Eating vegetarian in Africa

[missluisa]

I am not so familiar with travelling in Africa, but I was wondering how easy it is there to find vegetarian food/restaurants? I don't eat any kind of meat, so I'm thinking it would be very difficult to travel there, as I imagine they eat lots of meat. I'm thinking of South Africa in particular, since for a while now I've wanted to go there.

[Sam Fujisaka]

For East Africa you might find some vegetarian restaurants in cities like Nairobi. Otherwise, much of the food in the countryside does not include much meat. You can get plantains, cassava, sukuma wiki (greens. although ask if these have been cooked with some meat), rice , beans, and - in Kenya and Tanzania - ugali, the ubquitious maize dish. There are also plenty of Indian restaurants in Kenya and Uganda.

[Rasam]

Actually, it's not hard to get vegetarian food in East Africa, down to the small town level, and not just in Indian restaurants.

In most restaurants you will find some vegetarian options because they've been catering to the Asian (Indian) population for a while, many of whom were traditionally vegetarian.

I've recently done some fieldwork in rural East Africa, and found ugali (maize mush) and sukuma wiki (greens) everywhere. Chapatis and "vegetable curry" in truck stop type places too. It gets monotonous after a bit, but the moment you hit a medium size town and find a halfway decent restaurant, you'll get a much wider range, including pasta with tomato based sauces.

[macsym]

Do you eat fish? Fish figures as much as meat on restaurants in S Africa. There are not lots of vegetarian restaurants as such but most offer at least some vegetarian options. You will not starve!

[eatcapetown]

try http://www.vegsoc.org.za/index.php