If there's one thing people in France are known for, it's their food. And alongside the food comes a rich culture delineating how to prepare and eat it properly.
In late December, we hosted a French couple for dinner in our little apartment. In a sense, this is easier done than said, since the lunch cook makes a simple soup for dinner while they're prepping the midday meal. I simply fill my family-size pot from the large stockpot and reheat. Ironically, Blandine, the wife of the French couple, happens to be a trained chef and baker, and had offered to cook the day we had planned to share dinner. Therefore, after welcoming her and her husband Paul into our little home, we then chuckled, asking, "So... what's for dinner?" Since Blandine had prepared our main course, who was hosting who after all? :)
In France, a rich food heritage brings connection and shared understandings across the country, but it can sometimes be limiting, too. For example,
no beet soup. Christiane (from Germany) recounted a memory from early on in her experience living at the Ark, in the mother community in southern France. At some point the community found themselves swimming in beets, which are almost always grated and served as a raw salad. In trying to find creative ways to use the fresh, plentiful produce, Christiane whipped up a tasty soup... and no one ate it. That is
not what you do with beets.
On the other hand, an onion-based soup is culturally believed to be a good idea, but to call it "French" onion soup would be redundant. Here it's simply known as
soupe aux oignons, and French fries as
les frites.
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Nico makes pancakes for Mardi Gras
by candlelight on a bilig, |
Our first encounter with
soupe aux oignons was a bit of an amusing cultural clash. It all started because I wanted to eat pancakes for
Mardi Gras and thought the community might enjoy it too. We all know that Nico is an excellent pancake
chef and enjoys cooking for large groups, so I briefly ran the idea past him. He was open to it, and before we had a real conversation about logistics, it was my turn to be present at the weekly community meeting that we take turns attending. They happened to have "plan Mardi Gras festival" on the agenda, so I signed Nico right up to make a pancake dinner! ... :)
They asked me if pancakes are sweet. "Yes, usually..." I told them, "but it depends what you put on them, I guess..." Which in hindsight was obviously a silly thing to say. Of course pancakes are sweet! Ultimately, the cultural question was not "are they sweet?" but "how can you eat dessert for a meal?" And the answer shouldn't have been a hesitant "they're usually sweet...", but rather a confident, "yes, they're sweet, it's Mardi Gras!"
This wasn't the first time we had suggested a dish that baffles the French palate. At the end of last year, one of Yanni's few intelligible words was "pumpkin pie", which is how he referred to pumpkins in general. I decided to make the classic American favorite as a dessert for a community Advent gathering in early December. We now have new insight as to why I was then asked to make another pumpkin pie, but as a main dish for the community Christmas meal, and why its popularity was startlingly low. (See the humorous photo in the
Christmas & New Year's post.)
Number 1: Tarte vs. Torte. A
tarte has crust only on the bottom. It is nearly always savory. A
torte has a second crust covering the top and is nearly always sweet. After explaining these distinct differences to me, my real live French friend Amélie continued, "And then there are quiches..." and she stopped and laughed. We didn't get into quiches, that would have been too much.
Number 2: Pumpkins are savory in France. A sweet pumpkin dish doesn't compute here.
So, though perhaps a savory pumpkin
tarte is a comprehensible menu item, an
uncovered sweet pumpkin dish is neither a tarte nor a torte. Neither a main dish nor a dessert. But to be sure, none of my questionable pie went to waste. My boys got a kick out of pumpkin pie as a side for every lunch and dinner until it was gone. :)
I wasn't sure what else was being said about the Mardi Gras dinner at the community meeting, but eventually we moved on to the next topic, so I didn't worry about it. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier and cultural differences, my waffling about the nature of pancakes was more confusing than I realized.
A few days before the feast, Elisabeth approached Nico to clarify the menu, "So, how does it work? We will eat pancakes, which are sweet? But they're not dessert? And what do you eat them with?" Nico replied, "I'd be happy to make an
omelette in the oven to go with it. You know, breakfast for dinner." But she couldn't have known, because an omelette is not breakfast food here. The answer to "breakfast" in France is "bread". There's even a word for it,
tartine, meaning "bread with stuff on top". And there are, indeed, a vast and wonderful array of tasty spreads, dips, and toppings for bread here!
Nico would've certainly also suggested bacon as part of an American breakfast-for-dinner if we weren't in a vegetarian community. Taking in "pancakes and omelettes for dinner", Elisabeth finalized the menu, "Ok, don't worry about the eggs because I've been thinking about making an onion soup." Now it was Nico's turn to puzzle. "Oh... okay..." he began, "If you are going to make a soup for dinner, then should I make less pancakes?"
"Oh no," Elisabeth was now confident with the plan, "don't worry, it will be a watery soup. Make a lot of pancakes and don't hold back, it's Mardi Gras after all."
So that's how we spent Mardi Gras 2018 eating pancakes and
soupe aux oignons, after dancing around a burning straw man to symbolize the releasing of our sinful habits from the previous year.
Reflecting together after the meal, Nico and I realized the folly of offering to make
pancakes in
crêpe country. The origin of the world-renowned French crêpe is claimed here in Bretagne, as part of the indigeneous celtic roots. Crêpes, unlike pancakes, truly have the flexibility to be either savory or sweet. A savory crêpe is made with buckwheat flour and is the original crêpe. It's obviously a meal, often filled with
sautéed onions, cheese, and an overeasy egg, whereas sweet crêpes, made lighter with wheat flour, are filled with chocolate or syrupy fruit: clearly dessert.
There are three key tools for cooking genuine crêpes:
- bilig (Breton) or crêpière (French) - a large, round, flat, cast-iron surface on which to cook the crêpes
- rozell (Breton) - a T-shaped tool for spreading the batter into a perfect circle
- sklisenn (Breton) or spatule crêpe (French) - a long, sword-shaped spatula for flipping crêpes
The bilig was originally a large round stone heated on a fire. As technology progressed, it eventually became a round, wall-less pan, and today you find the term used for a flat, cast-iron surface, very evenly heated with electricity. The cast-iron is seasoned by burning butter into the bilig over and over to create an impressive non-stick surface.
Nico used the bilig and sklisenn to make the pancakes for Mardi Gras. He had previous experience wielding a sklisenn on New Year's Eve, when he made a Latin-American-themed dinner for the community, which included Columbian-style arepas. It was then that Nico fell in love with the bilig and the community with arepas. In fact, it was such a hit that he'll do it again when another opportunity arises; however, not so with pancakes... we'll let crêpes be crêpes.
Since we've been here, I've experienced quite a few moments of, "huh, that would never happen in the US," noticing and appreciating the sometimes stark differences. My top three moments center on propriety, meat, and packaging.
Propriety
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| Image found in online search. |
When Christiane found out we had never seen the film
Kirikou, one of the most popular animated children's movies in France, she invited us - and the whole community - to her house for a viewing. I was told some vague details: it's set in Africa and Kirikou is a hero, but he's a baby. I realized I was "not in Kansas anymore", or any of the other 49, with the first scene: a woman, calmly weathering labor, wearing only a long skirt. Kirikou is born talking, and along with all other children in the village, remains naked for the entire movie. All the men have been taken captive by the evil sorceress and transformed into creatures that do her bidding (think Beauty & the Beast), and the women of the village, all topless per cultural custom, have to give in to the evil sorceress' demands, until Kirikou eventually saves the day.
Maybe this movie could happen in the US, but it would have a fringe following at Sundance. I repeat, this is one of the
most popular children's movies in the country of France!
Meat
So, we live in a community that doesn't do meat at common meals, but individuals are not held to this rule in their own homes. Joel offered to take us to the fish market in Le Guilvinec, a town to our south with a large ancient fishing port. We enjoyed browsing the stands at the market, including but not limited to: seafood, books, hot prepared foods, cheeses, wines, clothing, and meat. Eventually we bought a dozen oysters, a traditional Breton favorite, from a fishmonger, and a handful of organic
charcuterie products from a
transformateur.
The line at the transformateur's stand was long, and stayed long until after the market had technically ended. He was the only vendor with
biologique (organic) meat products that we had seen as we strolled all around. All of his products were laid out behind a curved window, but were not frozen. He had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows with a plastic cover around each cuff. As the clients made their requests, he picked up the raw or cured meats with his bare hands and laid them on the chopping block to make any necessary cuts - with one single knife in use - or wrapped them in brown wax paper to weigh them on a scale for the price. His hands then received the money and made any necessary change. Then on to the next request. As we waited for our turn we watched this process, which we felt pretty confident the USDA wouldn't approve, yet here, it all appeared very normal and expected. In the homeland of Louis Pasteur, no less!
Packaging
As Christiane and I made our way out of E.Leclerc from purchasing my new alarm clock (see the
previous post for that story), I noted out loud that the cashier didn't give me a bag or ask me if I wanted one. I told her that in the US, you automatically get a plastic bag unless you specifically say, "No bag, please," or (if you remembered them this time) quickly hand over reusable bags. Christiane told me it was the same in France a year or two ago, before a national law was put in place banning plastic bags. I was impressed with this news! It made me feel that it was possible to accomplish something similar in the US, until on second thought I compared cultures and decided it'd be more likely for the US to write a new law requiring double bagging instead of ratifying a ban... you know, in case one bag breaks the customers won't sue, or something.
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"Clavier" is "keyboard" in French.
Image found in online search. |
There are many other subtle cultural differences I've enjoyed discovering here. For example, I cannot find paper with a "college" or "wide" rule. It seems that standard loose leaf and notebooks only come in graph paper or accounting paper.
The computer keyboard has many differences. Luckily, I found a setting that allows the computer to read my keystrokes from the "AZERTY" keyboard as if it were the "QWERTY" keyboard I'm used to. If I go on muscle memory I can type along just fine, until I look down... for this purpose my granddad sent me a USB QWERTY keyboard, allowing me to find the ampersand & dollar $ign without holding down shift and punching every number across the top. (Thanks, Granddaddy! Perhaps this post should be titled, "I'm typing on an English keyboard!")
At the grocery store, butter is formed in blocks instead of sticks, and egg cartons come in fours, sixes, and tens. It's hard to find chocolate chips and nearly impossible to find popcorn. Baking soda comes in little packets of about a tablespoon each... but! There are no tablespoons or teaspoons! Well, there is the
cuillère à soupe (soup spoon) which is the size-ish of a tablespoon, and the
cuillère à café (coffee spoon) or
petite cuillère (small spoon), which is the size-ish of a teaspoon. I've asked several different people if you can buy standardized measuring spoons and everyone is confused by this idea; they just all use the large and small spoons in the silverware drawer for their recipes.
And of course, there are no cups or pints either. This was nearly problematic when I made the infamous pumpkin pie in December. At first I tried to do conversions to milliliters and grams, but eventually decided to forget it and just eyeball everything. It worked out deliciously after all, but we'll never taste that same pie again. Later, while searching for something else in the communal kitchen, I found, in the dark back recesses of a cupboard, a measuring container with pints and cups!! I surprised myself by how excited I was and asked if I could keep it in my kitchen, since by the dust coating it's popularity appeared low, and they graciously obliged. :)
But, I digress. Back to the grocery store. We can buy a bottle of organic (
biologique!) wine at Casino (think Dollar General) for €3.49. And everywhere you go, you have to pay for carts! But not really. You can retreive your €2 coin when you return your cart to the bay and plug in the lock. There are a few places in the US that are taking on this custom, but mostly I'm not used to it. I was confused... so, what's the point in paying if you get your money right back? I posed this question to Christiane who shrugged and theorized that it keeps people from stealing the carts. But surely the sturdy metal carts are worth more than €2! Next week's Casino shopping list: cheese; bread; wine; large, affordable shopping cart.
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Note the exit ramp arrows. They make me want to
look behind me, rather than toward the exit!
Image found in online search. |
Just as the cashier doesn't ask if you'd like a plastic bag in France, neither are transmission preferences a question when renting cars. In itself, this is no different than the US, but they're on the other side of the fence here. Manual transmission it is. And out on the roads, exit arrows point down, showing where the ramp begins, rather than pointing up, signaling the direction where the ramp is headed.
In the French home, rags and towels have specific designs: be careful to wrap your new loaf of bread in a nice, clean
torchon, a linen dish towel, rather than a freshly laundered
serpillière, France's seemingly standard lightweight floor mopping rag. Light switches are large, flat square buttons and sleeping pillows are also squares. And pack-and-plays are long and narrow! And sometimes, toilet paper is pink!
