Vegetarian Banquet

Since I was flipping through all my old photos yesterday, I thought it would be fun to write about the vegetarian banquet food my aunt made for my cousin's wedding in New Zealand back in August of 2004. It was a big event because not only was it her oldest son getting married, but her mother and older sister plus family were coming all the way to the states for the celebration.

I won't talk too much about the plane ride, but I will say that 20+ hours on the plane can be very intense. The thing that bothered me the most was the fact that it was really hard to get my bag to get my toothbrush. I cannot stand that gross "I didn't brush my teeth feeling" when I wake up and it is still like 12 hours before we landed.

And so we get there...to the farm. A very interesting experience for me. I have never been had to worry about having enough or using too much water before, but I learned to deal with it. We got to settle in and chat and, from what I remember, the banquet was that night.

I cannot remember the reception that much so I will skip over that and talk about the food. Now, food is food, but Chinese vegetarian is interesting only because it gets molded to look like meat. Throw in Buddists and take away onions and garlic and you have banquet food. Take a look:

Chinese Moss Soup
I think that it was supposed to be similar to Shark Fin soup, but it wasn't really.

Crispy "chicken"
Looks like chicken, feels like chicken, didn't taste like chicken. The "skin" was pretty cool though because the texture was similar. It was fried bean curd skin.

"Lobster"
OKAY! Strange mold pan number 1. The lobster. First of all, if you are vegetarian, why do you want your food to look like an animal? Second of all, I don't remember lobsters being that squishy. What was the texture like? you know that red, funky part in the claw that is not fleshy? Well, that is what that felt like. The weirdest part was that it had a real fishy taste...and fishy is not good...

Vegetable surprise
Vegetables encased in a bean curd skin.

"Suckling pig"
Strange mold pan number 2. The suckling pig. What vegetarian wants to eat a baby pig?!

"Abalone", mushrooms, and veggies
Abalone mushrooms, shitake, and bok choy - by far my favorite dish

Braised "Fish"
Fish made from bean curd skin and vegetables. Layered, fried, and sliced. Skin made from sheets of seaweed. My second favorite dish

Fried rice
There is fake BBQ pork in there...

"Peking duck"
Strange mold pan number 3. By far the stangest mold. It is like half a duck fillet. If you can see, there is the head, a drumstick cut into 4 pieces, and other pieces. I got the head, just to say I ate a ducks face...

Sponge cakes

Overall, the meal was fun and meeting all these family members was even more interesting than the molds XD An enjoyable experience. The only thing that I find stange are vegetarians shaping their food like real meat...does it make you feel better that you did not kill a real animal or do you miss it THAT much?