Yeah I wonder how much the veganism thing was also influenced by like... *thinks* potential circles re: affluence etc. and also area? Idk, but veganism wasn't something that was easy to do on poor immigrant budgets (which is my experience re: my parents and the people's parents around me) unless the entire family agreed to do it, so what was happening around the UWA direction for example seemed extremely like...lofty/indulgent to us (but also we didn't really know anyone who went there. For almost all of us in the social group I'm referring to, I think I was the only one - or maybe one of two - to go to university, and we were the first in our respective families to ever attend a university).
(As an example, ECU Mt Lawley had zero vegan options as a campus, and also no vegan options just about in any of the eateries nearby. I think even if we'd gone to the nearest shopping centre (the Galleria) we'd have still really struggled?
That doesn't mean vegans weren't around at ECU at the time! They just weren't speaking up or affecting how we were eating in university friend groups (tbh most of the vegetarians I knew were in high school, any friends I made at uni actually were all just straight up omnivores).
I didn't have vegan friends at the time re: university or high school. People were either vegetarian because it was cultural and the whole family was doing it, or... actually that was the only reason. Also it's cheap to eat vegetarian, and it was especially so back then when so many people were growing stuff practically in their back garden/s. We had access to quite a bit of free home-grown food in exchange for Mum ironing for people, or cleaning their houses, the barter system was very alive and well in at least our little pocket of Embleton back in the day. Even a lot of what Mum made at home was vegetarian, or 'vegetarian with an extremely sparing amount of meat added.'
It wasn't until I was an adult going through her recipe book that I realised she stretched a bolognese sauce by grating tons of carrots in, because carrots cooked down create a 'mince-like' texture. And that was solely because meat was a lot of money. And I remember her 'yucky brown soup' (literally what we called it, she insists we loved it AND YET THAT'S WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS CALLED IT) and that was literally just clear vegetable (and faintly meaty) broth with a monster amount of vegetables cooked down with what in retrospect was an amount of meat that equalled about two leathery bites per bowl sadlfkjdsa And our favourite 'treat' dinner - crepes with lemon and sugar was like... flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and lemon, and two of those ingredients were free/in the neighbourhood re: barter.
It wasn't until my late 20s, I think, that I started meeting people who were becoming vegetarian or vegan solely due to lifestyle choices, and not because of like...religion or 'the entire family did it so I did it too and now I'm just used to it' (which was K and her siblings).
Donut King in the Galleria was also huge at least in our friendship groups because the iced coffee/s etc. always came with two free hot cinnamon donuts. I don't think they do that anymore T.T
And yeah that giant chip deal at the place near UWA sounds amazing! Honestly large chips + sweet chilli sauce + sour cream got us by many cafe attendances where we were pooling our money together and looking for the cheapest + most filling thing in the menu. It's funny in retrospect how much that kind of ruled our decisions. I can't imagine how like...say having an immigrant family making a decent income would change the landscape but it would!!
(Annalakshmi opened at the Bell Tower around 2000, I know it took longer than they expected because K's brother was frustrated he couldn't get back to work there in the kitchens. Hare Krishna I don't actually remember much about, we just kind of went in there like little famished creatures and ate as much as we could among the monks and then went out again to be little full creatures instead. We were more likely to go to Moon Cafe for v i b e s salfjkdsa - also they used to have that awesome cheap pasta night deal)
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(As an example, ECU Mt Lawley had zero vegan options as a campus, and also no vegan options just about in any of the eateries nearby. I think even if we'd gone to the nearest shopping centre (the Galleria) we'd have still really struggled?
That doesn't mean vegans weren't around at ECU at the time! They just weren't speaking up or affecting how we were eating in university friend groups (tbh most of the vegetarians I knew were in high school, any friends I made at uni actually were all just straight up omnivores).
I didn't have vegan friends at the time re: university or high school. People were either vegetarian because it was cultural and the whole family was doing it, or... actually that was the only reason. Also it's cheap to eat vegetarian, and it was especially so back then when so many people were growing stuff practically in their back garden/s. We had access to quite a bit of free home-grown food in exchange for Mum ironing for people, or cleaning their houses, the barter system was very alive and well in at least our little pocket of Embleton back in the day. Even a lot of what Mum made at home was vegetarian, or 'vegetarian with an extremely sparing amount of meat added.'
It wasn't until I was an adult going through her recipe book that I realised she stretched a bolognese sauce by grating tons of carrots in, because carrots cooked down create a 'mince-like' texture. And that was solely because meat was a lot of money. And I remember her 'yucky brown soup' (literally what we called it, she insists we loved it AND YET THAT'S WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS CALLED IT) and that was literally just clear vegetable (and faintly meaty) broth with a monster amount of vegetables cooked down with what in retrospect was an amount of meat that equalled about two leathery bites per bowl sadlfkjdsa And our favourite 'treat' dinner - crepes with lemon and sugar was like... flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and lemon, and two of those ingredients were free/in the neighbourhood re: barter.
It wasn't until my late 20s, I think, that I started meeting people who were becoming vegetarian or vegan solely due to lifestyle choices, and not because of like...religion or 'the entire family did it so I did it too and now I'm just used to it' (which was K and her siblings).
Donut King in the Galleria was also huge at least in our friendship groups because the iced coffee/s etc. always came with two free hot cinnamon donuts. I don't think they do that anymore T.T
And yeah that giant chip deal at the place near UWA sounds amazing! Honestly large chips + sweet chilli sauce + sour cream got us by many cafe attendances where we were pooling our money together and looking for the cheapest + most filling thing in the menu. It's funny in retrospect how much that kind of ruled our decisions. I can't imagine how like...say having an immigrant family making a decent income would change the landscape but it would!!
(Annalakshmi opened at the Bell Tower around 2000, I know it took longer than they expected because K's brother was frustrated he couldn't get back to work there in the kitchens. Hare Krishna I don't actually remember much about, we just kind of went in there like little famished creatures and ate as much as we could among the monks and then went out again to be little full creatures instead. We were more likely to go to Moon Cafe for v i b e s salfjkdsa - also they used to have that awesome cheap pasta night deal)