Quick note on tasteless vegetarian food

Doc Searls talks about the Atkins diet and says something I have heard lots of times about vegetarian food: that it doesn’t taste anything. As a vegetarian (since February ‘99) I must say that this is wrong. There are two things I have to say about this: firstly, it’s not usually the meat that contributes the taste to dishes, but spices. I use to say that meat is a medium for taste (and, admittedly, a good one) rather than a taste in itself.

Secondly, the notion that vegetarian food is tasteless comes from a strange idea about vegetarian food as meat-based food minus the meat. What you do then is, basically, to remove the taste medium – no wonder it doesn’t taste anything. However, when you add replace the taste medium with something else (say, tofu, which is an excellent taste medium), and spice it up, you get tasty food.

Another thing that’s part of this is the fact that meat dishes often have too much taste: you get insensitive taste buds, so when you switch to veggie food, you might have a period when food tastes less than it actually do, but the taste buds do recover and you’ll be able to register more subtle tastes.