French Windows

 Potatoes in France come in every variety and for every type of cooking, puréeing, slicing and pan frying, steaming, etc. However, they don’t come in big sizes for baking. If anyone saw me looking longingly at the potato display in Waitrose one day, it was because of the abundance of variations on a ‘bag of baking potatoes’. We have to sift through loose ones to try and find a couple of extra-large ones in France. This is despite having had a  restaurant near us that specialised in baked potatoes! The concept is not unknown but never-the-less takes effort to replicate at home ‘chez nous’.

 The red flower that sprang up in the disturbed soil after the first World War became the symbol of remembrance for British people. The cornflower is the French symbol, because it reminds people of the blue overcoats that French soldiers wore.

 Politeness is important whether you are writing a letter or greeting someone in the street. To just say, ‘Bonjour’ is not enough. One should say, ’Bonjour Monsieur/ Bonjour Madame’. Older people should be addressed as ‘vous’, as should teachers and everyone really until you become good friends with them. One of my students even corrects his children when they use ‘tu’ to speak to him. He replies, ‘Am I one of your friends?’ There are long phrases that ought to be used when writing letters. By contrast, politeness can be used in an ironic way to be impolite. When a young man sitting next to me on the bus requested that I move to let him off with, ‘Excusez-moi, Madame, puis-je vous derange just un petit minute parce-que je veux decendre’,* I thought him an extremely polite young man. When I related this to my daughter her response was that he was probably being rude by his excessively flowery speech! *Excuse me, madam, could I just annoy you for just a second, because I would like to get off.

It must be much easier to be a poet in France than in the UK, when ‘fille’ rhymes with ‘esprit’.

 Why can’t French sinks just have a rubber plug on a chain? Who invented the horrible little contraption with a cartwheel on the end that needs pulling out every week in order to brush away all the black algae that it has encouraged to grow? And what happens to all that smelly, slimy stuff? It gets washed down the sink where it would have happily gone if not for the ‘sophisticated’ trapping device!

When we have taken pizza along to a shared meal, we have been surprised to find that it was cut up and served as an ‘aperitif’ to accompany the drinks before the main dishes. Bizarrely, in Reims there is a pizza shop called ‘Pulpy Pizza’! One of my students explained that ‘pulpeux’ can mean, full of texture and that ‘les lèvres pulpeuses’ are full sensual lips. My daughter said that they are very good pizzas in spite of the name.

 In all of our travels in France I don’t think we have ever seen an outdoor reared ‘herd’, ‘drove’ or ‘sounder’. We live close to Rethel, famous for its ‘boudin blanc’ (a white sausage made with pork, bread, cream, spices and eggs) and further to the west is the Ardennes region, famous in the UK for its pâté, but a pig in clover is seldom seen. Driving though my native East Anglia, we pass many farms where pigs have a muddy field, sunshine and shelters. The same can be said when travelling though Wiltshire and the West Country. Sad to say 95% of French pigs are intensively reared indoors and because of their close confinement, routinely treated with antibiotics. We were very happy to find ‘sanglier’ on sale in Lidl’s and Aldi and so treat ourselves to wild boar which is amazingly different in taste and colour to pale pink pork slices.

Pillows are almost certain to be rectangular in the UK but are by tradition square in France. Having transported beds, bedlinen and pillows with us to France, this has caused a bit of a problem when needing new pillowcases. Some supermarkets sell a limited range of rectangular ones, but they are not easily available. Buying a matching set of new bed linen is a problem because the pillowcases that match are most likely to be square. “Je cherche une taie d’oreiller rectangulaire”, might be of use to you.

 Ever since the start of the Baccalaureate in 1809, French children have learnt Philosophy. They have to be able to discuss a topic such as, ‘Can one ever be certain of being right?’. Every word must be considered, the pro’s and the con’s set forth and famous philosophers must be quoted. This is to teach French children to be able to analyse and to think through issues, so as to come to sensible decisions in a democratic society. A ramification of this means that any meeting can go on for hours as everyone wants to give his/her opinion and to examine all sides of the argument, even if it seems a simple decision needs to be made. French people have been trained to be able to speak 100 words where a British person would use just 10.

 Scenario – You have managed to find the name and address of a good plumber; you have phoned him and arranged a time and a date for him to come. He does not show up. A) You wait until he calls you. B) You phone him and keep phoning him until he comes. Response ‘A’ is what a British person would do. We expect that if someone says he will do your work, he will keep his appointment and you are in his diary. Response B is the French way. Anyone who has read typical stories of people buying old houses in the south of France and the tales of builders who never turn up, has been amused by this. Making a fuss seems to be the only way to get your artisan to put you at the top of his list of priorities. Imagine his position. He has twenty clients. Nineteen, phone and email him continually with their ‘urgent’ work. Client number 20 slips from his mind. One of my students has her own way of getting things done. She will go to the doctor’s or dentist’s at the very end of the day, having made no appointment. The receptionist will say that it is impossible for her to see the professional. My lady says, ‘There is no problem, I can wait, I have my flask of coffee, a sandwich and a book.’ The professional wants to go home at the end of the day, so reluctantly agrees to see her!