ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that vegan food is both a goal and a means for promoting animal rights. Animal rights activists in both France and the United States hold several nation-wide events promoting vegan food. Gastronomy began in France, and is typically French. Cultural sociologist Priscilla Parkhurt Ferguson calls gastronomy "the systematic, socially valorized pursuit of culinary creativity". The origins of French gastronomic field are found in culinary institutions associated with aristocracy but, over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, gastronomy transformed into "a fundamental attribute of Frenchness'", according to Ferguson. Cockfighting was popular in north of France in the nineteenth century, but now it is more of an issue in the overseas departments and thus not a primary focus of mainland French animal rights organizations. European Union legislation did not threaten hunting, but it did threaten foie gras and corrida, and thus French politicians responded by passing laws to protect both practices as carriers of cultural heritage.
