IF you are going to France this year, are you to find that that universally proclaimed dish "STEACK/FRITES" - or steak and chips is in decline? For a huge headline in the conservative newspaper Le Figaro proclaims: Vegetarian Cooking is here; specialist restaurants, especially in Paris get more custom; suddenly the Hippopotamus chain (of restaurants) brings in the "vegiburger". So you wonder what is to happen to those wonderful stand bys of classic and country cook ing like cassoulet and the daube or stew.
Not to worry too much. The tone of the long article is that there has been a tremor among the meat eaters and meat serving establishments but that not much will change. That same Hippopotamus chain, flamboyant specialist in red meat, proclaims that the decision to introduce its vegiburger was taken before the recent scare. "We noticed" said the Director General of the group "that a certain number of our customers regularly chose the salads. They were vegetarians. Well, we are interested in all our customers."
The reporter writes that when renovations were being done to the Montparnasse restaurant of the group, the screen around the work was decorated with the theme of vegetarian versus meat eating. It depicted a hippopotamus pursued by carrots. Maybe, he writes, the carrots are beginning to catch up.
One of the conclusions is that hardened carnivores will, at least, fall back on other meats. London is mentioned here, where, it is said, there come galloping up, in certain exotic restaurants, the ostrich, the alligator and the kangaroo. One theme could be repeated in other countries. People who are inclined to vegetarianism without being fully convinced so far, will perhaps think again, said a vegetarian restaurant proprietor. Even if it is slow, evolution towards vegetarianism is real. "One way or another Nature will re assert its rights."
The newspaper includes a piece by a medical doctor on vegetarianism. He writes that a vegetarian regime which includes milk, cheese and eggs, gives us all necessary proteins. The only problem, to him, is that it may not suit people with poor digestions. And those who choose organic food have the advantage of eating fruits and vegetable untouched by chemicals and pesticides. He quotes a study from the British Medical Journal of 1994 which compared a group of 6,115 vegetarians with 5,015 meat eaters. It showed 20 per cent less mortality among the first group over a period of twelve years. He quotes Hippocrates: `Let your food be your medicine.'