stupid but quick question

[kaigou]

vegetarian = no eggs = no bread ... correct?

is this generally a hard-and-fast rule, enough to consider it a pretty safe assumption?


ETA: apparently the unclear part above is my expectation that bread contains eggs. Yes, as a matter of fact, bread can contain eggs -- pretty much my entire repertoire of bread-recipes all contain at least one egg. (Some of them contain two eggs, even, and some even have milk.) This is not to say I've never made bread without eggs -- I have -- but I don't much care for the texture or the reluctant timbre of the bread when working with it. With eggs, the bread is considerably silkier/smoother, and just more pleasant and easy to work with; thus it's not a headache to let it rise six times and really become amazingly-melty. Or shorter version: bread can contain eggs.

ETA the 2nd: I suppose it might've been less confusing if I'd asked about, say, angel food cake... for which my grandmother's recipe uses the whites of like a dozen eggs. I rarely make it, though, because I hate wasting a dozen egg yolks, but I'm never quite sure what to do with them...

Comments

[owlectomy]

Most western vegetarians do eat eggs, unless they're vegan, in which case they eat no eggs or dairy.
Hindu vegetarians generally don't eat eggs, though.

[serene]

Nope, bad assumption. Most vegetarians eat eggs and bread in my country (the US). Of course, in Japan, they say vegetarianism includes fish, so assumptions probably won't really work anywhere, but in general, in the US, vegans (those who won't eat eggs) are very rare, and there's LOTS of bread that is vegetarian or vegan, so I've never actually met a vegetarian who wasn't on some kind of low-carb thing as well who didn't eat bread.

[casey_valhalla]

Vegetarian = no eggs is definitely not a hard and fast rule. It varies greatly.

However, vegan always = no eggs.

Also, having been vegan for many years, I can tell you honestly that the average loaf of bread doesn't have eggs in it. Usually the problem area was whey, but even that wasn't hard to avoid.

[treesahquiche]

I've never used eggs to make bread, so I'd say bread is still on the table. :)

[autopope]

What on earth makes you think bread has eggs in it?

(Some specialist breads may have eggs, dairy, or other weird rubbish in them, but bread should basically be flour, water, a small amount of fat or oil, and yeast.)

[raletha]

I would think most vegetarians are ovo-lacto (at least I am) and eat both eggs and dairy unless they call themselves strict vegetarians or vegans. Some vegetarians I've met eat fish (and there was one who I saw eating pork sausage on occasion, but I think she was an anomaly with vocabulary issues).

[quillori]

Are you thinking of vegans? I wouldn't assume a vegetarian didn't eat eggs merely on the grounds they were vegetarian, though I suppose I might suspect it on other grounds (eg, as owlectomy says, Hinduism). Also, do you mean no eggs and no bread? I read it first as no eggs thus no bread, which was a puzzlement: I mean, I guess there's things like challah and brioche, which are bread rather than cake in much the same way tomato is a vegetable rather than a fruit, but otherwise bread = no eggs. Might an extremely strict vegetarian object to yeast? But there's still unleavened bread, or even bread leavened with, say, baking powder.

[raletha]

Might an extremely strict vegetarian object to yeast?

Yeast is fungi, so, no. At least, I've never encountered a vegan who avoided fungi. ^^;

[mongrelheart]

*nodnod* to what other folks said. All the vegetarians I know, eat eggs.

[kaigou]

Uhm, because the bread recipes I've been making my entire life always have at least one egg in them?

I don't actually have any recipes without egg. I mean, I'm sure I do in some of my books, but in terms of what I've got memorized -- always at least one egg.

ETA: ahah, it may be a cultural pretensions thing -- all the bread I know how to make is bread for "giving away" or for "when someone comes to visit". Seems to be that bread-with-eggs does give the impression of being lighter/smoother (fancier) than french or italian, which can be rather coarse or at least have a much thicker/chewier crust. Bread with egg is definitely a soft-crust kind of bread -- think dinner rolls and whatnot.

Guess I just got taught/memorized only the for-show breads. Hunh.

[kaigou]

Ahh, I thought the rule was "no eyes or a mother" (in which case, eggs could someday have eyes, so... no eggs).

[quillori]

You're absolutely right - I was thinking of sourdough starter, which has bacteria as well as yeast, but you're right, yeast is definitely fungi. (Not that bacteria count as animals, either, although I've never quite been clear what the defining line is for vegetarianism - a purely definitional matter as to what kingdom something is, the capacity of the individual living thing to feel pain or what?)

[kaigou]

Hunh, I knew there were various (personal) variations on vegetarian, but I didn't realize there were also cultural-level variations. Wah, I'd go with Japanese vegetarianism, if I were to ever end up that way. Comes with growing up on the Gulf Coast, I suppose.

[kaigou]

Well, vegan is pretty much easy, because it is a very strict/firm/clearly-defined kind of thing.

Actually, all the bread I've ever made always has at least one egg in it. But since I'm pretty sure I didn't bake when you came to visit, at least that means I don't think I accidentally exposed you to any eggs. Whew.

[kaigou]

Hah, see my responses elsewhere -- all the family recipes I have memorized for bread ALL have at least one egg. My favorite recipes have two eggs! It changes the consistency of the bread in a really sweet way, which might be why I prefer those recipes. Sweet, I mean, as in silky/smooth on the tongue. More like challah bread, whereas french bread and the like (which I have made a few times, but don't have recipes handy in the brain) are much rougher/coarser.

[kaigou]

Ovo-lacto! Handy term to remember.

Until I met CP (who has apparently always had red meat in his diet, whereas I was raised on mostly chicken & fish and red meat maybe once or twice a month -- and ground beef, at that!) -- my diet seemed odd enough to people that I wondered if a title would help that could be shorthand for "avoids red meat". Now I do eat far more red meat than ever before, and frankly, I really wish we could stop already. A big part of that is because I haven't the faintest clue how to cook it! Just was never something I got exposed to as a kid, so it's not even a comfort food. Now, biscuits, that's a comfort food.

an anomaly with vocabulary issues

*dies*

[kaigou]

I guess there's things like challah and brioche, which are bread rather than cake in much the same way tomato is a vegetable rather than a fruit

I can only presume that the Southern family recipes I grew up with must be from that same strain of baking -- because all my memorized recipes contain at least one egg. I mean, I vaguely knew there could be bread without eggs (like the sourdough my mom specializes in, IIRC)... but taste and texture wise, I prefer the recipes I bake. Hence egg in bread, if someone doesn't eat egg, then they wouldn't be able to eat my bread. Or, at least, it would be terribly rude to offer it to them, knowing that it contains egg (and clearly with everyone else having the working assumption that bread doesn't contain egg). That would be like trick-bread, deceptive.

I've never met anyone who objects to yeast, per se, except for a close friend who's allergic/sensitive to it, so what she makes/eats are breads leavened with baking powder, like scones and that sort. So I'm not unaware that there are different ways to make bread... I jsut didn't realize the default most-common bread is (or at least is assumed to be) egg-free.

[kaigou]

Whew. Now I know! I'd hate to be a bad host and offer something that implied I wasn't taking someone's diet seriously, or didn't care enough to at least be aware of the basics.

[acari]

Nope, not where I'm from. I'm the ovo-lacto kind of vegetarian so I eat both eggs and dairy products.

[kaigou]

I'm not sure you can even avoid fungi, if you wanted to.

[kaigou]

I'm trying to console myself with the knowledge that it's better that I've long-term erred on the side of offering less rather than blindly offering more (that is, eggs-in-food) and violating someone's diet. Or else I'd be feeling like a real idiot for always thinking eggs = meat, therefore off-limits.

[raletha]

That line between vegetarian and vegan can be very fuzzy, at least this has been my impression from my investigations into it. I think the animal kingdom distinction is pretty good rule of thumb.

When vegans start talking about whether or not to eat honey and the exploitation of honey bees in pollinating various crops, it gets pretty hairy. Some vegans even make a case for eating oysters. And this is why, no matter how strict I become as a vegetarian, I would not feel comfortable calling myself anything more than semi-vegan.

[quillori]

Fascinating! One can always learn something new - I had no idea there were parts of America where the standard bread was with egg. Actually, I didn't know there was anywhere at all where bread was commonly eaten as bread where that was true (I mean, where bread itself isn't a common staple, I can see things on the bread/cake border might be the most common, because the only real use of bread would be as a not-very-sweet type of cake, but I can't think of anywhere else where bread is a staple and it's made with eggs - I'd love to hear from anyone who can think of other places that do this: is it as uncommon as I thought, or have I been staggeringly unobservant?). I would've pretty much defined bread as some sort of flour, water (or, occasionally, some other liquid) and some sort of leaven (unless, of course, it's unleavened bread) - all my baking books, if they mention any bread with eggs (most don't), mention it as an anomalous addition. (I've always been amazed that so few ingredients can result in such an incredibly wide range of breads.)

(RE people's assumptions - years ago a good friend of mine became a vegetarian and I was quite torn whether to admit to her that her favourite biscuits, the special ones I made just for her because she loved them, contained lard. She didn't cook herself, and wasn't much interested in the subject, so it hadn't really occurred to her that animal products went into sweet things as well.)

[quillori]

Out of curiosity, I've just been googling to see if I can find any edible sea sponges, which would present an interesting test case of whether the border really is animal kingdom or not (no nervous system, look like plants, but are technically animals), but I can only find one rather doubtful reference, which may or may not be referring to a genuine sea sponge, so it could only be an extremely hypothetical test case, and the animal kingdom remains a decent rule of thumb.

I know a number of (otherwise quite strict) vegetarians who have no problem with either fish sauce or shrimp paste - I suspect that vegetarianism is more an umbrella term for a large number of different things that happen to overlap on not eating meat, but may otherwise have quite different motivations and boundaries. (I am curious, though, as to a vegan rational for eating oysters - I've known some very inventive people when it comes to justifying what the want to eat, but that one is quite impressive.)

[kaigou]

I think the honeybee example is probably working off the same logic as the diary issue -- that to take a cow's (or goat's) milk is to exploit the animal. My issue with that is mostly pragmatic, that cows/goats (and even horses) will produce milk if nursed/milked, long after their actual offspring have stopped needing it. Same way chickens will produce copious amounts of eggs if the eggs are taken, compared to how they'd stop producing if those eggs hatched. It just seems like... if done with any forethought (which is not to say the US food-production system currently has even an iota of that), it's more like using the leftovers. The milk the baby's stopped drinking, the eggs that wouldn't have hatched, the spare honey.

Although when it comes to bees, I recall my mother's justification for eating shrimp and crab -- she'd cry at the thought of veal (baby lambs! baby cows!) but baby shrimp? As she put it, she refused to feel guilty for eating "anything that could grow up to eat YOU". And if you've ever been crabbing and had a crab take a swipe at your toes... that eating-thing isn't too far of a stretch. Heh.