When an english friend of mine got married some years back, her mum was planning the evening meal and intended to order "chicken for the vegetarians".

So it's not just the spanish.

Order chickpea soup in most restaurants and you will get some kind of meat in it, even after asking if it contains meat and they say no.
Also most of the soups are made with stock (gazpacho excepted) which have been made with some kind of animal or fish bones.
My son is vegan and we just gave up eating out after the first couple of times as they want to throw cheese on every salad they do not put fish into.
It's not just Spanish restaurants either - other Nationalities are as bad wanting to serve you some kind of animal product.

I was vegetarian for many years before moving here 8 years ago, I just started eating some fish and meat products as it became impossible to maintain a strict vegetarian diet here.
As mentioned above quite a few times,they seem to add pieces of bacon/chicken/fish etc., etc., in all salads and what you would consider meat free dishes.

Yeah, but it just seems so wrong to NOT put chorizo in the bean/lentil soup, or morcillas in the cocido or Tuna in a salad! Borraja, judias verdes or acelgas every day could get boring.

If you flattern the product its a burger, if you make a donut shape its a cumberland.

I suppose they could make them pyrmid shaped and call them Sledgeies.

Also the shape dosn`t define the product, the contents does.

Italians do it too.

My partner does not eat meat, he doesn't like it. He has been offered a plate of ham and cheese or salami and cheese as a meat substitute in more than one place.

No Quorn or any kind of equivalent here either but there are plenty of risotto dishes, pasta dishes and pizza toppings that can be had so eating out is not always a problem.

The Spanish culture dosn`t allow for veggies.

Med countries view animals as food, simple.

That is what I am trying to explain, if they don`t like meat why try and make it look like a sausage ?

You might not get "meat looking and tasting" vegetarian food. And you will have issues with eating out.

But, there is a plentiful supply of vegetables, lentils, chickpeas, beans etc. in every major supermarket. If you are cooking at home, you will have no problem what so ever.

What do you propose to make it look like then ?

Its simply easier to PR products that are similar in appeareance to meat products.

Quorn products taste like crap anyway, they soak up oil/liquid in a pan faster than you can breath.

Seriously 3 cans of chopped tomato`s disappeared faster than I could blink.

Last time I`m making veggie pasta dish.

So I take it the idea of eating one of the THOUSAND varieties of VEGETABLES is a bit too radical right?

I'll give you a recipe for a vegetable lasagna that I make and doesn't have any Quorn or similar in it.

I also make spinnach and ricotta cheese cannelloni (stuffed pasta tubes and cooked like lasagna) that come out brilliantly.

Creamy, garlic mushrooms are also good with pasta.

Eggsactly, and I bet you don`t shape them like a bloody sausage.

It's the same in France. A lot of traditional dishes wouldn't be right without bacon bits being added, e.g. quiche lorraine, goat's cheese salad... It's part of French culture....
One thing about being vegetarian/vegan that isn't mentioned often, is the high risk of anaemia and deficiencies in trace elements. What do you vegetarians do about this? This isn't intended to be a controversial question, I respect your principles, but I'd be interested to know how you ensure that your iron intake, for example, is sufficient, esp. for girls. I can then better advise my anaemic vegetarian daughter how to compensate for the lack of red meat without resorting to iron tablets or iron-fortified breakfast cereals.... (vegetable products containing iron not being sufficient). TIA for any useful advice....

I guess it's also a matter of how veggie one wants to be...pure veggie, ovo.lacto veggie, ovo/lacto/pecci veggie. If I lived in Spain with a plentiful supply of seafood, I could probably eliminate meat in favor of fish.

No, on second thought- with all those chorizos and longanizas, Jamones etc, I couldn't!!