Food

If you can come to France just for the food, you should. If you need to quit your job and remortgage your house so you can try this food, do it. I think that’s sound advice. Who knew that a sliver of cheese could be packed with so much flavor? That when paired with a simple $4 bottle of wine your taste buds would suddenly be overwhelmed with different flavours- mushroomy, buttery, nutty and delicious.

We bought our cheese at the market in Sarlat where the lady told us it came from summer cow’s milk (always the best), is true gruyere because it has no holes, was one and a half years old, and never, ever put it in the fridge(she mentioned this 3 times, sensing our stubborn North American ways. Did you know they don’t refrigerate eggs here either?) She talked about cheese like it was a new born baby, swaddling it gently in brown paper and charging us $25 euros (yes, friends, that would be $35). Incidentally, cheese at the local Hyper Champion is about one tenth the price and super scrumptious. It also takes up both sides of an entire aisle. So if you come here I would recommend limiting your market cheese purchase to one time (but do it once, you’ll have a new found respect for aged milk products).

We bought some sausage that was so powerful it could knock a bland food eater out cold. A couple pieces with that wine and cheese, a fresh baguette that would put Safeway’s to shame (think crusty, chewy, peasanty- each with it’s own shape and personality), throw in some fresh vegetables and you have the world’s most delicious meal. The family we bought our veggies from insisted we buy some garlic, parsley and a gigantic mushroom to go with our potatoes that evening. They told us how to cook them up and we had that for supper. De-lish. Really, so good. We bought the freshest, reddest tomatoes and the strawberries were small, sweet, round little fruits. Just like the ones we grew in our backyard.

So we like the market. And we like the food here. And when we think of how we ate at home we feel embarrassed. The gigantic portions, eaten quickly, not giving us energy but zapping it away. With two main flavors: salty and sweet. There are thousands of flavors here and people see food as a ritual. They take time to prepare it and then to eat it. They know where it came from, they can tell the difference between the seasons of milk their cheese was made in and whether their duck was properly fattened. Here’s something- the super market doesn’t have a potato chip aisle. It has a tiny corner of the shelf with a few small bags of chips, kind of like how Safeway has a few pairs of pantyhose in their personal hygiene aisle- just in case. Just in case. Potato chips. It blows my mind.

One last quick thing. People here are beautiful. They can’t even help it. The men with their high cheek bones and their turtlenecks, the women with their effortless beauty. The women aren’t beautiful because you know they spent two hours straightening their hair and carefully applying their make-up. They are beautiful in that I just rolled out of bed looking like this and yes,I always dress in high leather boots sort of way. It lacks trying to hard, but it exudes pride. I passed myself in a window, wearing pig tails and my coat that turns into a pillow and I thought, hm. Perhaps a little too practical. And maybe that’s what I want to learn from the French. Economy packs of cheese from Costco and wearing converse shoes on a date night out with John might be missing some of the little pleasures in life. The small and beautiful things that really make each day jump, like buying a pretty bowl from a potter or eating lunch in a park. The things that don’t belong in a Superstore. France has been a good teacher!

Angie