When I was in Lyon with my omnivorous friend D, we stumbled upon a vegan Turkish eatery. D does not particularly enjoy vegan food, so we thought that I was going to eat, and then we were going to find a “normal” food for him.

However, he randomly decided to ask if they could put real chicken in one of the dishes - and they said yes! For the normally fake “chicken” dishes then indeed had a stock of real chicken meat they could substitute with. I was surprised, my friend was delighted, and we had a good meal together.

To me it was an awesome experience. I got to choose from many dishes instead of putting up with the only vegan option on the menu (and still wondering if the fries weren’t fried in beef fat). D got to eat a good meal wit lots of vegetables, good sauce, and chicken. It was a complete reversal. (It helped that it was a Turkish place, and not an e.g., Italian where they rely so much on cheese which is hard to replace.)

It feels good to be in a place where you actually get to choose what to eat. It feels good to be in a place that accepts you, where your identity is not tied to the only dish you “can” eat. Where people don’t accomodate to your needs, where you’re “normal”, the same as everyone else.