic to anything that has animals in it -- got that from Mad Jack, my grandpa, who was a wereduck. I know, it's very regrettable. A curse, literally. Mess around with a gypsy and see what you get. They have no sense of humour, those gypsies."), because this might save you a lot of time. You may be faced with things like, "Well, that's ok, I made fish." Instead of launching into a lecture (complete with flipcharts) about fish not being vegetables, you might want to have some kind of official looking document from your doctor, or from the World Wereduck Federation, that explains they're not responsible for what will happen should you ingest animal products, and that removing the bits of beef from the stew just won't cut it.
Explaining to people that you don't drink milk, eat butter, and avoid cream and honey might definitely put you into the looney tunes category. I think most Hungarians might understand you don't eat the dead animal, but no milk? No honey? No butter? No cream????? That will sound as weird as if you said your favorite pasttime is to roll in mud and then in coconut flakes and pretend you're a chocolate log while you sing show tunes. Again, you might want to consider going the white lie route.
If you visit small towns or villages, take some food with you, because finding vegan food in those places is harder than finding original writing on Lost.
Got veg? Email the tomattas at eza_news.at.yahoo.com
*image used for educational purposes only.
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