No I just meant it as a matter of perspective. Take kale with sausage for example. From a meat eaters perspective the vegan version would be kale without the sausage. But from a vegans perspective it’s kale with added sausage

But kale without sausage has never been a staple food for meals. The early Europeans used kale as a supplement to meat and fish. The Portuguese have mixed it with Chourico or Linguica for ~600 years. From an honest vegan’s perspective, a head of kale is not a meal, and never really has been.

Further, you don’t just drop kale on top of a sausage on a plate or vice versa. If you saw that, then yes it’s just “kale with added sausage”. When we’re talking meals, there’s cooking profiles, spicing, etc. Kale does really well when cooked with meat fats. That’s a specific process.

Saying Portuguse Kale Soup is “Add courico to kale” is like saying an automobile is “add wheels and an engine to a car”.

So instead of saying these are all (meat) dishes and the modification is to leave out the meat, you could also say it’s all vegetarian dishes were you added meat.

Unless it’s literally that (hey look, I have a piece of celery and dropped a chicken on it), then it isn’t that. The reasons are both nutritional, and historical.

I mean, you can still say what you want. I can call myself a vegan while I eat steak. But that’s sorta diluting words to fit an agenda.