Vegetarian in Iowa
Topics/tags: Rants, Iowa, short
Although I’m an omnivore [1], I have many friends who are vegetarian or pescatarian. And I’m always amazed at what obstacles they put up with while in Iowa.
When I was first in Iowa, I recall going out with some friends and
them asking whether the corn chowder was vegetarian. The answer
was Yes
. But when the soup [2] came, it appeared to have bits of
bacon. My friend asked about that and the response was, Oh, that’s
just a spice.
Today I had a similar experience. A friend and I were eating at a
back of the drug store
countertop. I thought he was going to order
a tuna-fish sandwich. But he said, I want the vegetable cheeseburger.
Given the name, I was suspicious. He pointed to the menu, which read,
Quarter pound vegetable patty on a buttered, grilled bun.
I got even more suspicious when the waitress/cook put the burgers
on the grill. His looked indistinguishable from mine. So I asked,
Is that a vegetable burger?
And I thought she said Yes
.
Then she served the burger. And, as you’d expect, it was a beef hamburger
[3]. Guess what? Vegetable burger
, in their parlance, means burger
with vegetables
. She even reaffirmed that. Yup, it’s a burger with
vegetables.
We showed her the menu. She said, A high-school student
wrote that; they didn’t get it right.
I’m not sure why they leave it
on the menu if it’s wrong. I’m also not sure why the vegetable burger
is $5.99 when a regular hamburger is about $3.79 and adding all the
vegetables only costs forty-nine cents.
At least she was willing to make him a grilled-cheese sandwich instead [4].
[1] Well, I won’t eat everything, but I eat a wide variety of substances, including meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, and grains.
[2] chowder.
[3] That may not be surprising. It’s also probably good; they cooked both hamburgers with bacon next to them.
[4] They were out of tuna fish.
Version 1.0 of 2018-08-16.