Article on eating out in Europe

[Guest guest]

Read this article online at the website for a national newspaper and

thought i'd share. I completely shared this opinion when i went to

Paris in the summer.

 

Laura

 

" No meating of minds

 

Gwyn Topham

Sunday January 12, 2003

The Observer

 

Gorgeous scenery, secluded beaches and historic places are all very

well, but when I go overseas I like to do one thing in particular:

eat. But this simple pleasure has been troublesome of late; ever

since, in fact, I started going out with a vegetarian.

Perhaps we're spoiled in Britain, where virtually any eating place

has at least one meat-free option on the menu. It's often less easy

abroad: yet it was only recently in nearby, free-thinking Paris that

I realised I was dating a member of a bizarre social substratum, as

waiters responded to vegetarian requests with a haughty

incomprehension not seen at home for decades.

 

Does my desire to find my girlfriend a decent meal abroad make me,

as one reader accused, a cultural imperialist? I like to think not.

 

In many poorer countries such as India and Thailand, vegetarian

cooking dominates. So what's Europe's excuse? Spain is, by and

large, beyond redemption. Even in comparatively vegetarian-friendly

Italy, I've had to discreetly divert a piece of bacon from my

girlfriend's 'tomato' pasta sauce. The best meals, in her

experience, have been in Finland, even when the rest of us were

tucking into those cute little reindeer.

 

Yet the worst offenders are the French who, having discovered

limitless ways to serve up a dead cow, are rendered helpless by the

possibilities of a plant. Just one or two non-meat options on a menu

can make a world of difference.

 

In Paris, the answer still seems to be to march vegetarians off to

segregated, specialist restaurants to do their shameful thing alone.

A brief reconnaissance of three or four such establishments - the

type to have picked their wallpaper from a thin catalogue of 1970s

favourites - suggests these are not always joyful places.

 

This annoyance shouldn't be construed as anti-French - au contraire.

It's simply that any country with pretensions to be a leader in

global cuisine needs to wake up and smell the tofu. There are an

estimated three million declared vegetarians in Britain alone and

seven million more in the Netherlands and Germany.

 

There are even a million in France. This number implies several

million more partners, parents and friends who won't be able to dine

somewhere with no vegetarian options, and others who might just not

fancy a double daily meatfest on holiday.

 

Many vegetarians are likely to be young, affluent, urban - just the

type of people inclined to visit Paris and get all sentimental about

baguettes and subtitled films. The tourist industry could do worse

than think about catering for them. And by all accounts, a little

experimentation might do France's stagnating restaurants no harm

either.

 

Few people want to see their precious holiday turn into an abortive

restaurant hunt. Of course you can self-cater or rough it, but it

doesn't make a short city break appealing. For a significant

minority of tourists, anywhere that makes life difficult for

vegetarians - and their partners - can't cut the mustard.

 

Vegetarians going to Paris can find a list of restaurants at

vegelist.online.fr/iledefra.php3

 

· Gwyn Topham is editor of Guardian Unlimited Travel, featuring the

best travel writing from the Guardian and the Observer. "