La Jardin Potager à l’Hermitage, Camille Pissarro

“We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.”

A – What a beautiful garden they have! I wonder how they keep the slugs away?

S – Salt  or beer.

A – It’s not good for plants to have too much salt when you water, but the beer, they love beer.

S – When I lived on Lopez Island I was given a slug cookbook as a joke. The slugs there are huge.

A – Have you ever eaten a slug? They’re delicious!

S – No, I’ve never eaten a slug. I can’t imagine ever eating a slug.

A – Well, you know I grew up in Indonesia and we ate everything. Sometimes I would buy a package of 12 slugs and fry them up with a little garlic and onions, make some rice and a salad. Delicious! Have you ever eaten stomach or lung?

S- No, I have never eaten stomach or lunch, nor will I ever eat stomach or lung.

A – Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing! If you fry them in a little olive oil, add some peppers, serve them with potatoes, it’s delicious! The French eat everything you know…How long have you been a vegetarian?

S – Since I was 18.

A – That’s a long time…and why did you become a vegetarian?

S – My mother was a terrible cook. She burned everything. I couldn’t stand the smell of burnt meat, especially burnt hamburger…and my father made me sit at the table till I ate every last bit of food on my plate. Of course, I would sit there all night sometimes. Fall asleep at the table. When I was 18 I became a Buddhist, so it was an easy transition, though I know a lot of Buddhists eat meat. Different Buddhist traditions have different dietary traditions.

A – But you live in France now. You should eat like the French do! Fois gras, canard, sanglier…

S – Doesn’t tempt me at all. Everyone here thinks I should eat like them too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reduced to eating condiment sandwiches…Do you know there’s a restaurant in Nérac that has over 70 different flavors of ice cream on their menu? The last time I was there the owner told me they were working on their newest flavor sure to please any Frenchman’s palate – fleur de sel fois gras. I can’t imagine why you’d want to ruin a good scoop of ice cream with the taste of salted duck liver.

A – Well, c’mon, you know the French eat everything…

The earliest records of vegetarianism come from ancient India, Asia and Greece. The first prominent, well-known vegetarian was the Greek philosopher, Pythagoras. He believed it was immoral to kill living creatures, so he avoided exploiting animals or eating their flesh. Then for many centuries after Christianity swept through the Roman Empire, vegetarianism was punishable as a capital crime by the church which advocated dominion over nature and believed animals were only given life so that their meat could be kept fresh till it was time to eat. However, during the middle ages in Europe most people survived by eating vegetables, herbs and grains. Eating meat became surrounded by an aura of wealth and power. By the end of the 18th century, a time of radical ideas, the dilemma of whether humans should kill and eat animals was again debated and written about, but at the outbreak of WWI, pacifism and vegetarianism became intertwined, and vegetarianism suffered from a world which equated the refusal to fight as treason. Every country has its outdated historical traditions, and France is no exception.

Last weekend I was visited by two men, local neighbors. One man, a tall, jolly, robust Gascon introduced himself as the President of le Chasse, the hunt. He informed me there would be a sanglier hunt the following day, I told him I was a vegetarian, a Buddhist and I did not want hunting on my property. He just laughed at me. In France, the hunt is sacrosanct. Le chasse has the right to cross any and all private land. He asked me what I ate for and I said vegetables. He lifted up his shirt and showed me his large round belly, patting it happily, saying he loved meat of all kinds, wild boar, dear, hare, woodcock, pigeon. He said vegetables were merely a side dish, a way to decorate the plate.

So, imagine my surprise when yowling dogs and orange-capped, shotgun-toting chasseurs, hunters, disturbed my Sunday afternoon. I was horrified as guns exploded in close proximity. I put loud music on, but it didn’t help. I ran outside after a hunting dog crossed my land and rang my enormous cast iron bell hoping the incessant clang would disturb their concentration, but it didn’t. Understood in the context of evolution, a reasonable case can be made for le chasse. When men began to hunt, the world was terrifying. Their sacrifices were offerings to the gods. The spirit of sacrifice was wholly absorbed and eaten and a divine union was created with nature. Alchemy transformed the sacrifice through the magic of the cook, the cook became the shaman and the shaman eventually became the man behind the barbecue.

Although ferocious in appearance, the sanglier is a relatively timid creature, unless it’s provoked or its young are threatened. It sleeps during the day and roams the forrest and fields at night for berries and greens and, if available, they will eat some of the farmers grapes and corn. But from everything I’ve read, they are normally more than content with wild forrest food.

In a country where chefs have broken dishes in the kitchen and have mocked with contempt the idea of asking for a meatless meal, I was served one of the best vegetarian burgers I’ve had in France today, in the village of Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port at the Relais de la Nive. Maybe one day the French will truly eat everything.

Sue Aran lives in the Gers department of southwest France. She is the owner of French Country Adventures, which provides private, personally-guided, small-group, slow travel tours into Gascony, the Pays Basque, Provence and beyond. She writes a monthly blog about her life in France and is a contributor to Bonjour Paris and France Today magazines. Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France, England and other European countries.