No love for the shwarma - at least not yet

I identify myself as a vegetarian. However, a “real” vegetarian would probably demand I renounce any claim to that title simply by the list of exceptions I allow for myself. For example, I happily eat fish – lots of fish. And my friend Suzanne knows I can’t get enough of her family’s homemade garlic sausage from Nebraska. I won’t even talk about my affection for a certain lunchmeat that most people shake their heads in disgust at. But since none of these exceptions are available in Sule, I find myself living as a plant-loving girl in a meat-crazed world.

However, despite its lack of soy-based food products, Sulamaniyah is probably a haven for vegetarians in Iraq (at last count I think the total was one – me). At every restaurant I’ve been to, there is at least one food option that doesn’t involve meat. Fortunately for me, the Kurdish people share my love of mushrooms. So, I've had mushroom pizza, mushroom soup, mushroom sauce on spaghetti and mushroom salad. There are probably a plethora of mushroom-based products that I haven’t had yet, and I aim to find them. We aren’t talking gourmet here – they’re fresh from the can, not the garden.

Before I left for Iraq, everyone told me it would be impossible to come here without eating meat – and I still believe that I am going to have to somehow learn to love beef and chicken – but I’m holding out as long as possible. Right after “good morning” and “thank you,” my co-worker armed me with the Kurdish phrases for “I do not eat meat” and “without meat.” I tried them out at the local fast food restaurant this afternoon, but alas my pizza still came with chicken on top. Apparently for the proprietor, the word for meat in Kurdish only covers beef.

I know all this makes me sound very high-maintenance, but not all hope is lost for me adapting to the Iraqi way of life – I’ve already started to regard Nescafe as an acceptable substitute for real coffee!