Fruit for thought in almost vegan-free France

My sister tells me the French for ‘vegan’ is ‘fou’, but I don’t believe her.

Fou means mad, doesn’t it? And yet here I am, setting off for three weeks to a country that thinks nothing of having raw steak with a raw egg on top washed down by a packet of Gauloise and a pint — sorry, a litre — of burgundy for breakfast. A newly-converted vegan. What could possibly go wrong?

I had not set out to be vegan, anymore than one sets out to be alcoholic, or the parent of triplets; it was not something I planned. Yet just a month ago, pondering middle-aged aches and an unmoving supply of body fat, and feeling bad that even though I support organisations like People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals I was still fairly unethical in my food habits, a lightbulb moment ensued. Go vegan, said the voice in my head. Kill many birds with one stone. Or, rather, kill or harm abolutely no birds — or animals, or fish — whatsoever by the enthusiastic uptake of entirely plant-based food. Almond milk here I come.

By some preposterous coincidence, three days after my lightbulb moment I was asked to interview someone I had never heard of who turned out to be the world’s leading medical proponent of avoiding all animal protein; that seemed too weird to be random, and so I took it as a sign from the tofu gods, from the soya milk deity, the dairy free ice cream goddess — go vegan, my child, and it will be better for you, and the animals, and the planet.

Anyway. It’s easy to be vegan in Ireland and Britain, for the simple reason that we know what the word means. In France, being a vegetarian is like admitting to having the clap. The UK-based Vegan society has 60,978 fans on its Facebook page, while the French Vegetarian Association has 1,518 and the Vegetarian and Vegan page 1,173. However another French Facebook page, “Slap a Vegetarian with an Escalope”, has 168,294 fans.

This would suggest that three weeks in a country which considers veganism a form of mental illness may require some foreward planning. Most of my camping holiday packing does not involve tent pegs and first aid kits as much as boxes and boxes of meat-free this and dairy-free that, all non-perishable because I will be driving in temperatures closer to sub-Saharan Africa than Provence (they’re having a heatwave, apparently).

Still, I like a challenge. And eating well for three weeks in a country which gave the world foie gras and veal and serves everything in a pool of buttery cream — well, that should keep me busy. Actually, I am excited. The French have the best fruit, and these days, I get excited about fruit. Tragic, I know, but happy-tragic. Plant power!