BajaNomad - Vegan food in Baja

Vegan food in Baja

BajaDanD - 2-13-2009 at 05:23 PM

We are comming down next week for some whale watching and camping A friend of our is comming with us. He is a vegatarian.
We are concearned that he'll starve most of the trip.
Most of the places we stop to eat at are Taco stands and little resturants for carni-asada , fish tacos and carnitas al pastor
We havent seen a whole lot of Vegies in the stores we've been in.
Any suggestions

David K - 2-13-2009 at 05:25 PM

Rice and beans! Oh wait, what are the beans cooked with?

Contact GeoRock... her whole family is that way, and they love Baja! (I think they bring all there fixins... )

fishbuck - 2-13-2009 at 05:33 PM

Really boring!

shari - 2-13-2009 at 05:39 PM

last night I made vegan millet mashed potatoes with pesto....I was a vegan for several of my first years here and just ate alot of beans, rice, fruit, oatmeal, veggies...they also now sell lots of soya products. Go with the tortillas with all the fixings less the meat...sometimes they dont even charge you! restaruants can make bean enchiladas too, salads, fruit salad etc....do they eat cheese? lots of yummy ranch cheeses.

Chef Johnny will fix him a great vegan dinner

Keri - 2-13-2009 at 07:53 PM

at the Half Way House at Medio camino.Just past Primo Tapio between Rosarito and La Mision/Ensenada, They have great fruit salads with yogurt or cottage cheese with granola all over baja. Salads are usually fairly easy to find also, Even a taco stand has tortillas beans and lettuce or cabbage. Most restaurants have fresh vegetables on hand. If push comes to shove you can always buy canned veggies,Your friend just needs to be creative, Buen provecho k :yes:

[Edited on 2-14-2009 by Keri]

Paula - 2-13-2009 at 09:13 PM

Is your friend's diet really vegan, or just vegetarian? Veganism means no animal products-- milk, cheese eggs, etc. But many vegetarians will eat dairy products and eggs. So a vegetarian could eat quesadillas on corn tortillas (generally made with no lard or shortening), huevos rancheros, cheese enchilladas, etc.
I guess a vegan could have corn tortillas, soya chorizo, and beans cooked without lard, but the selection could get monotonous after a few days.

DENNIS - 2-13-2009 at 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by David K
Rice and beans! Oh wait, what are the beans cooked with?

Pure lard but, the cow that gave it up was a Vegan. :lol:

Nice try but...

Dave - 2-14-2009 at 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS
Pure lard but, the cow that gave it up was a Vegan. :lol:

You just flunked barnyard biology.

DENNIS - 2-14-2009 at 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

You just flunked barnyard biology.

Heyyyyyy...Waddid I do? Isn't that where lard comes from? A cow? Or, is it an oil product?
Now remember, you as a restaurant owner don't want to become an expert on lard here in public.

[Edited on 2-14-2009 by DENNIS]

DianaT - 2-14-2009 at 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

You just flunked barnyard biology.

Dennis, think pink, curly tail, and rolling in mud when you think about lard. :yes:

TMW - 2-14-2009 at 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jdtrotter

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

You just flunked barnyard biology.

Dennis, think pink, curly tail, and rolling in mud when you think about lard. :yes:

A pig is still a veggie eater. Well most of the time anyway. I had a sow once eat the new born of another sow.

Oso - 2-14-2009 at 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TW

Quote:

Originally posted by jdtrotter

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

You just flunked barnyard biology.

Dennis, think pink, curly tail, and rolling in mud when you think about lard. :yes:

A pig is still a veggie eater. Well most of the time anyway. I had a sow once eat the new born of another sow.

Humans, pigs, bears and some apes are omnivores by nature. That's why we have both canine teeth and molars. Most other animals are either carnivores or herbivores.

Sharksbaja - 2-14-2009 at 04:14 PM

A true Vegan will know what to do. Afterall, they must be able to assemble a meal that provides a complete or whole protein, otherwise they will cease to exist.

Not always an easy thang to do. Hey, I know a few "vegetarians" that eat poultry and seafood.:lol

Let them figure it out, it's not your problem(unless of course he/she ceases to exist)

:

BajaNomad - 2-14-2009 at 04:15 PM

Think of stands/restaurants with a lot of condiments such as good salsa mexicana, avacado/aguacate, radishes, grilled vegetables, chilies, etc.

Also stock up on these items - along with fruit - in the store as much as you can. Nuts are a good, simple and filling nutrition source. I personally bring trail mix. My favorite: raw trail mix from Trader Joe's. Michelle and the kids prefer the Kirkland-brand available through Costco stores - one reason being because they have some MnM's in them.

Licuado stands can usually make an all-fruit smoothie for you (sans-dairy). My personal recipe suggestion: equal amounts of banana, strawberry, mango, then use the orange juice necessary to bring it to the consistency you're looking for. I've had licuado stands along the entire peninsula make this for me - and they've had all these ingredients available, be it Ensenada, La Paz, or even Guerrero Negro, etc.

"Other" stands to look for: Elote (corn on the cob), and in the south: Coconut stands. Some tamale stands sell them with only veggies or corn in them.

I bought some corn tamales from the/a older lady at the Vizcaino Pemex in January... I'd remembered picking up some tasty ones there before... but this time, I had to throw them away - just way too much sugar in the ones this time for me. Yuck.

Another standby (to have on-hand) for many in this situation is peanut butter (and/or other nut butter) and the bread to make sandwiches with.

-
Doug

A true Vegan will know what to do

BajaDanD - 2-14-2009 at 05:07 PM

In the states I would think that, but in baja?
As it turns out he will eat cheese and eggs, so not a True Vegan anyway. I just dont want him starving while we are stuffing ourselves with Tacos Al pastor.

DENNIS - 2-14-2009 at 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jdtrotter
Dennis, think pink, curly tail, and rolling in mud when you think about lard. :yes:

I always thought it came from cows. What kind of greasy, cholesterol gorged cooking stuff comes from a cow?

Paulina - 2-14-2009 at 05:54 PM

Dennis,

Dern and I are in a hot conversation over this fatty barn yard question. He claims Lard can be both pig and cow fat, but HE thinks that it mainly comes from cows....

I claim it's from a pig.

Growing up attending an SDA school for 10 years where the teachings and the cafeteria was totally Vegetarian, I always thought Lard was from our cloven hooved pig friends.

I've got to Google it now.

P<*)))>{

Paula - 2-14-2009 at 06:06 PM

the real skinny on pigfat

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-lard.htm

Paulina - 2-14-2009 at 06:35 PM

According to Wikipedia:

Fat from pigs is Lard.

Fat from cows is Tallow.

Althought I did find a few articles where cow fat was called Lard as well. This topic made me think back to the coffee can of bacon drippings my grandmother used to use for her cooking.

Yucky.

My vegetarian ex-sister in law traveled to Baja with us once. Besides being a pain in the butt, she was very difficult to feed. One night at a restaurant she insisted that she could eat flour tortillas. I didn't say a thing about the lard content. When her pile of tortillas came out of the kitchen, there was a huge black hairy fly patted and lightly toasted into one of the tortillas. She didn't notice it until the tortilla was already in her mouth.

The restaurant owner felt horrible, but I quietly slipped him an extra tip for making my day.

P<*)))>{

DianaT - 2-14-2009 at 07:39 PM

And here is a link that says lard is making a comeback

LARD

And, grandma's pie crusts were the best and always made with lard, just as the chicken was fried only in lard. :lol:

Helping my 90 year old mother-in-law move recently, we found that can---the one with the bacon greese. She claims she didn't use it anymore and just didn't want to put it down the drain. We didn't believe her. :lol:

Diane

vandenberg - 2-14-2009 at 07:47 PM

Isn't belly fat from cows called suet :?:

Suet

MrBillM - 2-15-2009 at 11:35 AM

I think that Suet is tallow from a specific area.

I can probably claim a closer association (if not knowledge) of Fat and Tallow than most anyone else here since, as a small child in the boonies of Norwalk in the mid-50s, my father worked for Baker Rendering Company in Cudahy. I was given the "privilege", on too many occasions, of riding along with him on his route to pick up Fat and Tallow from the markets and butcher shops. It's hard to imagine in today's environment those open dump trucks driving around piled high with the product. AND, that Rendering plant and the others in Cudahy were the foulest-smelling places I've have ever encountered. When the wind was right, you could smell them miles away.

It was a great time to be a carnivore, though. The "racket" for the drivers was to shift weights to favor certain markets. The payoff was in product. Meat, Butter, etc. We ate the best of meat and used REAL butter with abandon. We ground Filet Mignon up for hamburger. Always the man with the luck, my father quit Baker only a few months before a law-enforcement operation took a lot of his fellow drivers off in Handcuffs.