Lange bevor der Begriff Veganismus existierte, gediehen ganze Zivilisationen von Pflanzen.
8 Min. Lesezeit
Long before "veganism" existed as a word, entire civilisations built rich, complex, deeply satisfying food cultures around plants. These traditions contain some of the world's great cuisines.
India has the world's largest and most ancient tradition of plant-based eating. An estimated 375 million Indians (about 30% of the population) are vegetarian — primarily driven by Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.
Jainism takes plant-based ethics furthest: strict Jains eat no root vegetables (to avoid harming the entire plant by uprooting it), no eating after sunset, and some wear mouth masks to avoid accidentally inhaling insects. It is the most rigorously non-violent diet ever developed.
South Indian cuisine — dosas, idlis, sambar, rasam, chutneys — is largely incidentally vegan. North Indian cuisine uses more dairy, but dishes like dal makhani, aloo gobi, rajma (kidney bean curry), and chana masala represent some of the world's most flavourful plant-based cooking.
💡 South Indian food for vegans
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity prescribes fasting (tsom) on over 180 days per year — during which meat, dairy, and eggs are forbidden. As a result, Ethiopian cuisine has an extraordinarily rich tradition of plant-based dishes.
The injera — a spongy, fermented teff flatbread that doubles as plate and utensil — is served with a range of dishes (wots/wats): lentil stews, chickpea stews, spiced split peas, and berbere-seasoned vegetables. Ethiopian fasting food is one of the world's great vegan cuisines and is available in any Ethiopian restaurant.
Shojin ryori (精進料理) is the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine of Japan, developed in Zen monasteries over the past 1,300 years. It excludes meat, fish, dairy, and also the "five pungents" (garlic, leeks, green onions, shallots, and ginger) — believed to stimulate desire.
Shojin ryori is considered one of the world's most sophisticated plant-based cuisines, emphasising seasonal ingredients, precise preparation, and the expression of natural flavours. Temple restaurants in Kyoto offer elaborate shojin meals that rival any fine dining experience.
The traditional Mediterranean diet — before its modern Western dilution — was primarily plant-based. Bread, olives, olive oil, legumes, vegetables, and seasonal fruit formed the daily staples; meat was a weekly or festival food. Greek Orthodox Christianity similarly prescribes extensive fasting periods that eliminate animal products.
Greek cuisine offers some of the world's best accidentally-vegan food: spanakopita (can be made without cheese), gigantes plaki (giant baked beans), fava (yellow split pea dip), fasolada (bean soup), and the countless meze dishes built on aubergine, courgette, and legumes.
Chinese Buddhist cuisine (su cai, 素菜) has a 1,500-year history. Many Buddhist monasteries in China maintain fully vegan kitchens. Chinese Buddhist vegetarian cooking is also notable for its development of meat analogues — mock duck, mock pork, and other "Buddhist meat" made from wheat gluten (seitan) and tofu have been produced in Chinese monasteries for hundreds of years. The modern plant-based meat industry did not invent seitan — Chinese Buddhist cooks did, a millennium ago.
Before meat became cheap and accessible, Middle Eastern food was primarily plant-based out of economic necessity. The result is a cuisine with extraordinary depth in vegetable cookery: hummus, falafel, baba ganoush, muhammara, tabbouleh, ful medames, fattoush, kibbeh naye (in its vegetarian forms), and dozens of meze dishes that showcase aubergine, chickpea, and pomegranate in their full glory.
📊 What the history shows