Dinner and a National Record

 

Sometime last week my two younger brothers and I decided to meet up for dinner. With all of us being quite busy and very broke, we settled on something no-fuss. Then, through the grapevine, I heard about an attempt to set the record for the longest vegetarian table. Not only was it going to be in Amsterdam, where we had already agreed to meet, it was on the exact day of our meeting as well. Also, it was free. Even though we are all very much the meat eating kind of people, that settled it.

We decided that if the food would not be to our taste, we would just go somewhere else and have a steak. We needn’t have worried. At the Amsterdam Museumplein, right behind the famous Iamsterdam sign, an enormous amount of tables had been set up. Covering every tabletop were bowls and platters and more bowls filled with delicious looking food. And those were just the cold dishes.

The main courses were veggie shawarma and a vegetable dish that reminded me somewhat of ratatouille. Then there were three different salads to sample: a quinoa, a beet, and a carrot salad. All wonderful, though the quinoa one was definitely my favourite. Also on the table were a thick humus, and garlic sauce. I didn’t have the sauce though, none of the other dishes needed it in the slightest.

  

You can check out the recipes (in Dutch) here, just scroll down to the end of the page.

  

All in all it was a very good experience. I’m not saying I’m renouncing all meat from this day forward -not saying that at all- but I do think this dinner made me realize that eating vegetarian does not just mean eating the same stuff as always, while omitting the meat. Which is of course exactly what it, in my mind, did constitute. If you look for me closely, you might even find me in the supermarket sometime, checking out those weird looking meat replacements. Might.

As you can see, even my middle brother approved of the food. And he is the kind of guy that will very happily be living on large buckets of KFC for weeks at a time, maybe spicing things up with a small side of McDonald’s every now and then. A couple of beers later, an hour or so after our dinner, all he had was one little burger. The smallest one the fast food place offered. Trust me, that is really saying something.