Comment: French restaurants struggle with the idea of serving vegetables
Columnist and vegetarian Sarah Beattie looks at the slow progress of non-meat options
Does France need to move on from duck and chips?
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Fashion is cyclical. Trends come and go and then return, proclaiming their newness.
It is not just clothes, but the cars we drive, the furniture we sit on and the food on our plates. In France, one of the biggest complaints over many years has been that French cuisine is stuck. It is too rigid, too traditional.
The last big development, the ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ revolution, was more than 50 years ago.
In La France Profonde, far away from cosmopolitan centres with outside influences, little changes. Even Cuisine Minceur (the nouvelle ‘nouvelle cuisine' – which was born in the south-west in the 1970s) has failed to register in a great many local restaurants.
Most cook the same few dishes and few desserts – Iles Flottants anyone?
I am a food writer and a vegetarian. My two shortlistings with Ottolenghi and Diana Henry notwithstanding, I have been told it is incompatible to be both.
Sometimes, here in my adopted home, it can feel that way. Eating out is rarely fun. It is even worse than North Yorkshire in the 1980s.
Limited options for non-meat eaters?
Sometimes there is open hostility but mostly it is just bafflement. I overheard our shocked waiter telling another diner that I was vegetarian. Scandalised, the man replied, “I couldn’t be – I like variety too much.”
He was tucking into his same old, same old duck and chips. He could be forgiven for his attitude if he saw that I was offered, yet again, a goats’ cheese salad.
Vegetables fail to be appreciated in quite a number of restaurant kitchens even in the wake of Alain Passard (L’Arpege) and Roger Vergé (Cuisine of the Sun).
Read more: Letters: Vegetarians need to appreciate French food culture
In the comedy film Délicieux, the chef of a pre-Revolutionary aristocrat is sacked because his exquisite dish of truffled potatoes is regarded as “pig food”.
This sort of slur has also been applied to sweetcorn, swede and other vegetables.
Although market stalls are piled high with beautiful fresh produce, strangely few will be seen on your restaurant plate, even as supporting cast. A dollop of Dauphinoise potatoes and some bottled beans are the most likely accompaniments.
Read more: Letters: Vegetarians can cook at home and leave French restaurants to the rest of us
New generation of chefs
Last summer, former market gardener Florian Gaudicheau opened his own restaurant in Trie sur Baïse, a nearby market town in Hautes-Pyrénées.
He converted an old agricultural machinery workshop into a simple but smart eating place, leaving the double height ceiling and carving out a kitchen from one corner.
His wife Melanie Christor’s brilliant and quirky line drawings adorn the walls.
The restaurant’s logo – a gentleman astride a giant carrot – reflects a sense of wry humour and symbolises riding a new wave.
Read more: Letters: France is getting better at providing vegetarian options
His menu fixe subverts the norm – a meat-free dish is chosen to lead and meat is an optional choice.
As with Alain Passard, this is not a vegetarian restaurant but this is somewhere which takes vegetables seriously. I asked why he felt moved to have this career change.
He explained that he is not vegetarian but was reducing his meat consumption for ecological reasons. He had been growing and selling his organic produce for some years, creating a box scheme in a big town and starting a small producers’ market in his own village, but he wanted people to value vegetables more than they did.
He modestly admitted to having renovated the restaurant himself. “Except the electrics,” he added.
He retrained as a chef, at Sandikala at Galan, under Australian chef Luke MacLeod and at Bouche à l’Oreille in Simorre (Gers).
His style is simple with no frills. He uses the freshest seasonal ingredients from his former colleagues, as local as possible. He wants the vegetables to shine.
I asked how it has been received in the town that hosts a pig-squealing contest and is avowedly meat-centric. He smiled.
“Some people tell me I use too many vegetables. Others don’t come because they think there is no meat, but it’s ok. We have a lot of visitors. We had a table of 18 – the mother rang to reserve. She said it’s complicated with the young ones. Some are vegan, some are vegetarian and some are not. It was fine, everyone was happy.”
Florian smiled again. “We are not for everyone. We have tables of couples, mixed groups of friends, women who come together but only rarely a couple of blokes – I guess they go to the grill for an entrecôte and chips.”
