The Inconvenient Truth About Brigitte Bardot

This entry is a bit painful because I am renouncing Brigitte Bardot as my blogger profile picture. A movie star, singer, and model made famous as an iconic French beauty, she retired before her 39th birthday and used her fame to promote animal rights. She quickly became vegetarian and campaigned in France to have people stop eating horse meat, one of those unique foods the French are very protective of.

She sounds so perfect, right? A French icon using her prestige to encourage vegetarianism? It appeared to be an example of the fusion of French culture and vegetarianism that this blog is supposed to focus on. She was going to be my role model, my Virgil, my mentor-- but then my dad warned me of her notorious reputation in France. Dismayed by his disapproval of her, I looked into her life story a bit more.

The information I came up with is rather bizarre. For one thing, I could see that she has very strong opinions about almost everything, and sometimes she seems, quite frankly, bubble-headed. For example, referring to Muslim immigration in France, she wrote "Over the last twenty years, we have given in to a subterranean, dangerous, and uncontrolled infiltration, which not only resists adjusting to our laws and customs but which will, as the years pass, attempt to impose its own." The French court charged her with inciting racial hatred to which she responded by saying "I never meant to hurt anybody. It's not in my nature."

Reading further,  I also discovered that she has spoken disdainfully of homosexuals and called them "circus freaks" on more than one occasion, though in response to criticism, she said that she has many gay close friends to whom she meant no offense. I'm mystified by how she could be so insensitive with regards to both Muslims and homosexuals, and then proceed to claim she hadn't meant any offense.

I don't want to associate myself with a bumbling homophobic racist, and her affiliation with vegetarianism likely has the opposite effect than what I initially hoped for. As a public figure in France symbolizing xenophobia, her interest in animal rights probably only makes vegetarianism appear even more alien to the French.

Alas, I cannot count Brigitte Bardot my ally although her work for animal rights and vegetarianism in France is impressive. I've yet to find my French vegetarian muse.

Excusez-moi, but...I'm Vegetarian

The main component of French cuisine is meat. It probably has one of the most diverse varieties of meats to choose from, some of the more notorious foods including escargot (snails) and frog legs. Other disturbing choices are raw cow brain, goat heads, and the liver of a fattened goose. Not only do the French eat these foods, but they flaunt their culinary peculiarity with pride, and lace it into their cultural identity. I am a French girl, and I grew up eating these foods. When asked by American friends how I could stand these monstrosities, I often replied with, "It tastes like chicken." Now really, none of it actually tastes like chicken, but this is just a clever explanation someone invented a long time ago in order to justify the consumption of bizarre animals. Truth be told, I did enjoy eating pâté and moules frites, and not only did I revel in the rich gourmandise of it all, but I took delight, as do all the French, in seeing the shock it induced in foreigners' expressions.

Yet today I am not this girl.

When I first told my French side of the family that I had decided to become vegetarian, I was met with laughter and then disdain. First, they couldn't quite grasp the concept. I could still eat pork, right? And well after I thought they finally understood, they gave me shrimp and shellfish a few times. They told me that being vegetarian was mal vu, "badly viewed." They told me that I would grow frail and die young. They told me it was “un-French.”  They couldn't change my opinion, though, because with each criticism I could only think of the costs of eating meat- the mistreatment of animals, wasted lives, appreciation for the soul, etc.

Looking back, I, myself, can't fathom how my opinion of meat changed so drastically at the young age of eleven. The only explanation I can summon is that I was always inclined to be vegetarian, but because of outside influences, I never thought of it as an option. I loved animals my whole life, and from the age of seven, I had a pet care business. When I heard about animal abuse and poaching, I was shocked and alarmed. Something about this transformation was making me somewhat separate from my family. I was learning to forge my own path with my own beliefs. When I started to develop my own opinions and ideas, I realized that I couldn't bear the thought of consuming a living animal which had been murdered for me.

French vegetarians are rare. I didn’t even think it was really possible. I can only pass off as completely French in France until meal time, at which point I am met by suspicious glares and prodding questions where I must quickly reveal that I am also American, and influenced by a multiplicity of cultures I’ve been immersed in overseas.

The French (or should I say we French?) are very protective of their/our nationality, and are often unwilling to believe that people with strange opinions and differences can be truly French. However, when I was in Paris this summer, my family and I went to a snazzy vegetarian French restaurant, and many of the traditional French recipes were offered with a vegetarian twist. I also saw several vegetarian restaurants and grocery stores in the West and South of France.

The general focus of this blog will be to introduce to the world the fusion of vegetarianism and French culture, as well as other quirky things that vegetarians as a group are generally drawn to (e.g. yoga, meditation, organic food, etc.).

À plus tard!