Vegetarianism in Germany

I've lived here for over 9 years now and things have started to slowly get better but I still know of cases where when ringing restaurants which cook good "German" food, we ask if they do something vegetarian and the answer is often "no" or "we have a salad"! Wow, great that's just wonderful, go out for a nice meal and what's on offer, a salad.

Another favourite is vegetables in hollandaise sauce. That's ok sometimes but not very original is it?

What are your experiences?

I feel there are a number of options available here Bombi, One being of course not to be vegetarian, another perhaps being "start to enjoy vegetables in Sauce Hollendaise"?
I'm sure you can think of some more, like, not living in Germany, or change the mentality of an entire nation?

well you can go to any curry house or bbulldogs for a veggie curry

Actually, thinking about it, I had some vegetarian food in the irish pub in Centro yesterday, and I don't just mean the guinness (No it wasnt a bag of salt and vinegar crisps either is was bruschetta)

Haha! I've been a veggie since I was 18 and am not going back to eating meat!


I don't mind it sometimes, just not every time!

another good place for a meet up , irish pub centro.

I am not a vegetarian but have a few vegetarian friends and I think they seem to believe it has improved over the years!!!

I remember going to a restaurant with one veggie friend a few years ago and she asked if the Bohnensuppe had any meat in it the answer was no but when it turned up there were bits of Speck in it. My friend told her this and the waitress said oh you can just take the pieces of meat out!!!

Whereas I do love vegetarian food I can imagine only eating salad when you go out for dinner can be a bit irritating after a while!

I'm open for all ideas...

Yes, It's fairly Central

Both BBulldog and Neil do a good curry!

we had a similar expience in the canteen, when questioned about the meet in the vegetarian dish they also just replied "its not meet, its only speck"

The worst experience I had was when hubbi and I were invited out for a meal to one of his driver's. He told the driver about 10 times, Bombi's a veggie and the response he got was, yes ok, she can have a carrot. We thought ok, we think he's understood... Well we arrived and they had gone to a lot of trouble, bought an good piece of veal which was cooked on a hot stone on the table ... ok we knew that but then what was for me?...

There were large mushrooms filled with garlic which were nice and to go with the meat there was a rice salad... in the rice salad there was Speck. They seriously thought I would pool the Speck out!! They filled me up with red wine and seeing as all I ate was mushrooms, it's not surprising that I was ill afterwards...! We haven't been back since!

Being a vegetarian myself I too have a problem with Germany when it comes to food. Although there is generally at least one edible vegetarian item on the menu of most - though not all restaurants here, the selection is certainly limited. And the attitudes here are still very fleischorientiert.

One work colleague on hearing I was a veggie even had the gall to lecture me "you need meat - your forefathers have been eating meat for centuries!". To which I replied, a little roughly perhaps, but I felt miffed by his blatent cheek in criticising my lifestyle: "YOUR forefathers yes - but not mine"! He said nothing more.

The thing I find especially bad is how Sportsvereine and such like often hold Grillfeste - barbecues, which, youve guessed it, always center around "Grillfleisch". The organisers even telling you to "bitte alle Grillfleisch mitbringen". Scenes and smells straight from the Stone Age. The stink I find disgusting, that together with the cigarette smoke that also invariably wafts around. It is possible to barbecue other foodstuffs besides crude hunks of meat you know!

The canteen of the company where I work is pretty revolting too. For a start it smells of vinegar. Its run by an external company, who really have no idea at all about cooking. They should stick to mud pies and cement mixing. And they offer practically nothing for vegetarians, only a simple - very simple and plain little salad bowl, which might just suffice every day if I was a Trappist monk serving penance, but even the stuff for the meat eaters is very poorly put together and to my mind pretty bleak and tasteless. When I mentioned it to the personnel manager, she said, well its the third catering outsourcer weve tried and we thought it was the best so far! They have just renovated the premises, so the restaurant itself is quite pleasant. But, in typical german/northern-european attitude I suppose, they give more attention to the interior than they do to the actual food itself, which hasnt been renovated at all.

So I always go out at lunch time to eat. Luckily there are one or two italians within reach, and a couple of chinese/thai places which arent too bad. Costs twice as much as the staff "canteen", but its another day of my life Im living and so its worth it. Tut, these teutonics with their primitive eating habits. We could do with a bit of french Esskultur here!

The only staff restaurant in Germany in all of 15 years of living here that Ive come across that had excellent lunch time food was a european research institute I once freelanced at in southern Germany. Absolutely brilliant, the staff were really proud of their creations. There was no Eintopf or Bohnensuppe & Co, that seemed to be verboten. I suppose it was because it was an international organisation and so the expectations were higher. Every day you were looking forward to lunch, it was the highlight of your working hours!

So it can be different. It is possible. But I guess I really should have settled in France or Belgium for good food, not Germany!

I didn't realise you worked here too rick!

Is the firm Eurest? They seem to run every canteen in the country.

We had them here once, but not anymore

No its not Eurest. Its a small company. Doesnt really make much difference who they are though, if they tried 3 caterers and they were all much the same then theres no need to name them. Catering is catering in Germany.

nah, I'm in for naming and shaming .. ours is aramark.

All right then, Ill stick my neck out, free country and all that.. Theyre called Esstival.

well you got a carrot at mine bombi... served on a plate.

I know i am going to regret saying that but i will post the piccy tonight.

Start a poll quick - I don't want to see bbullys carrot!!!

Maaph it says a carrot not BBulldog's carrot if you read correctly. Very true BBulldog did present me with a carrot on a plate. There was even a serviette on the plate underneath the carrot too...

sorry? I don't understand? We all know by now you are vegetarian!!!

hmm yes talking of Bully's carrot, do you think it's cruel to eat baby vegetables ?

Unbelievable...

The Brits with the worst kitchen in the whole world criticize the german way of cooking. Hahahaha

What should I expect from people who eat beans and sausages for breakfast and their children get a bag of crisps and a coke??? I have really problems to find food which is not deep-fried and less fat in this country. I should maybe try the big choice of microwave food I can buy at Tescos. Thats rudicolous.

But you are right. The canteen food is not very good in most companies. But this depends on how much money the company want to pay for one serving. I have had EUREST in my first company and it was terrible. (They spent approx. 2€ per serving) In the new company they spend 6€ and it is delicious and we have a great variety of veggy food.

But what do you expect? Whats the percentage of veggies compared to all the "normal" guys? Why don't you cook your own food and heat it in the company?

Really funny to read this. :doh:

I'd been a vegetarian for abou 11 years when I moved to Germany. Within about a month I'd started eating meat again
No, it wasn't the lack of veggie food in restaurants - although that did get a bit annoying - because I mostly cooked for myself. But somehow, after years of being totally uninterested in hamburgers, steaks etc I got the most amazing craving for meat. First thing I had was ribs!!

9 years on I'm still eating meat, but also still very interested in vegetarian food, and I also think that it's improved. Most places I go to do offer a proper vegetarian option (which I'll often order) and the canteen that we used to use at work (which actually belongs to Telekom) had excellent veggie options every day - they were often much better than the usual meat dishes.

How veggie are you?

I think it's probably something to do with the amount of vegetarians over here. I have a feeling (though I can't find the stats to back this up yet) that the UK probably has the highest percentage of veggies in Europe (5% of the population), and as a result the choice is more varied in the UK. I know hardly any veggies over here, most of them are pescatarians or still eat chicken!

I'm not a veggie, but never used to have meat more than a couple of times a week - since being over here I have found that I am now eating meat every day, if you don't eat pork you'd starve!

A friend of mine had a similar problem in France, she had to survive a week on chips, bread and salad at a conference.


shall we start on the German sense of humour whilst we're busy stereotyping?

trust a German to say that, i mean look at all the fatty food you get here. Germany has the highest amout of pork consumption too.

I believe it's more like 8-10% in Britain.

I don't eat meat or fish.

Hey this was not the german humour this was the german seriousness.

Could you tell me one british meal they are famous for?
Ups, I know one: Fish and Chips... and this is deep fried again.

To be honest: You can find delicious food in UK but this is not typically british. e.g. Indians, Chinese, etc.

But I am up for new things. Give me tips for delicious british food and I will try it.
During the time I was approx 15 times in different restaurants in London and in most cases the quality of the food was rubbish.

When I order a well done steak it tasted like coal. When I order a medium steak it was bloody like slaughtered one minute ago. I ordered filet steaks and they were poorly shaped with more fat than meat.

My first Fish and Chips was that oily that it sprayed on my brand new shirt as I tried to cut the fish. Not worth to discuss the other meals. They were too oily and most of them deep fried.

But I like the beer and this is a good alternative

That is simply not a vegetarian dish is it You couldn't serve that dish to a muslim because it has pork products in it... if it has pork products then it isn't vegetarian.

I knew one guy who would check to see if sweets have gelatine in them, he even refused medicine in capsule form because of the gelatine used in making the capsule.


To tell you the truth Jumbes I was agreeing with you up to this point... British beer can be disgusting unless its a good real ale and not some of the chemical pints called lager.

Buy yourself a Mrs Beetons cookbook, plenty of british food in there. As for fatty fish n' Chips why is it that in germany you get a bread roll with bratfisch? to soak up all the fat.

as for some examples there is

Toad in the hole, with chips and beans
Cornish Pasty with chips and beans
Egg, chips and beans
chips eggs and beans
beans, beans with beans.

oh i nearly forgot the spam...

Not a tasty as :

Spam spam with spam
Spam spam spam with spam
Fried Spam spam spam with spam
Spam spam spam spam spam spam with spam

Mack you forgot the beans...

beans, beans and spam
spam, beans and beans

I must admit all the good food in england is not in the restaurants... well apart from a good carvery.
They can carve up a good bit of spam...

True the british arent exactly the worlds top gourmets. But I thought I would get to enjoy exotic continental dishes when I dared to venture across the channel to move to Germany. Of course though the british are also northern europeans. The only places in Britain where the food is worse than London (and at least there you have a vast choice of cuisines) is in the north of England - and the celtic regions. But actually you can find some quite good food in some pubs. My principal complaint would be how expensive it is, at least twice what it costs here - and the portions are generally smaller than in Germany.

@Mac: she said beer not lager!

maybe not for British cuisine, but we do have some damm fine restaurants - see The best 50 restaurants in the world five entries in total (two of which are in the top 10) - Germany has one entry at 39...


that's because we like to make sure it's dead I've lost count of the amount of times I have sent food back over here because it's still breathing, even pork and chicken are undercooked - no wonder you need a shelf in your toilets.

I love shopping in the U.K. ! One every product you see the little symbol if it's vegetarian or not ! Very easy.
Why is it not possible to do it the same way in Germany ??? Here you have to read the whole list of ingredients to be shure. What a shame !

Yes, you would think with all the rabid eco-ism in Germany that vegetarian food would be a big thing. But no. Its smoking and steaks.
Little symbol for vegetarian ingredients... they have a symbol for recycling "duales System". But then recycling is considered a Good Thing. Just being veggie strangely isnt, even though it costs far more in terms of Umwelt to feed livestock than it does to produce veggie food. Meat eating is definitely very umweltunfreundlich!

If I don't have to keep my knife in my steak to stop it roaming off of the plate, it is over done! Anybody worked out why the really bloody meat is called English as opposed to rare?

Making myself hungry (drool) ...

I agree but you cant get everything in restaurants is what i mean.

Right Rick.de - you're dead meat next time I see you - I mean when I see you (April - Frankfurt?)

@Jumbes - I think the standard of British food in restaurants these days is far superior to Germany's. Plus just compare a British cookery/food programme on TV with a German one - the German ones have me falling about in stiches every time. And if you needed more proof look at the sales in Germany of the books of British chefs such as Gordon Ramsey & Jamie Oliver. Seriously, if you avoid the UK schnellie-type establishments the food can be superb, even in your local pub - try finding scampi or chicken in a basket nowadays (I liked scampi in a basket )

It is difficult in Germany with vegetarian daughters - my 2 quite often have to resort to the veggie side dish & chips - & even that is frequently sprinkled with Speck . I loved the invitation to a works BBQ last year - "& the vegetarian option is - eat the salad" Sushi (believe it or not) is good for veggie options, but at any other place, unless specifically listed as vegetarian, we have to triple check that there is no meat being snuck in.

PS. Gordon Ramsey - "Vegetarians - f**k-em. They've got no taste anyway."

There is another word for vegetarian's, bad hunter's

OK so there's less ready prepared veggie food here than in UK but then that applies to all convenience food. It's true I always bring plenty of veggie goodies for the freezer back from England when I visit but that's not often. Without wishing to sound too ancient, I was veggie long before Quorn and Linda McCartney pies appeared and home made veggie burgers, lasagne, pasties etc really are worth the effort.

My favourite veggie stuff here is Vianna Tofu - the smoked variety, Ocean beach burgers, available here

http://www.alles-vegetarisch.de/

and Tartex which is in every Reformhaus. I also make use of the tinned brown lentils which are much easier to find in German supermarkets.

So all you veggies on this thread - tell us what your favourite German veggie products are.

PS I should count myself lucky - there are enough International restaurants nearby I never need to eat in a traditional German one. I do get a bit bored of the Biergarten menu.

Beware of Dr Oetkens diet puddings - they have gelatine in them! Also a lot of biscuits from Holland contain animal fat.

Boni sell delicious wok tofu - doesn't look like tofu at all.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been served vegetarian food with meat in it, and when pointing it out the waiters/cooks INSIST that its not meat. Even when I'm proved right, and they're proved wrong, I get no apology - clearly its my fault.

Unlike my experience in Japan last December, where I was inadvertently served veg. soup with meat broth. The geisha practically committed hara kiri, and I was given some beautiful presents to apologise for the mistake.

Grünkohl and Feldsalat! (Kayle and lamb's tongue lettuce)

At least Sandwiches are becomming more popular here, as getting a decent sandwich here can be difficult (Unless you want one made with a bread roll to rip your mouth appart)

Went here yesterday... best part is, they sell Walkers Crisps!

They only have two veggie options and I find them very expensive. Crisps are much cheaper at Steve's van! 50 cents, at Subway they cost 90 cents...

oh dear i forgot the piccy but tonight... got a good one of Neil to be posted too

I have never heard from Gordon Ramsey. Sounds like a guy from Marvels X-Man
Jamie Oliver??? Oh my good. Do you really think that this clumsy cooker who works without a measuring tube is a real cooking star??? This guy cooks like Tim Maelzer. He is the same type of cooker

German cooking shows are really boring. You are right. Johann Lafer is boring but his meals are delicious. I have been to his restaurant in the past.

Anyway, we are talking about veggie food:

My favourite meal is veggy food
It is a very old and traditional meal: Kartoffelsuppe mit Dampfnudel

The thing is: You cant get that in a restaurant because it is not very common. If some of you have german friends ask their mother or grandmother if she can cook you this meal. It is more common in the south of Germany. But you should ask her not to make the Dampfnudel with pork fat.

You will love it!!!

i go for the menu option, a drink and crisps for 1.70€ extra.

As for the veggie options, you could ask for a B.M.T without the two types of salami and ham.

We have a pretty good sandwich shop here too now, not as expensive as Subway and closer.