French peasants were poor and often starving. Dishes like ‘Tripes à la mode de Caen’ which use the four stomachs of a cow and a calf’s foot were necessary when food was scarce. However, the continued popularity of these dishes makes feeding our guests on typical regional fayre very difficult. People would wonder if they had outstayed their welcome if we fed them on andouillette de Troyes, a sausage made almost exclusively from pig intestines. The town of Sainte-Ménehould, which is less than an hour away to the south-east is famous for its pig’s trotters in breadcrumbs. Les pieds de cochon have to be cooked for between 36-48 hours to make them edible. Think how much fuel would be saved if no one bothered to eat them! Tripes/abats are words that encompasses all of what we would call offal. It is not uncommon to see not only the liver, kidneys and heart on sale but heads, feet, tongues and brains. I love to make chicken liver pâté. The livers are often sold in vacuum packs alongside packs of gizzards – gèsiers. I bought a packet once and we tried them on the barbeque. My brother will try any food, but he had to give up chewing tough lumps of internal organs made even tougher by barbequing. The closest a British family would come to eating offal is probably steak and kidney pie.
TOILETS.
There is a dislike of having a toilet in the bathroom. I picked this up from one of those TV shows where five ‘Chambre d’Hôte’ owners take turns to stay in each other’s guesthouse and criticise it. One home had what looked like a perfectly acceptable British style bathroom with a toilet in it. Marks were deducted. The reason being that it was not very pleasant to look at a toilet while bathing. Bathrooms do not often contain toilets. Toilets are generally in a separate WC with no sink. If you wish to wash your hands then it’s either, search for the bathroom or use the sink in the kitchen. Many modern, newly built flats have no hand basin next to the toilet.
TIPPING.
There is no obligation to tip in France.
TILL RECEIPTS.
I keep them all. If you have a problem with any item you have bought you will not get anywhere if you don’t have the proof of purchase, even if the product is marked with the store’s name. My stories of good customer service in the UK are met with gasps of astonishment from my students.
TICK THE BOX.
In the UK, we place a tick (✓) next to the names of those present. In France you put a cross. My ticks confused the school where I first worked. Now, the habit of putting a cross for those present has confused me. I don’t know if my students have a cross because they were at my class or if they couldn’t come! What do I put if they are absent?
TERRORISM.
Apparently, there are 7 separate agencies in France that deal with combatting terrorist attacks. That sounds very reassuring, except that I read that they don’t talk to each other or share information!
TELEPHONE BOOKS.
In the UK, if you don’t know where someone lives, you can look them up in a telephone directory. In France the ‘annuaire’ lists the villages of the region in alphabetical order. Firstly, you must know the name of the village where the people live, then the inhabitants are listed. It makes genealogical researches difficult.
TEA.
Tea is seen to be more refined than coffee. French people find it ‘très british’ that we drink our tea with a ‘nuage du lait’ – a cloud of milk. Coffee is generally drunk black, as is tea.
TABLE DECORATION.
A well-dressed table takes as much time to prepare as the meal. On the French equivalent of ‘Come Dine With Me’, ‘Un Dîner Presque Parfait’, contestants are scored on both hospitality, décoration de la table, and their cooking skills.Guests have been treated to such things as tables full of tropical fruit, or a layer of sand to replicate a beach scene. One that was particularly memorable had a fishpond in the middle made by building a low Plasticine perimeter wall, lining the middle space with impermeable material and adding real goldfish! Napkins, flowers, glitter, placemats, many sizes of drinking glasses are often used and there are shops that specialise in selling these items. Candles seem to be ‘de rigueur’. I find it slightly ridiculous that there are sometimes so many things on the table that when the food arrives everything has to be displaced to make room for it!
SWIMMING TRUNKS.
Men cannot go to a French swimming pool wearing swimming shorts. They could have been worn in the street so are considered unhygienic. Only miniscule, tight trunks are allowed. If you don’t have any, there are often vending machines that will dispense a pair for you.
