hi everyone, me and husband have planned to visit paris in the first week of july. This will be our first trip to france. Actually we both dont know french except for few words like bonjour,merci etc., I am confident that i can handle all the other stuff like asking for directions etc.,.what i am really worried about, is the food. I am a vegetarian (i dont eat meat,fish or seafood) I dont know how i am going to get this message across in french restaurants.
Can any one help me by giving any tips or teach me any french phrase to say "i dont eat meat,fish or any kind of sea food". i searched all the french phrase books i didnt find anything that suits my need.Please help me and i would appreciate any travel tips to paris. Thank you.

Good afternoon, savi82!

This is how your say "I am a vegetarian. I do not eat meat, chicken, pork or seafood."

Je suis vegetarien. Je ne mange pas de la viande, du poulet, du porc ou des fruits de mer.

My husband has several food allergies and I write down my request on an index card and present it to the waiter if I stumble over the phrase.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Get yourself a good French Food Glossary and familiarize yourself with foods that you enjoy so you'll be able to recognize them on menus.

Paris restaurants post their menus and prices outside of the door, so you can check before going in.

If you do a search here, you will get some recommendations, I have read a few posts.

"Je suis végétarienne" would be what I would say.

French restaurants post their menus somewhere near their entrances. So even before you enter the restaurant, you can review the menu to see if there is food that you can eat.

Some restaurants will have vegetarian main courses, but not many. More casual restaurants, such as creperies, will have all sorts of vegetarian options. And with crepes, you can always ask for items with the meat or seafood left off - ask in English, or say, for example "Je voudrais le crepe sans _______," the line being whatever item you don't want.

I have food allergies, so a similar issue as you. What I did was had a card typed up (in French) and laminated that basically said that I have food allergies and cannot eat <list foods>. I just showed that to the waiter so I didn't have to worry about misprouncing something or getting food that could have been dangerous to me.

Also, the food glossary recommendation is very good - I like the book "Eating and Drinking in France". It is comprehensive and I like that it is in alphabetical order, not categories.

hi, savi,

I saw that tip about carrying a card with your dietary requirements in french on another thread, abd it seemed to have worked surprisingly well.

Veggies are not well-catered for in traditional french establishments, but my veggie friends sing the praises of "ethnic" restaurants, where they tend to use more vegetables.

picnics from delis and supermarkets may also help, as would being in an apartment, but its' probably too late for that.

I'm sure you'll have a great trip anyway [and at least it's not spain, which I am assured is worse!].

regards, ann

Good luck, you never know what may be in a sauce or broth or vegetable dish, even the waiter may not know. I think you have to be most careful about salads, in your case. I don't think there's any reason to be so elaborate(eg, porc is a meat, as far as I know). They've heard of the word vegetarian in Paris, of course, and vegetarian restaurants call themselves that (like this one
http://www.legrenierdenotredame.net/

Hi everyone.Good morning.I thank you all for taking your time to respond to my query. All your responses gave me a idea and the french phrase by dlb716 and the index card, food glossary where all really good tips.Now i have got some hope that i can survive. Thank you very much.

Go to the link below for the Patricia Wells French/English food glossery.

http://www.patriciawells.com/glossary/atoz/atoz.htm