Weekend redux

[pvaneynd]

Last Saturday was funny: I had found a shop in Hamme (a smallish provincial town in the next province) selling vegan fake-cheeses without hydrogenated fats. As our little wonder's intake of that stuff is a little high we went out hunting.

After driving for quite a bit we arrive at the very non-regular village. We see the street and try to go round the block to reach it (without having seen the plan indicating there is no such concept in this region it seems) and before long we see a bio-shop.

We park the car and go the the shop. The owner seems unaware it has an internet presence and does not have the non-cheese. After a while we decide to check the name of the street and ... it's wrong. This place does not have one but two bio-shops! (bio-shops in Belgium sell biological, vegetarian and sometimes vegan stuff, together will assorted new-age junk and are pretty rare)

Then follows a long trek to find the street, in the end we have to ask the locals, who then get confused about the layout themselves! Finally in the right street we see no obvious bio-shop. zoutke then sees that the newspaper and household shop also has some 'health food' stuf. We enter and at the end of the dark, dusty shop we find... a vegan foodstore. The owner looked like has just stepped of his harley and to add to the strangeness the shop also sell shoes. (vegan I guess)

We quickly find the cheese and decide to buy it, while preparing to pay zoutke asked me to ask for her "Nutritional yeast" ("lievito alimentare" in Italian and gistvlokken in Dutch). Her hopeless quest for this cheese replacement was the subject of a thousand vague looks and negative replies in the past. To our stunned amazement the guy says "Of course, I'll get it" and runs off.

This stops him from seeing our jaws hitting the floor.

So today after I returned with the fellow zoo-addict from the zoo, zoutke made us delicious vegan pesto. And he even likes it and the fake edam too!

Edit: I mistyped zoutke in the last entry oeps

Comments

[womble2.livejournal.com]

I'm rather fond of cheese and am not keen on pseudo-cheese, but I don't think I've actually tried vegan cheese. Is it any good?

I bought some "vegetarian shoes" (Doc Martens made under licence, which they no longer have) and they're great. I've worn them almost every day for the last 3.5 years and have only had to replace the laces.

By the way, the English term for food made in a less industrial way is "organic".

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Organic" has a very specific meaning, at least in the US. Each individual food has its own label for "less industrial", like meat animals get "cage free" or "free range", for example.

[womble2.livejournal.com]

The US government does not define the English language; nor does the Soil Association or other organisations that certify organic production in the UK; and nor do chemists, who consider "organic" to refer to (most) carbon compounds. In common use, "organic" does means less industrial.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Insert standard rant about why "common usage" sucks. Also, i certainly have not heard this so-called "common usage".

[womble2.livejournal.com]

What I know is that there are lots of different definitions of "organic", and I suspect that the average person has not read any of them and has only a vague idea of what it means, but I believe that what they seem to have in common is less industrialised farming (in some ways, not necessarily all). I believe this corresponds to what Peter called "biological" and the words that are cognate with that in several European languages.

[zoutke.livejournal.com]

In Belgium bio-shops sell organically grown-stuff (or with ingredient of organically grown origin) not just less industrial like free-range eggs. The latter would not be called bio her, just free-range. Bio in Dutch or Italian, like I think organic in English, is a certified status.

BTW fake cheese is debatable in taste. Our little one that does not know better even likes Tofutti a lot. This Cheezly is a bit better and at least healthier, but I still don't think I found the one I was originally looking for.

[(Anonymous)]

Jaak is a living legend :p
http://www.no-leather.be/

[pvaneynd]

That's him...

[zoutke.livejournal.com]

These shoes look great! I was to busy controlling the little one to pay attention to the shoes in the shop.