Vegan vacation
At the White Pig Bed and Breakfast in Schuyler, Va., Norman is not on the breakfast menu. Norman, the property’s namesake, is the star of feeding time (look for the dirty white pot-bellied pig who hobbles around the yard like Pavarotti in stilettos). The innkeepers will gladly tell you about his tough childhood in urban New York and his move to spacious, green Virginia.
After seeing his piglet pictures, I was thankful that the glistening “sausage” links crowning my pancakes did not have a name, except for Meat Substitute.
Hal and Dina Brigish, the husband-and-wife proprietors of the three-guestroom hillside house, are strict vegans who take in pigs that are abused, abandoned or slated for the frying pan.
The only made-of-mammal accouterment at their environmentally conscious retreat is a wool rug left behind by past owners. (Dina Brigish says she doesn’t have the heart to throw it away and disrespect the sheep that sacrificed its coat.)
All the toiletries, candles, blankets and cleaning products are animal-free, as are all the meals. For vegetarian travelers, that’s like finding nirvana.
“What I hear over and over again from guests is, ‘It’s so nice to not have to ask what’s in the food, or to explain myself, or to give you a list of my do’s and don’ts,’ ” says Brigish, 36, who is also a trained chef.
“I opened the B&B because I wanted to serve an underserved, or a not-served, market.”
That market could feasibly include 5.7 million people – the number of vegetarians in America at last count, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about the veggie lifestyle.
Of those, about half are vegans – people who not only don’t eat meat but will not consume, use or wear any animal products.
Though there are no hard figures on vegetarian travelers, Donna Zeigfinger, who runs Green Earth Travel, a vegetarian travel agency outside Washington, D.C., estimates that 80 percent of those millions go off to explore the world, or at least the next state over.
“Most people travel at some point in their lives,” says Zeigfinger, a vegan who started her business in 1986. “If (vegetarians) really want to go see a new city or country, they’re not going to starve. They just might not get the best food.”
But the vittles are definitely improving. Two decades ago, a vegetarian meal on the road might include such red-meat alternatives as chicken or fish – equally forbidden foods for traditional vegetarians (some people use the label even if they still eat fowl and fish). Or the hotel chef might simply pull the steak off the plate and fan out the vegetable sides.
To track down veggie restaurants in new destinations, travelers would have to contact that region’s local vegetarian or animal-rights group for suggestions.
All that is different now. Much like the industry’s growing awareness, and accommodation, of smaller-sector travelers – i.e., offering shared rooms to single travelers or low-carb menus to Atkins adherents – the travel world is catching on to the needs of the nonmeat-eating contingent.
“Vegetarianism used to be more of a fringe diet and not part of the mainstream. In the last 20 years, it’s become a lot more acceptable and easier to be a vegetarian no matter where you go,” says John Cunningham, consumer research manager of the Vegetarian Resource Group.
“Cruise ships and other places like package tours are now pretty good at catering to vegetarians. There is even a whole section of the travel industry that specializes in vegetarian travel.”
To be sure, the White Pig is far from becoming a franchise, and strictly vegetarian hotels and tour companies are in the minority.
But the options are steadily popping up worldwide: sister vegetarian B&Bs in Vermont and West Virginia, an English vegetarian bike tour company, a vegetarian spa in Mexico, vegetarian culinary tours in Italy.
And if you can’t find a cruise or lodging that adheres to your beliefs, perhaps a vegetarian travel specialist can track one down for you.
Imagine: You’ll never again have to make a peanut butter sandwich by smashing mini-bar peanuts into a dinner roll.
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All it takes is a lunch of lettuce and mustard sandwiches to realize that traveling as a vegetarian requires a little pre-trip planning, as well as patience and adaptation – to both your trip companions and the new culture.
There are some ethnic cuisines that are veggie-friendly, no matter where you eat them (in their homeland or imported): Italian, Indian, Middle Eastern and Mexican, for example. So vegetarians can feel fairly secure when ordering off those menus.
Asian food is often my fallback cuisine when visiting other Western countries. You can find a Chinese restaurant even in one-stoplight towns. The menu usually includes some tofu, veggie and rice dishes, and a water- or miso-based soup.
But beware: In Asia, they seem to be cooking from a whole other recipe file. Most soups, like the popular pho, are made with fish, beef or chicken stock.
In Cambodia, I informed the waiter about my diet, even doing a puppet show of animals I do not eat. He nodded in understanding. But when my “vegetarian” soup arrived, there was a large square of ham floating in the middle.
“If you don’t know the language, you don’t know what’s in there,” concedes travel agent Zeigfinger, who seeks out veggie restaurants for her clients. “In Asia, they throw everything into their rices and soups.”
For those times, bring along a foreign language dictionary or learn the appropriate phrases so you can describe your dietary needs. You can also carry flash cards with pictures of animals and marine life to point out forbidden eats.
My friend Anne goes even further: She will go into the kitchen and shake her head at items she will or will not ingest.
To make vegetarian travel less onerous, and to avoid close inspection of each morsel entering your mouth, it’s wise to research the area’s dining scene – much like carnivores do if they are looking for, say, the best steakhouse in Buenos Aires or the top sushi spot in Tokyo.
A number of Web sites list vegetarian-friendly restaurants around the world; jot down the names and addresses, but also call once you’ve arrived, as the Internet’s shelf-life is short and restaurants can go out of business quickly.
There also are myriad guidebooks tailored to vegetarians. All-inclusive resorts can be a little easier, since many of the meals are buffets – so you can pick your way through the salads, grains and fruits. Zeigfinger says Club Meds are especially amenable to vegetarians.
Cruises, though, can be tough. On a Royal Caribbean cruise I took to the Caribbean a few years ago, dinner was almost absurdist.
When I informed the server of my no-meat policy, she asked what I ate. Red meat? No. Fish? No. Turkey? No.
So, would you like the chicken? she inquired.
I ended up eating bland steamed vegetables for most of the meals and was ready to nibble the centerpiece just for a little variety.
To avoid dulling your appetite when sailing the seas, Zeigfinger suggests speaking to the ship’s special services department or the dining room manager about your specific dietary needs – because once the ship leaves port, you’re stuck. If you’re not satisfied, stock up on food when you hit land.
When booking flights and your in-flight meals, learn the secret food codes (VLML, lacto-vegetarian; VGML, vegan; AVML, Asian vegetarian; RVML, raw foods). Then, when confirming your flights, reassert your meal plan as well.
But don’t forget to read the packaging on some of the meal items. Often planes serve mass-produced foods made of animal byproducts.
Taste aside, a real concern is getting your fill of protein. And pasta with tomato sauce or steamed vegetables do not satisfy your daily quotient (60 grams for women, 75 for men).
“Not having enough protein can really run you down when you are traveling,” says Cynthia Sass, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
Fortunately, each culture seems to have at least one prevalent nonmeat protein source in its cuisine: soy in Asian food, or beans in Latin America, Middle Eastern and Near East countries.
Sass also recommends packing some emergency supplements, such as protein bars or soy nuts. You can also gobble up airplane peanuts, add an extra splash of soy milk in your latte or pick up a bag of sunflower seeds at an airport shop.
“If I’m stuck eating a soft pretzel for lunch on the road, I just make up for it at dinner,” says Mike Gurwitz, a 42-year-old vegan lawyer from Silver Spring, Md. “If necessary, you can find peanuts and other nuts in any convenience store.”
The easiest choice, though, is to go to a veggie inn or resort where you never have to ask: Is that vegetarian?
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“I left you some afternoon snacks on the table – fruit, a vegan coffeecake, a vegan brownie,” said Dina Brigish after I threw my bag into the princessy Olive room at the White Pig. “And there’s soy milk in the fridge for your tea.”
I was about to ask if there were eggs in the coffeecake, then snapped my mouth shut. Old habits die hard.
While Brigish and her husband fed the pigs their dinner, they talked about what it’s like to travel when so much of the world eats meat.
“When you go to a place and are paying the same as other guests and then they are getting giant plates of eggs and waffles brought to their table and you get a bowl of cold oatmeal, you feel like you are being ripped off,” she said.
Not so at the White Pig, where you are served four-star food, not cafeteria mush.
When the weather is bright and warm, Brigish will pack a lunch for hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains: hummus with tomato on whole-grain bread; three-peppercorn “pastrami” with lettuce and mustard; fruit and organic juices or sodas.
She also prepares dinners for $45 per person. My night there, the menu included butternut squash soup; baby spinach salad with toasted almonds and dried fruit; “lobster” souffle, which was inspired by an entree she saw in a Parisian cafe (she replaced the seafood with soy protein and tofu); and chocolate cake with vanilla icing.
For dining out in the Charlottesville area, Brigish has compiled a notebook of local restaurants’ menus, in which she has highlighted dishes that are veg-friendly. She also has an arrangement with one chef to prepare vegan meals at his cafe.
Her efforts do not go unappreciated. As a Pennsylvania couple wrote in the guest book: “What a joy to know you don’t have to ask for modifications to the menu. How wonderful to not have to wonder what is in the food.”
Over breakfast, as I bit into my “sausage,” it was a pleasure to know that I was not eating Norman.