Franz Kafka's famous vegetarian quote translated into French: "Maintenant je peux vous observer en paix; je ne vous mange plus." Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore. According to his friend Max Brod, Kafka said this while looking at fish in the Berlin aquarium in 1913.
Estimates are that slightly less than 2 percent of the French population is vegetarian, although there seems to be a growing market for vegetarian and even vegan style tourism and cooking lessons.
Vocabulary
le végétarisme: vegetarianism; eating practice that excludes consumption of animal flesh
le flexitarisme: essentially a vegetarian diet in which animal products are occasionally eaten
le pescetarisme or pesco-végétarisme: an otherwise vegetarian diet except that it includes fish and seafood
le crudivorisme: eating discipline of vegetarians who only eat uncooked fruits, vegetables, nuts, cereals, grains and oils
le véganisme: term applied to those who beyond being vegetarian, avoid using any product of animal origin (e.g. wool or fur) or which has been tested on animals
l'agar-agar: agar, a gelatin substitute derived from seaweed and used to thicken food
©2012 P.B. Lecron
