In the mountain temples of Japan, a kitchen without meat has been alive for seven hundred years. Its name is shōjin ryōri 精進料理; shōjin means devotion, diligent effort. For Zen monks, cooking counts as meditation, and the tenzo, the monk in charge of the kitchen, holds one of the temple’s most honored posts. The rule of this cuisine is easy to say and hard to live: give the vegetable the respect you would give the most precious fish.

The rules are told in numbers. A plate should hold five colors: green, red, yellow, white, black. Five tastes, and five methods of cooking. The cut of a radish, the timing of a squash, the temperature of tofu; nothing is left to chance. The aim is not display; it is an old conviction that the eye must be fed as fully as the palate.

Our vegetarian bowl is a free reading of that discipline: the season’s vegetables over warm rice, the cream of avocado, the depth of sesame, the cheer of pickles. No meat, and no absence.

You will find on the plate the conclusion the monks reached centuries ago: a vegetable prepared with care leaves no one missing anything.