The French and I

The French, sometimes known as ‘fence-sitters’ if you’re feeling charitable or ‘surrender monkeys’ if you’re not, become positively dogmatic when it comes to eating meat. Their usual philosophical, ambivalent, shrug-shoulders attitude morphs into outright fascism where food is concerned; particularly when it comes to how, why and when meat should be cooked, contemplated and consumed.

I’m still reeling from adrenal overload following the stress of cooking filet mignon for lunch. ‘How can I possibly eat something as dried up and unappetizing as Cherie Blair’s neck?’, my husband asked me in bewilderment, going straight for my Achilles’ heel. Never mind Cherie’s neck, I’ve just had an epiphany; the saying ‘I married you for better or worse but not for lunch’ suddenly made perfect sense to me…

I like to eat my meat cooked (ie no cold or bloody bits left), whereas my husband lets it merely catch sight of the frying pan from the far side of the kitchen. That’s fine; he can eat his meat however he chooses (especially if I can arrange a separate table for myself to avoid the nauseating sight of such carnage). But his normally easy-going demenour deserts him during carnivorous half hour and he becomes a blinkered and dogmatic caveman.

Even my half-French three-year-old son has joined the rare-meat crusade; he ceremoniously spat out his chewed up filet in disgust proclaiming it to be ‘dégoutant maman’.

The problem is that I don’t actually like meat at all. I really only eat it because I find the idea of becoming a vegetarian very indigestible. (whatever anybody says, a twin-set of grey skin and hair and an surplus of body hair and fat is not a good look) . But to be able to swallow it at all, I have certain criteria that must be met: it can neither look nor taste like meat and has therefore to appear heavily disguised (tongue-singeingly spicy does it for me).

I believe we’d be on the blacklist of a restaurant we frequent if it weren’t for the fact that they’ve generously put my behaviour down to English eccentricity. And all because I once asked for mustard with my liver. The chef felt compelled to come and try and talk me out of my foible with the same degree of intensity I would imagine was used during the Bay of Pigs negotiations. He sat down at our table and lowered his voice (lest anyone should cop on to the fact that he admits low-lifes such as me into his restaurant). But I stuck to my guns and got my mustard (French; I was by this time too intimidated to ask for English), which I slathered all over my, by now, cold liver. Next time we go I’m planning to ask for it to be served with bacon and onions and perhaps a bit of gravy…

Since writing this article I am proud to announce that we’ve hit upon a compromise: Seven-Hour Lamb. Any meat that cooks for seven hours gets my vote but it stays so tender and moist (and is regarded as a real delicacy in France) that neither my husband’s nor my son’s inherently superior taste buds are insulted.

If British women are dragons – formidable, fire breathing (and very often even quite Green) – then French women are lynx- – fine-boned, crafty, predatory felines (and very often even with tufts of black hair on the extremities). After more than 15 years’ observation of the species, I’m still in awe at the incisiveness and stealth with which they operate.

Some of my best friends now are ‘lynx’ – but it’s taken quite a few years and, rather tellingly, a few wrinkles, to achieve this. In my days as a ‘célibataire’ I was, at worst, regarded as The Enemy and, at best, an Unknown Quantity (read: potentially a husband-pinching hussy). I am happy to report that I now have a husband (my own), young son and bags under my eyes and am viewed with less suspicion.

I was once accused of flirting with a certain Jean-Yves (pronounce ‘Yves’ to rhyme with ‘heave’) by his wife. Can you believe that she was actually more upset when I told her that if sharing a dinner table with her husband I had to concentrate on keeping my food down, not entertain the idea of sharing anything else with him ? Instead of being reassured by the fact I found her husband totally and utterly hideous, she was extremely put out… now where’s the logic in that?

Whereas a British women would attack her husband for having an affair, French women, believing (or rather, wanting to believe) that their husbands are beyond reproach, will almost always attack the Other Woman. Is this perhaps a tribute to the original small Frenchman, Napoleon, whose code gave husbands sweeping powers over their wives and men were regarded as faultless and women as second-class citizens?

It hasn’t all been bad though – I’ve been on the receiving end of some useful advice and even compliments. When I was pregnant several French girls happily offered to sign me up for Weight Watchers and I was once even told that my cooking was ‘surprisingly good for an Ingleesh person’. On the subject of weight watching, I notice that another dieting book has just been published entitled ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat.’ I haven’t read it, but imagine it describes their overtly feminine ways at the dining table – copious glasses of mineral water and an inherently morbid fear of carbohydrates and sugar. I have to admit though, my first reaction was very uncharitable and something along the lines of : ‘You bet your life they don’t get fat ; how can you put on weight on a diet of nicotine and finger nails ?’

Which brings me to another perennial insecurity among the female population here : wrinkles. A greater percentage of women in France believe they are prone to wrinkles than in any other European country. The household budget sees the monthly facial and eyebrow plucking outgoings right up there next to fuel for the boiler and staple food products. Although if I’m honest, this insecurity is contagious (well it is in my case) much to the delight of Monsieur Clarins et al (and my skin !)

While Anglo-Saxon women tend to shoot from the hip, French ladies don’t shoot at all – they smoulder, though very stylishly and sexily it has to be said. Just one word of advice though : never marry a Frenchwoman’s brother !

With just under 24,000 pharmacies in France to choose from it seems a little masochistic to stand in line. But a queue in a pharmacy in France is something to behold; it is an insight into the Gaelic personality – an anthropologist’s dream. One of the many fundamental differences between the British and the French is their approach to illness. While the British on the whole like to demonstrate a stoic ‘it’s not as bad as it looks’ attitude, the French tendency is to ensure that their problem is presented as being ‘much much worse than it looks’…

To ‘accuse’ a French person of looking healthy is tantamount to insult. It’s always best to err on the side of caution and at least say they’re looking a little run-down.

A pharmacy is the only place in France where people will actually accept the principle of ‘Waiting in Line’, and even more surprisingly, ‘Waiting their Turn’ (concepts which bizarrely become totally alien to the French anywhere else). It’s a sort of rite of passage. If they’ve just come from the doctor to pick up their prescription they will need to de-brief with the pharmacist (but with the rest of the queue vicariously involved.) This means giving intimate and sometimes horrible details of their ailment, which will then need to be debated and considered for anything from five to 20 minutes (obviously in direct proportion to the seriousness of the illness). A word of advice for the sensitive: these conversations can be extremely gory – if, as I frequently do, you start to feel faint, don’t hesitate to collapse into one of the chairs thoughtfully provided – it beats the hard tile floors…

If, on the other hand, you’ve come in for something ‘off the peg’, you can expect at least five minutes’ psychotherapy from the pharmacist. This value-added aspect explains why ‘off the shelf’ medicine in France is so much more expensive than prescription medicine. A six-pack of paracetamol is sold with the degree of reverence accorded to a Dolce & Gabbana evening gown elsewhere.

There is definitely a kind of kudos to be had from being ill here. The winter I had ‘bronchitis/sinusitis/laryngitis’ (which would probably have been dismissed as ‘a bit of a cold’ by a British GP), I gained Respect. There’s a man in our village with one kidney, recurrent jaundice and a gammy leg who practically has hero status; other villagers graze their foreheads on the pavement as he passes. And if other members of your family are suffering as well, the world’s your oyster. I actually heard a woman in our local pharmacy proudly (and loudly) proclaiming no less than 80% of her family to be asthmatic.

Whereas the British might give a brief synopsis of their ailment to solicit a bit of sympathy, the French will give a full and detailed description. And that will not be to solicit sympathy – it will be to boast! They neither expect nor need sympathy; their reassurance and satisfaction come from the feelings of superiority that accompany the suffering of such a condition in the first place.

France may have abolished the monarchy, but they found a magnificent replacement: Healthcare.

I’m so glad that Britain’s anti-smacking laws haven’t yet reached France. As I understand it, this means that I’m still at liberty here to take a quick swipe at one of those self-appointed experts in child management who are everywhere in French hypermarkets dishing out their unsolicited advice. I’ve developed a very effective detection device and can spot them an aisle-off — they invariably have that disapproving flared-nostril look. I’m actually amazed that, as the proud owner of a flamboyant and opinionated two-and-a-half-year-old, I have so far managed to resist administering GBH to the sort of person who tutts about ‘the things children get away with nowadays.’ Admittedly the little angel is standing on the conveyor belt emptying a litre of bleach on to the shopping, but there’s still nothing quite as irritating as having the patently obvious pointed out.
Shopping with little boys is not a walk in the park. Granted, it’s not always easy with big boys either, but would you honestly trade a full-blown, trolley-stopping hissy fit in the washing powder alley for a few snide comments of the ‘do-we-really-need-that’ kind ?

For a while (albeit a very little while), I adopted the ‘Patient and Developmentally-Aware’ approach. This entails letting your little one push around a mini-trolley ‘just like mummy’ (except that, unless really pushed to the limit, mummy doesn’t actually aim at other shoppers’ Achilles tendons). If you’re very tolerant, you might even let him fill his trolley with goodies – then rush around putting them back just before checking out. Yes, I did all of this. Until one day when our mini-trolley was confiscated by Uniformed Officials as it buckled under the weight of a 21-inch screen colour TV with built-it DVD. Actually, they’ve confiscated the mini-trolleys altogether now in that store -— I can’t think why…

I now fall into the athletic grab-and–run category. We hit the hypermarket running and keep running as fast as possible while simultaneously throwing articles into the trolley. The aim is to go fast enough that the child can’t manage to actually climb out (i.e. just above the speed where centrifugal force becomes a restraining factor) but not so fast that all the articles you run past become a total blur and therefore unidentifiable. It is also better to try to avoid knocking people over, but this obviously isn’t always possible (and sometimes just too irresistible). Of course, an added advantage is that, given the sheer size of hypermarkets here, you can get a reasonable heart-rate-increasing, sweat-producing workout into the bargain.

I’ve done the calculations: you end up with about 40% of the things you needed, which isn’t that bad really. Admittedly, you do also have quite a few things you didn’t need (either the result of little arms reaching out to ‘help’ or speed-induced blurring – see above). But eight times out of 10 (and especially if you stuff your handbag down your jumper and puff your way through the pregnant ladies’ checkout) you can get out without a Meltdown Situation. Of course, there is the disadvantage that you’re going so fast you miss out on all that valuable child-rearing advice. But I think I can live with that…