Page 7 | Vegetarian food in Italy is awful!

Teakettletrio · 2025-10-23T19:47:07+00:00

We are five days into our trip. The place is beautiful, the scenery is stunning, the sights are fascinating. BUT the food is awful. We’ve had various combinations of cheese and tomatoes for 5 days straight. I’m starting to lose it. The supermarkets are full of gorgeous looking vegetables but all we get offered is spaghetti pomoforo, gnocchi pomodoro or margarita pizza. We got all excited yesterday as we thought we had found a restaurant with a veggie burger, but it turned out to be a potato croquet in a bun. Is it just us? Have we been unlucky?

Original poster

Teakettletrio · 26/10/2025 20:17

@soupyspoon I’m not expecting a whole cuisine to adapt to me. I’m not sure where you got that idea from. My surprise is that we weren’t able to find vegetable or salad dishes on the menus in the place we were staying, yet the supermarkets were full of gorgeous looking veg. You make it sound like I turned up and said ‘I want a Linda McCartney sausage, beans and chips or if I have to eat Italian I will have some Dolmio on pasta tubes and some cheddar on the top’. I’m not saying that at all.

OP posts:

soupyspoon · 26/10/2025 20:47

Teakettletrio · 26/10/2025 20:17

@soupyspoon I’m not expecting a whole cuisine to adapt to me. I’m not sure where you got that idea from. My surprise is that we weren’t able to find vegetable or salad dishes on the menus in the place we were staying, yet the supermarkets were full of gorgeous looking veg. You make it sound like I turned up and said ‘I want a Linda McCartney sausage, beans and chips or if I have to eat Italian I will have some Dolmio on pasta tubes and some cheddar on the top’. I’m not saying that at all.

Im not sure you're responding to the right person, what are you responding to?

ProfessorLayton1 · 26/10/2025 22:07

Its the same in Spain, supermarket is full
of fresh fruits and vegetables.
As a pp suggested, there is no separation of vegetables and meat in their culture and that’s what we found as well.
Glad you enjoyed your holiday OP.

Original poster

Teakettletrio · 26/10/2025 22:35

soupyspoon · 26/10/2025 15:46

This every time.

It always baffles me how many in the UK have a love for 'traditional' foods stuffs from other countries while bemoaning our own and saying how awful and boring our food is. Having online arguments about what really makes a genuine lasagne or that theres no such thing as spaghetti bolognese etc etc

Yet the same things we would baulk at in our own society, traditionalism and rigidity of 'doing the right thing the right way' is exactly why Spanish, French and Italian foods (and many other european countries foods) are what we like, because they have been created to almost perfection (although a million grandmothers will give you a million different recipes for the same thing) and they're not going to make changes for food fads for the likes of us. Why should they.

I had to be semi veggie when I was a vegetarian when I holidayed. Only way to get through it.

And as OP says shes been eating cheese, that wont be pure vegetarian cheese.

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@soupyspoon i was responding your post saying that it baffles you that people don’t realise that the food we eat in the uk is an anglicised version of a ‘national cuisine’ and that we shouldn’t pitch up in other countries and expect them to accommodate our ‘food fads’.

OP posts:

ForZanyAquaViewer · 26/10/2025 22:41

Teakettletrio · 26/10/2025 22:35

@soupyspoon i was responding your post saying that it baffles you that people don’t realise that the food we eat in the uk is an anglicised version of a ‘national cuisine’ and that we shouldn’t pitch up in other countries and expect them to accommodate our ‘food fads’.

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That’s pretty much the complete opposite of what that comment is saying.

soupyspoon · 26/10/2025 23:10

Teakettletrio · 26/10/2025 22:35

@soupyspoon i was responding your post saying that it baffles you that people don’t realise that the food we eat in the uk is an anglicised version of a ‘national cuisine’ and that we shouldn’t pitch up in other countries and expect them to accommodate our ‘food fads’.

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Erm no. I didnt say that at all. I have no idea how you misinterpreted and misread that so wrong. You cant even blame jet lag I presume.

socialdilemmawhattodo · 26/10/2025 23:13

Ketzele · 26/10/2025 15:37

As a lifelong non meat-eater of over 60 years, this brought back many memories of restricted eating all round the world.

The worst was probably Moscow in 1991, in the middle of food shortages - fresh fruit and vegetables was out of the question, only pickled cabbage available. But also the unexpected delights, like Middle Eastern food in Israel in the 80s, or Uganda's amazing nut and vegetable curries.

The only advice I can offer in addition to the good advice upthread is to try to keep a sense of humour and low expectations. Does it matter if you're basically living on pizza for a week, if you've got Italy all around you? And take comfort that you are contributing to a social change that IS happening. When I was on a children's ward in central London in 1971, they didnt offer vegetarian options: they just gsve me a scoop of mashed potato and a bowl of custard for every meal!

I did ok in Warsaw in 1990 but learned the privilege of being able to choose what food i wanted to eat.

Flinderskleepers · 27/10/2025 04:57

@Teakettletrio you're still skirting around the fact the cheese you have been eating most likely isn't vegetarian! Are you just a part time veggie? If so, what is the problem?