(Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living

by Mark Greenside

  LeRoy looks at me and I shrug.

  I ask the lady next to me, “Qui est ce là?”

  She shrugs. I don’t know if this means she doesn’t know who he is, or what I asked. I could ask her again, but I’ve already stepped on her toes and told her I’m in love with a pig. It’s probably best to leave her alone. I look past her, to the man at the front of the room, and watch as he lowers the mic like a professional.

  “Bonjour,” he says.

  We all say, “Bonjour,” back, like some sort of call and response.

  He begins to speak in a voice like Johnny Cash—basso profundo, French—the kind of voice that no matter what is said sounds godlike, end-of-the-world, the-Four-Horsemen-are-coming, serious. He says a few pleasantries about the food and his tablemates, gets a few laughs, and gets serious again. It takes me a while to realize he is reciting a poem. A long poem—ten minutes’ worth—from memory. When he finishes, he waves, says, “Merci,” and goes back to his seat. Everyone, especially LeRoy and I, applaud.

  He’s followed by a woman who looks like Joan Rivers, frosted face, hair, and skin, and is just as funny—at least to the French. She’s cracking jokes and telling stories, making fun of “le Président” and “le pape.” She returns to her chair to much applause.

  As soon as she sits down, a couple in matching plaid shirts bounce up and practically skip to the front of the room. They look at each other, at us, each other again, nod their heads in unison, say, “un, deux, trois,” and sing in beautiful two-part harmony. There’s harmony all around us, as the lady next to me fills my glass with red, and I fill LeRoy’s, and he fills the fellow’s next to him, up and down the table, and we all applaud when they’re done.

  It’s like “France Has Talent” or “French Idol,” except every-

  one here is a winner.

  People get up and sing, dance, play instruments—harmonica, accordion, spoons—tell jokes and stories and recite poems and speeches. I know from Tatjana and Marie and other French friends who are teachers that French students are required to memorize speeches, poems, and sections of literature and to recite them in class. They still take Latin, elocution, and rhetoric. To become a teacher, it is necessary to pass written subject matter exams as well as orals: tough, long, grueling orals, not something perfunctory like in the U.S. The result is people enjoy performing—and they’re good at it.

  After twenty or so people have performed, Madame Cochon Grillé returns with huge bowls of red leaf lettuce bathed in vinaigrette. Somehow, the laughter and entertainment have made us hungry and thirsty. The salad is ravaged, more wine is consumed, and the people are getting happier and happier, though LeRoy and I are beginning to slump.

  Periodically, as if possessed or cattle-prodded, another person stands, goes to the mic and sings or speaks or recites. Each person is greeted warmly, and everyone, no matter his or her talent, gets an applause. It’s like an AA meeting. Thank you, Jacques, for performing. Hello, my name is Pierre, and I’m going to sing for you.

  “Qui est cette groupe?” What is this group, I ask the lady next to me, pointing at both rows of tables, thinking they must be from the same church or village. “La même ville ou église?”

  “Non.”

  “Qua,” a word I made up on my own.

  “Nous sommes touristes.”

  “Touristes?”

  “Oui.”

  “Ne connie pas cette personnes?”

  “Non.”

  I’m amazed. These folks are acting like family—like the Le Blanc family picnic—and they’ve never met before this trip. The only tours I’ve been on in the U.S., people huddle next to the people they know and ridicule the others.

  To be sure, I ask, “C’est le première fois vous êtes ensemble?” This is the first time you’ve been together?

  “Oui.”

  That’s bonding for you. They must have met several days ago in Belgium or Strasbourg, Metz or Nice, and quickly became a group. I know families in the U.S. who aren’t this close.

  “Vous êtes habiton où?” Where are you from?

  “Quiberon.”

  “Quiberon? En Bretagne?” I ask this because Donna and I were once invited to a wedding in Montauban. I brought a suit, tie, dress shoes, and a gift from California. Donna brought a dress, jewelry, four pairs of shoes, and a gift. All summer she asked, “Are you sure you know where it is?” Twice, I showed her on the map. “It’s a tiny village near Rennes. Two hours away. No problem.” It wasn’t until Donna gave the invitation to Gilles, who studied it exceedingly closely and discerned a thin, very lightly drawn squiggly line that I thought was a smudge or a decoration with the tiny word “Tarn” written next to it. Tarn, it seems, is a river in the south of France, and that Montauban was a long, nine-hour drive away. Since we were returning to California the day after the wedding, we missed it. So I repeat, “Quiberon ici, en Bretagne?”

  “Oui. Bien sûr. Nous nous sommes tous rencontrés ce matin.”

  All of these people just met this morning. They are on a one-day activity—eating—and they’re returning home tonight.

  “Et les autres?” I point to the people from the second bus, sitting across from us.

  “Morlaix.” She says it as if they’re a different species, the same way Manhattanites refer to Brooklyners. “C’est pareil.”

  They also just met this morning. Not only have they bonded as Quiberonnais and Morlaisiens, but in the time they’ve been together, about an hour and a half, they’ve all bonded as Bretons. Except for a two-week tour to Japan, every tour I’ve been on, I’ve come away despising and loathing the other tourists. At Williamsburg, I got into a nasty argument with the tour guide and other tourists over slavery and just how lucky the house slaves actually were. These people, though, are really enjoying themselves and one another. And I am, too. It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable day, but I’m ready to say, “Bonne journée,” and “Bonnes vacances.” It’s three thirty, and I’m beat. “How about it?” I say to LeRoy.

  That’s when Madame Cochon Grillé begins serving cheese. LeRoy and I look at each other like, is she kidding? Even some of the more sportif-looking French people wince. The ensemble is becoming quieter and slower.

  A woman stands, walks to the microphone, and sings a beautiful song in a language not English or French. The lady next to me whispers, “Breton.”

  I turn to tell LeRoy, who’s busy trying to tell the fellow next to him five glasses of wine is enough. “Oui, oui,” the fellow says, and fills LeRoy’s glass to the brim.

  The lady next to me stands and begins talking. I don’t understand anything until I hear “Américains,” and see people nod to LeRoy and me and make gestures of welcome—at least, I think they are gestures of welcome. When she finishes, everyone appears to be waiting. For what? For us! They expect us to do, say, or sing something. LeRoy does a great Curly and I do Moe, but without Larry, it just isn’t worth it. We confer, and the only song we can remember is “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It’s either that or the Gettysburg Address. Luckily, Madame arrives with dessert and coffee, and we demur—why ruin a good meal with us!

  Dessert is consumed quickly, as if the buses are going to leave, or enough is finally enough, and it’s time to go while it’s still possible for most of us to walk.

  By five o’clock we’re finished—in every sense of the word. LeRoy and I walk along with everyone else back to the buses and wave goodbye, calling out, “Bon voyage,” “Bonne chance,” “Bonne vacances,” “Bon mercredi,” “Bonne journée,” “Bonne santé,” and “Bonne nuit.” Then we wobble back to the car. The good news is we’re less than thirty minutes from the house. I open the car door. Monsieur Cochon Grillé, who’s been largely invisible since carving the pig and showing his medallions, comes out to shake our hands.

  “Avez-vous bien manger?” he bellows. Are you full?

  “Oui, oui,” LeRoy and I nod.

  “Bon temps?” he inquires. Have a good time?

  “Oui, oui.
”

  “Bon.” Then he wraps an arm like a moose leg around each of our shoulders and steers us back toward the restaurant.

  LeRoy looks at me. I look at him. “I don’t know,” I say, “maybe we’re supposed to tip.” LeRoy shrugs, which actually isn’t easy with two hundred pounds of meat on his shoulder. We do what we can, which is nothing, so we follow. Monsieur leads us back to the bar, and announces, “Un digestif,” as he plops three glasses on the counter.

  Holy Christ! Any more alcohol and I’ll be antifreeze. LeRoy will be embalmed. That said, we each down two shots of something, and my stomach feels better. I can’t see straight, but my digestif system is très bon—and, as with the apéritifs, Monsieur le propriétaire refuses to allow us to pay.

  Finally, through some miracle or divine intervention, we get home at six thirty. By 6:35, LeRoy is asleep in the attic and I’m dozing off in my bedroom. Six hours of eating is what French people consider a day in the country. No wonder they spend a greater percentage of their income on food and drink than any other people on Earth. In France, food is the national pastime: it’s religion, art, sport, science, entertainment, security blanket, comfort, and pleasure combined.

  In the U.S, I know what I eat, and I eat what I want, and I’m satisfied. In France, Brittany, Finistère, where I don’t want to displease, disappoint, annoy, or offend any more than I do, I eat what’s given to me, and the results are often startling. After eating langoustines, lotte, and grilled pig, some other foods go down surprisingly easy.

  A Mollusk

  I’m visiting my friends Bob and Loni at their home on the Île-aux-Moines, the French version of the Hamptons or Cape Cod. We’re taking a short hike around the island, on our way to a picnic, though we have no food with us, only two bottles of wine and a baguette.

  We’re on the coastal path, and I’m marveling at the three-story stone houses, roses, hydrangeas, and geraniums blooming everywhere, ferns growing next to palms next to evergreens next to fruit trees, and the spectacular, changing-with-the-light, lapis lazuli, star sapphire bay. It’s gorgeous, idyllic, perfect for a picnic—if we had any food.

  That’s what I’m thinking when we stop at a shack, and a weather-beaten, batten-down-the-hatches fisherman-type guy, complete with rubber hip boots and veiny red nose, steps out of a tank of water and greets us with a hearty, “Bonjour, bonjour,” as if he’s expecting us.

  I look at Bob, who sings, “Bon-jour,” right back, shakes the guy’s hand, and gives him the two bottles of wine. I don’t get it. This isn’t a restaurant or café, and the guy doesn’t look like a sommelier, but for some reason, or no reason, or all reasons, he has a corkscrew in his pocket—maybe all French men do, and I’m just discovering it—and he opens both bottles of wine. For another reason I don’t understand, he takes four glasses from a shelf that’s holding at least a dozen more, places them on a rough plank of wood perched across two sawhorses, and fills each glass to the brim.

  This must be some strange Île-aux-Moines ritual, I figure, and I’m being welcomed and initiated. I’m sipping the wine, waiting for who knows what, watching an old, wooden, two-masted shallop with rust-orange sails tack across the bay. I turn to show Bob the boat, and I see behind him, walking slowly toward us, Monsieur le Fisherman, arms outstretched, holding a large, round, dripping wicker basket filled with . . . OYSTERS!

  Oh, no! He’s the oyster man! This is the guy Bob and Loni have been talking about—and we’re going to eat oysters for lunch. I’m going to eat oysters for lunch. Raw oysters, not Rockefeller. That’s what that tank is: an oyster bed. This is our picnic! He puts the basket down and pulls a huge rubber glove over his left hand, quickly cuts open a dozen oysters, and serves them to us on a wooden platter.

  Bob and Loni smile and glow as they down one, then another, and smile and glow even more. The happier they are, the happier the oyster guy is. I’m the only one who’s glum. I know oysters are a treat, a delicacy, supposedly an aphrodisiac—which I don’t need, since Donna is in California, and I’m alone. But I also know they are raw and alive. I’ve eaten sushi and sashimi—thanks to Donna—but those are fish, not mollusks, and they’re dead.

  I’m debating: on the one hand, I didn’t want to eat langoustine, and now I love them. The same is true of sushi, sashimi, roast pig, and lotte. On the other hand, I still won’t touch gizzard, brains, tongue, frog, horse, blood sausage, andouille, or his cousin, tripe . . .

  Bob and Loni and the oyster guy are waiting. I’d wait, too—forever if I could, but it’s clear I can’t. I squeeze half a lemon on the smallest oyster to cover the taste and see if it moves. It doesn’t. Bob and Loni slurp down their third and fourth. The oyster guy downs two of his own. I pick up the half shell—it still looks like phlegm to me—put it to my lips, tip my head back, and pour it down my throat, hoping it goes all the way to the end without stopping.

  Bob and Loni and the oyster guy are laughing and waiting. I’m perplexed. I don’t know if I like it or not. The only thing I taste is the ocean. It’s like drinking the sea. I have another and another and another, and I order a dozen more, “Un douzaine, s’il vous plaît,” and the four of us down a half dozen each, along with the baguette and the two bottles of Muscadet-Sèvre-et-Maine-sur-Lie . . . Oh, happy day!

  I’m even happier, when a month later, for my birthday, Donna takes me to Cancale, the oyster capital of France, where we eat sea-dripping oysters for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and scientifically test their aphrodisiacal qualities under numerous imaginative conditions at night.

  I’m still not like Donna, though. She asks questions about what she’s eating, where it came from, and how it was prepared, and I prefer “don’t ask/don’t tell.” As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to be gained by knowing I’m eating fish eyes or cheeks or pig’s toes—and plenty to lose, possibly all over the table. I’ll taste anything now—that’s the good news—as long as I don’t know what it is. For culinary cowards like me, the unexamined meal is best.

  10 Things I’ve Learned about Eating in France

  1. Dégustation means “tasting,” not “disgusting”; poisson means “fish,” not “poison”; terroir means a product of the land—like “turf” in surf and turf—not “terror”; a person with a napkin tucked under his chin is a gourmand, not the pretentious, gluttonous slob I think he is in the U.S.

  2. Cutting cheese: I used to cut cheese any which way until one night at Jean and Sharon’s house I cut the tip of a Bleu d’Auvergne, and Jean went nuts. “Marc, Marc you cannot cut the cheese like that.” Jean explained there are rules for cheese cutting—as there are for everything else: if the cheese is round, cut a triangular wedge, if it’s square or rectangular, slice from the sides, and if it’s a triangular cheese—like the Bleu d’Auvergne—cut from either of the two sides, and never, ever from the tip, where, according to Jean, the best of the Bleu resides, though it looks blue throughout to me. It doesn’t matter how big a piece you cut—as long as there is plenty left for others—or how tiny, as long as you taste it. Cheese is a basic food group in France. It’s important to get this right.

  3. Coffee is another major food group in France, meaning there are more rules to follow, which in this case, I don’t. It’s like the furniture in my house: I’m willing to change lots of things about myself when I’m in France, but not my aesthetics, and not the way I drink coffee. For reasons I’ll never understand, French people drink café au lait or café crème only with breakfast. After some unspecified hour in the morning, it becomes a moral and culinary lapse to have milk or cream with coffee. It’s like eating cottage cheese with ketchup, it’s wrong—which is how I feel three or four times a day when I add milk: like a recidivist Philistine reprobate.

  4. Eating the mussel: Monsieur P teaches me to eat mussels like a local. Nonlocals eat with a fork. Locals use the two halves of the mussel shell like chopsticks. Monsieur holds the half shells with the fingers of one hand, like pincers, and the mussel he’s going to eat in the other. He p
ries the mussel open with a shell, plucks the meat out, places it in his mouth, and chews. Simple, easy, convenient, and clean—if you’re Monsieur. Laundry and bath time, if you’re me. I now eat mussels using the shell if the meat is large and easy to extract, and using a fork if it’s not, marking me as the semilocal I am.

  5. Food from every major culture and country in the world is available in France—but Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Lille are the only urban areas with more than one million people. I have to remember that when I arrive in a village and want enchiladas verdes or pad thai, and if I want eggs for breakfast, or cereal, or yogurt, fresh fruit, smoked salmon, toast, or oatmeal—or things most French people consider disgusting, like peanut butter, hot sauce, or sweet butter (which Jean and Bruno refuse to eat, calling it “hospital butter”)—I have to eat at home or go to a high-end Anglicized hotel. Otherwise, breakfast is what it always is: half a baguette, a croissant or two, maybe a brioche or pain au chocolat (French people are nuts for chocolate in the morning), a couple of choices of jam, probably strawberry and apricot, lots of salted butter, maybe a small glass of OJ, and either a single cup or a two-cup pot of coffee with steamed milk that will cost between ten and fifteen dollars per person—for bread and coffee!

  6. Never eat anything called Américain. I once ordered an “Américain” sandwich. It was a foot-long hunk of baguette, sliced and smattered with a slab of butter on each side, filled with a single slice of ham, another of gruyere cheese, and half a hard-boiled egg, all buried under lettuce, tomato, mustard, and mayonnaise, topped off with a heaping scoopful of fries. One bite and I was transported back to two-year-old land or forward to Alzheimer’s—with food all over my face, hair, and clothing.