Aisling O’Loughlin French eating habits
Confession: I like to eat, standing up, fridge door open, picking, gulping, chowing, oinking, slurping, gnawing. Toute seule. Best to have no witnesses. Especially if there’s some covert cheese nibbling afoot. Vegan hypocrites require privacy when breaking their own ideals. It’s not very French, is it? Another reason to act in isolation. If they knew (the French), they’d huff and puff and blow my little house of undercover munching down. Let’s keep it our little secret.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate their ways: three-course, two-hour lunches followed by five-course, three-hour dinners. It’s just I like to binge and run. Job done. Like D’Unbelievables on Match Day when Pat Shortt said, ‘We said we’d have a clear run at the day — so we had the dinner this morning at half eight.’ That joke would not
The French do not gobble. There are always leftovers
translate in France. There’s always time for dinner but it’s certainly not at lunch-time.
I miss dinner in the middle of the day. Or eating Taytos just because you feel like it, not because it’s Apero time and even then, the French only take a few crisps. They leave some in the bowl. I can’t get over it. The restraint. There are always left-overs. It’s not just my attempts at cooking. They do not gobble. They do not grab. Even the most uncouth among them eats with their mouth closed, elbows off the table. It brings out the piggy in me. I want to stand by the fridge and trough in revolt. Which I do. In secret. It was all going so well for me, the vegan thing, until I met a French man. It’s early days but the fridge is suddenly full of dead animal meat and cheese. I’m being tested. The bleeding innards are easy to overcome. But the cheese. The cheese is
proving more of a challenge. One fromage in particular. Saint Agur Creme. It’s a kind of liquid blue cheese in a tub of temptation. It started with a sniff while alone in the house, then a dip with some torn off baguette, then full on licking the carton before discarding the evidence in the bin, disgusted and broken.
I identify as vegan. Animal rights people are my tribe. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. My allegiance is with the cows, not the cheese. Can a vegan (wannabe) ever have a relationship with a full-on carnivore? When the cheese is not in the fridge, the nibbling is a peaceful affair. Je ne regrette rien. The lettuce wants to be crunched. The pickles are winking at you from the jar. I know I must stabilise my resolve and start again. Even Olivia Wilde admits to swinging between being vegan and a more liberal vegetarian. More of a levelling up, than a caving in. I’m responsible for what goes into my body. Blame is low vibrational.
Still, it’s the French man’s fault. If he hadn’t bought the cheese I would never have been tempted. Now I have to pretend to be all civilised at the dinner table. Little sips of wine. Waiting for the salad after dinner. The cheese after dessert (of which I refrain publicly). It’s not the Viking way. At least I can make up for it by le frigo, when no-one is looking.