21. Dietary Changes
With only a few exceptions, I've followed a vegetarian diet for the better part of the last decade. However, I made a decision in advance of my arrival in St. Petersburg that I would adopt a more omnivorous diet while here.
There were two main reasons for this change:
1) I feel that since food is an integral part of culture, it's necessary to try a variety of traditional foods in order to truly immerse oneself in the local experience. And there are plenty of meat-based traditional foods in Russia.
2) As I don't (yet) speak or read the Russian language, I expected to often find it difficult to know in advance the ingredients of whatever I'm ordering, particularly at establishments that do not have an English-language menu or English-speaking staff.
This has been a good decision. I've been able to dig into local foods much more fully, I've been to more than a few restaurants already where there was little chance of mutual intelligibility (no English menu or English-speaking staff, and cell phone translation apps can only take you so far). I've had no digestive difficulties, and actually seen some improvements. Plus, the canteen at my office does not currently offer vegetarian main courses, so it would have been challenging to maintain a vegetarian diet at the office (more on that soon).
There were two main reasons for this change:
1) I feel that since food is an integral part of culture, it's necessary to try a variety of traditional foods in order to truly immerse oneself in the local experience. And there are plenty of meat-based traditional foods in Russia.
2) As I don't (yet) speak or read the Russian language, I expected to often find it difficult to know in advance the ingredients of whatever I'm ordering, particularly at establishments that do not have an English-language menu or English-speaking staff.
This has been a good decision. I've been able to dig into local foods much more fully, I've been to more than a few restaurants already where there was little chance of mutual intelligibility (no English menu or English-speaking staff, and cell phone translation apps can only take you so far). I've had no digestive difficulties, and actually seen some improvements. Plus, the canteen at my office does not currently offer vegetarian main courses, so it would have been challenging to maintain a vegetarian diet at the office (more on that soon).
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