How to Eat in France

How to eat in France.

First, go way back in time and agree to host Couchsurfers who are older, well-established financially, and from Toulouse. Make sure one of them is from the Flemish area of France and insure that he despises sweets, much preferring good cheeses and wine to anything that even suggests that it contains added sugar.

Make sure the other is local and a mother herself who likes to make sure that people eat well on her watch. That point is key.

Then arrive at their home having eaten little other than the odd baguette, a smear of butter, a chunk of dried pork sausage, and Chevre. Or Brie.  Or whatever else looked good in the store. Sometimes the pick-a-cheese-any-cheese method of buying worked, but sometimes we needed a splash of wine to go with that cheese to make it go down with any gastronomic appreciation.

Now sit. 

Sitting at the table in the garden is very important since the fragrance of the flowers blooming all around contribute to the enjoyment of the food. Lilacs are up at this time of year, and so are lavender. Irises have just finished and their dried husks lay wilting around the bright green fans. The cherry tree in the backyard has finished for the year as well, but that is okay since that means the melons are at their best—orange and fleshy and juicy.

Now that you are sitting, rip a chunk of bread and wonder that it is not yet another baguette. At first it is a sourdough sort of loaf. Then it is a loaf riddled with different seeds—poppy seeds and millet and sunflower. Then it is a heavy cereal loaf.

Don’t forget to smear that bread with a pâte—which literally means paste—and this one is literally a paste of duck liver and mushrooms. Make Tehva stop eating it all because without some serious parental controls she will not stop. You are also welcome to sample the blood pudding or the thinly sliced chorizo, but none of these chunks is too big and there are six other people enjoying this aperitif with you, so lentement!

Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.

After a long linger over the aperitif, sit back and ready yourself for the local sausage that appears, grilled and seeping juices, in one small coil on a simple white plate. Have some bread. Take a section of the meat. Drink some more wine, but never too much in your glass in one go. It seems to be there just to make everything else taste nicer. 

And it works.

Now come to a casserole dish of curly buttered pasta topped with a generous layer of melted Emanthâl cheese. You will appreciate its simplicity, even after the children have tried to snake the brown, crispy cheese off of the top, and you will eat it with some more red wine from the vineyard near the city.

Now sit back and smile because you are starting to understand this style of eating that your fellow countrymen have glorified in diet magazines since you were younger. Wonder why it has never caught on in your own country, but then remember that nine days out of ten, dinner has to be a rushed affair in your home anyhow. And, realistically speaking, good bread and wine are too expensive to make it a feasible eating style.

Put this thought aside and be thankful that you are getting this experience here and now as the salad approaches. It is full of spring greens and artichoke hearts. Tehva has never seen an artichoke heart in her life, but rapidly goes from “I am not eating that” to “You can’t have any of those because they are mine”.

Think to yourself that that salad rocked your world and accept another splash of wine in your glass because that has to be the end of things…but no. 

The dates you dragged from the Middle East, along with one of those bright orange melons and a raft of cheese have just appeared on the table. There is no Brie, which makes you breathe a sigh of relief (but makes your boy child pout). There is, however, a Roquefort with a cauliflower bouquet, a small circle of Chevre, and a chunk of soft, two-toned cheese—one color on the outside ring with a lighter, creamier center.

The person from the Flemish area chooses another wine from his collection, a red something or other, and suggests having this with the Roquefort, which is like mouth fireworks.

Close your eyes and think, “Ah yes…this is how to eat in France”.