Vegetables, or how I learned to stop eating meat and love cabbage

Contrary to popular belief, it’s very easy to be a vegetarian in Russia. Believe it or not, I’ve fallen head over heels for cabbage and beets and even pickles. You see, I didn’t really have a choice given the indefatigable Russian insistence on those ingredients. Meanwhile, any passing acquaintance with meat or fish (when passing it at a newsstand for instance, or the fish stands in the rynok) is an easy reminder that eggs offer more than enough protein, thank you bolshoi. And those kartoshky piroshky are quite good without any meat added. Of course, we have to imagine that this variety of vegetarianism is healthy, as everything is fried. And of course, all vegetables contain some trace of meat, if not a large slab of meat thrown right on top of them, or around them, or into the middle of them, so forget that thing about becoming a vegetarian, it was basically a lie. But with the right language barrier, you can very easily pretend.