Food in France.
We eat a mostly plant based diet, with one eggseption. We do not eat meat or dairy, having cut these out for our whole family over 2 years ago. In France of all places.
France might be simultaneously one of the best and worst places to only eat plants.
Why it’s the worst:
Croissants, just the temptation factor.
Chocolate Croissants, temptation factor x 2.
It’s almost impossible to eat out. We tried to order a margherita pizza without three blobs of mozzarella cheese and the kitchen flatly refused, “It is not possible”. Also, restaurants generally have set menus which leave you with very little wriggle room or choice.
The french country side has not heard of “vegan” (and doesn’t want to). While the larger cities are well up with the play, we do not live in one of those. We live in the country. That is why it is very hard to make special requests to the kitchen and to find menus that might offer more than a green salad for us to eat. It is also hard to find vegan pre-made products in supermarkets.
That being said, revolving our diet around fruit, vegetables, and legumes has really been taken to the next level here.
Why it’s the best:
The fresh produce has real flavour. Just take a bite of any piece of fruit. Just one bite will have you melting and making “Mmmm”, “Ahhhh”, “Oh my god” noises. Our favorite is to buy trays of ‘picked this morning’ fruit from local markets and make a big mess eating it on the way home. Cherries taste like concentrated cherry essence, but they’re so fresh you have to fight the birds for them. Watermelon… well, I’ve already told you how I feel about those. Aurelia eats entire rock melons all to herself, actually shouting at us if we try and sneak a slice.
The vegetables don’t just taste like “vegetables”. Like a capsicum actually tastes different to a courgette. Cucumbers don’t just taste like water. Did you know cucumbers had a flavour?! It’s unreal, but it is so real.
The pre-made stuff you can buy in the supermarkets is made with the simplest ingredients possible. Here a tomato pasta sauce in a jar is simply vegetables. There is not milk powder scattered through everything. Many things that I can’t buy, like pre-made burger patties and more Asian flavours, (like miso paste and soy sauce), have forced us to go back to basics and cooking with the least amount of ingredients possible, letting the fresh produce shine. The breads and doughs are mostly vegan which is great, pizza is whipped up in a flash with a store bought pizza dough and a handful of roast vegetables.
Cooking dinners with only vegetables, grains and legumes is extremely quick and easy, my kind of cooking.
