In part one of this reflection, I examined how the prospect of a tip and the differing expectations of politeness shape the contrasting restaurant experience in France and the US. Here, I will unpack the second cultural nuance that divides the two countries: our understanding of food, its value, and its place in our lives.
In America, food is sustenance. We arrange our meals around our charged schedules, rushing through the event, often while conducting some other activity (gotta be productive at every second, right?). Food is also a pleasure, but quantity over quality is cheaper, so our over-processed portions grow in size. Convenience and efficiency reign. We install drive-thru’s, fast pickup, at-home delivery, and every possible step to reduce the time it takes to acquire and consume the meal. By extension, we also reduce the number of human beings we must interact with along the way.
In France, by contrast, food represents much more than nourishment to our bodies.
You might expect me to gush about the extravagant meals I ate while in France. The mental image most Americans probably hold of French cuisine is those best-in-the-world Paris restaurants where you pay 3 thousand dollars for a tiny almond drizzled with a dab of sauce and garnished with a singular leaf. No, I did not experience that side of French gastronomie. Rather, I am talking about the place that food holds in normal French society.
In France, food is to be shared; meals are communal. At the middle school where I worked, I loved drinking in the conversation around me in the staff room during lunchtime, the teachers dining and chatting for over an hour every day. Unlike in the US, it is schedules that are arranged around mealtimes. Food is pleasurable, but in its quality not in its quantity. Each dish is eaten slowly, one step at a time, fully appreciated.
To return to our comparison of restaurant cultures, this concept of enjoying good food in community extends to how the French treat dining out, and thus how the waiters act. With the French cultural lunettes before our eyes, we can understand how it would be rude for the waiter to frequently interrupt a table to ask if they “need” anything. Rather, they hang back, waiting to be called upon, as the guests savor the meal and the company.
There is so much less haste in the rhythm of French society. One aspect of life in France that drove me crazy at first was the business hours of shops. In America, if there is business to be had, then the store will be open. Need a bag of chips or a gallon of milk at 10:30 pm on a Tuesday? Walmart has got you covered. Need a chicken biscuit or gigantic Starbucks drink on your way to work at 6 am? The drive-thrus are waiting. By contrast, in France, most grocery stores close at 7 pm, with a few closing at 9 pm. All the shops close at 5 pm, while the boulangeries and cafés close between 6 and 8 pm. In fact, the only time I would ever eat fast food in Caen was when I had nothing in my fridge and forgot to eat dinner until after the shops closed. The only drive-thru I ever saw was at the Burger King in Caen and it was empty most days. Usually, the only places with a “to go” option were fast food, though my favorite Vietnamese restaurants also had that option.
Another manifestation of their mindset is in the quality of the food itself. People take the time to eat good food. Nothing fancy, just fresh and fairly balanced. I miss purchasing fresh bread from the boulangeries, free of whatever chemicals we put in our pre-sliced packaged bread (some of which are illegal in Europe). I miss buying my fruits and vegetables from the weekend open-air markets. I miss finding locally produced cheese, milk, and anything else I needed at the grocery store. In general, everything is fresher and less processed. In a phrase: quality, even at the expense of “convenience.”
Some of the communal aspects of food in France are changing over time. I remember learning in high school that there used to be a good two-hour chunk in the middle of the day during which kids would go home from school, parents would go home from work, and everyone would eat lunch together. In one conversation with my host lady, she explained that people don’t spend as much time cooking anymore. The influences of the work-obsessed modern age are changing the French routine. Now, the lengthy, traditional meals are reserved for Sunday dinner or special occasions. When she compares her childhood to her grandchildren’s, unhealthy processed foods are infiltrating France at a rapid rate. Such foods are cheaper and more convenient. After all, when productivity becomes the priority, things like the enjoyment of cuisine and community become secondary.
What is the future of French dining culture, then? The French are pretty stubborn in their ways. Only time will tell. What I know for certain is that I will change my own routine based on the mindset I absorbed while living among them.
During my first few months, the inefficiency and inconvenience of French life aggravated me. Indeed, I still had moments of irritation regarding grocery store hours due to my night owl tendencies. During my first weekend back in Nashville, I ran an errand to Walmart at 10 pm on a Sunday. When I mentioned how convenient that was to a friend back in France, he asked me if the convenience was a good thing.
His simple question made the collected impressions from my study abroad fall into place in my head. Growing up in the States, I’d come to believe that making life more productive and convenient was axiomatically a good thing. France’s social rhythm questioned this assumption. It forced me to face how enriching it can be to take the slower, more roundabout way of completing a task. I learned to appreciate the act of dining as an activity in and of itself, rather than a necessary but hurried pause between “productive” activities. I grew an appreciation for fresh, unprocessed meals, prepared and shared with friends, built into daily life.
Of course American restaurants would shock me my first week back after nearly a year abroad. However, I intend to retain that sense of dislocation, of uneasiness regarding the culture here. From now on, my relationship with food and with the pace of life will become a bit more français.