[hanslub42]

Why are most answers pretending that the choice is between meat and plant-based fake meat? For millennia, people have been eating plant proteins straight from the plant, like chickpeas and lentils. The glorious south-Indian cuisine is largely vegetarian and doesn't need any fake meat. The Catholic practice of fasting during Fridays and Lent has resulted in many delicious Mediterranean recipes without meat (or even fish), again, without any "meat substitutes".

[evgen]

Descriptions like 'glorious' or 'delicious' are completely subjective. The fact that people did not choose to fast but were instead forced to by either religious dictates or economic requirements should be telling you something. When economies shift out of poverty and subsistence farming the amount of meat consumed grows, and as the GDP grows so does this meat consumption. Is it because 'big meat' is so good at convincing people that they want to eat more meat or is it because the thing holding back that meat consumption was only the ability to buy/acquire it and not because the veg cuisine was so incomparable that people choose it over options that used meat?

[astura]

Oh, come on, Catholics who observe lent in [my part of] America almost exclusively eat fish on Fridays during lent, not lentils or anything vegetarian.

I grew up in a Catholic family and vegetarian dishes are actively shunned, the absolute only socially acceptable lent option for dinner is fish.

[jwineinger]

Why is fish not considered meat? I'm genuinely curious

[astura]

It absolutely is meat.

Catholic rules say it's the only meat that one can consume on Fridays during lent. Why? Cause that's the rules. Religious rules are usually fairly arbitrary.

[fooker]

> The glorious south-Indian cuisine is largely vegetarian

No, this is a weird and popular misconception.

~ 97% of the people in Tamil Nadu and Kerala are non-vegetarian. South India has amazing non vegetarian food.

[speeder]

I have impression people think that any meat that is not Beef is not meat either.

Meanwhile people in India eat chickens, fish, goats (seemly a popular dish is goat neck? saw some indian chef on youtube making that) and so on.

Also there are suspicions that cows were made sacred in first place to force people to not eat their source of milk, because seemly eating the cows was more popular than milking them, but they are far more useful in certain places for milk than for meat.

[hanslub42]

A regional cuisine can be largely vegetarian even if 0.0% of the people in the region are vegetarian. I eat meat, even though my personal cuisine is largely vegetarian: I cook a lot of vegetarian dishes, even though I enjoy a bit of meat every now and then. My non-vegetarian food is amazing, but so are my veggie dishes.