Asking About Ingredients in a Language You Do Not Speak

The hard part of eating plant-based abroad is not the obvious dishes, it is the invisible ingredients. Butter in the pan, egg wash on the pastry, honey in the dressing, fish sauce in things that look entirely vegetable. Each cuisine has its own set, and translating the word vegan often produces a blank look because the concept is expressed differently.

The better approach is to ask about specific ingredients rather than a category. Four words carry most of it: milk, butter, egg, honey. Ask them as questions about the dish in front of you rather than about your diet, and you will usually get a direct answer from someone who knows the recipe.

When the answer is uncertain

If the person is not sure, believe the uncertainty rather than the reassurance. A kitchen that cannot say whether the bread has butter in it is not lying; it is buying its bread. That is worth knowing and it is not a reason for a scene.

For anything cooked to order, the fat in the pan is the most common problem and the easiest to fix, because it is a decision made at the moment you order. For anything baked, the decision was made yesterday somewhere else. When you are unsure which you are dealing with, choose the dish that gets cooked in front of you — this is the reason a plate of vegetables from a grill is a safer order abroad than a pastry that looks obviously plant-based.