With 750-odd breweries, Bavaria is a beer-lover's paradise. And for carnivores, with its street-corner bratwurst stands sizzling with pork sausages, it's surely some kind of utopia.

But it hits home to me that being vegetarian in Bavaria is an oxymoron after stopping at a pub with a German mate, just across the road from the Levi Strauss museum in the little village of Buttenheim, where the jeans creator was born. My mate's very excited about this pub, because it serves, apparently, the best dumplings for miles around. My mate also knows I'm vegetarian, so I'm thinking that I may actually not starve this particular night. The dumplings arrive on the table: flawlessly textured... and drowning in gravy. "It's alright," my mate says. "There's no meat." I look from them to him and back to the submerged dumplings. "See," he says, "Only meat sauce."

This is a problem because it's a cultural taboo to waste food in Bavaria. So I try to excavate the few non-gravy-drenched sections of the dumplings with my spoon. My mate's watching me first with bafflement, and then with a slow recognition, before taking my plate from me, and ordering me a beer.