The Snail Knows Best

One of my cousins gave my mom a book written by a British expat living in Paris named Stephen Clarke. It's called "Talk to the Snail : Ten Commandments for Understanding the French". There's a chapter that talks about France's famous command of the culinary arts and I just had to share a part of that chapter :

"Here is a typical week’s worth of midday meals served at a certain Parisian establishment. Read it and try to guess who was eating this food.

Monday

Beetroot salad with croutons, lamb couscous with semolina and boiled vegetables, sweetened yoghurt, seasonal fruit

Tuesday

Grated carrot salad with lemon-juice dressing, roast pork with mustard sauce, peas, Gruyere cheese, fromage blanc with fruit in syrup

Wednesday

Lettuce and avocado, fried steak and flageolet beans, Saint-Neclaire cheese, fruit cocktail

Thursday

Potato salad with tarragon, turkey curry with green beans, Pyrenean cheese, seasonal fruit

Friday

Carrot, cabbage and sweet corn salad, cod in hollandaise sauce, rice and vegetables, Camembert, chocolate sauce

So who was eating these lunches? The regulars at a menu fixe restaurant? The workers in one of Paris’s museums? The Staff of Air France?

No. It’s a typical weeks worth of (cafeteria) menus in the schools of Paris’s 4th arrondissment.
The French don’t need a celebrity chef to tell their schools how to feed kids. And they are strong believers in educating the taste buds of the young generation. Not just to ensure future customers for French farmers, but also to try and make sure that the kids don’t turn into three-hamburgers-a-day food yobs.

Make no mistake. French kids love to go to fast-food places, and dream of having French fries with every meal. But schools are places where you’re supposed to learn les bonnes manièrs, and that includes the ‘right’ diet. The menus aren’t monastic - there are lots of sugary desserts - but they are obligatory (except for religious variants) and educate the palate just as compulsory long division shapes the mind. There are probably more herbs, spices and types of cheese in a month’s school menus than some American children eat in a lifetime."

All I can say is, "AMEN!" Honestly, I think we put way too much emphasis on "convenience" and not enough on enjoyment. "Stop and smell the roses", they say. I say, "Savor the flavors." How can anyone find comfort in food if you don't take the time and effort to enjoy them?

Bon Apetite!