[Sca-cooks] OOP: Tentative Lunar New Year Menu

[Stefan li Rous]

On Jan 20, 2009, at 6:34 PM, ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:
 > I thought Buddhist Delight was vegetarian?

<<< Vegan, sometimes not, but it's meatless, depending on how you define
meat. I was a little surprised to see the dried seafood included, but
I gather it's pretty common both in restaurants and in monasteries to
do it that way.

My own (very limited) experience with Buddhist vegetarianism is that
they're not as a rule, vehemently anti-meat, or especially militant
about it, they just feel it's not for them, and acknowledge a place
for meat in the average person's diet. This is why they have so many
vegetable-based meat substitutes based on bean curd and gluten and
such. These things can be eaten (and in my opinion, are better)
without having to pretend they're meat, but there's a sort of
structural serendipity to having meat in your menu in some people's
eyes, and apparently the dried seafood is within the rule structure
for some people.

Adamantrius >>>

Is there some reason that "dried seafood" is better theologically for  
this, compared to seafood in general? Or is dried shrimp just easier  
to get? Or for some reason does dried seafood work better in this  
recipe than fresh seafood would?

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****