We moved to a remote corner of rural southwest France five years ago to set up a vegan B&B. It might seem like a mad idea to attempt such a thing where the food is so dominated by animal products, but as we soon found, there’s more to French food culture than meets the eye.
Of course there’s a growing vegan movement in France, which exists for the same reasons it does elsewhere. It’s less advanced than it is in some other rich countries, but it has a toe hold in the larger cities, and vegan magazines are now widely available. However, there’s increasing interest in veganism from outside the ‘movement’. When the French aren’t eating, there’s nothing they like more than talking about food. The trouble is that many people are getting bored of what’s served in restaurants. Often it’s exactly the same dishes you’d have found 40 years ago, menus rarely contain surprises and more and more food is bought in pre-prepared. Then along came a bunch of crazy vegans with very different ideas about how to eat, and suddenly it’s a new topic for debate and an escape from the same old food served over and over again.