Day 238 (Wednesday)

We are still relishing in our superb new view without the tops of the olive trees and after the initial shock of seeing such leafy trees being hacked back, they are now starting to look pretty again. I have no idea why the tree man left all these dangly bits but they are rather lovely.

As you know I am reading Stephen Clarke ‘In the Merde for love’ at the moment and I was tickled pink by his reference to ham and cheese in French cuisine. As I’ve said before wherever we have travelled all over the world, well mostly, there is always ham and cheese, particularly in France. The character in this book has just opened an English teashop in Paris and is talking about where the ingredients in their products come from saying …

…Our curried potato salad was made with the best French mayonnaise. All our other salads came with the least English vinaigrette in Europe. And the ingredients for our toasted sandwiches – cheese, cheese and ham, cheese and tomato, or, if you were feeling especially adventurous, cheese, ham and tomato – had never crossed a national border.

He goes on to talk about the concept of vegetarianism in France. A tourist goes into the tearoom and asks a French waiter what their vegetarian options are; the waiter had never been asked this question before.

‘Being French he’d never even imagined that things like that might exist. But he coped well.

 He pointed up to the menu on the wall and told the guy in slow, clear French

 that there was lots of veggie stuff there – cheese toasties, salads, baked 

potatoes – he just had to take his pick. The tourist gave this a moment’s 

consideration. ‘Mais pourquoi vous ne marquez pas les options vegetariennes

 avec un signe vegetarian?’ (But why don’t you mark vegetarian options with a v

egetarian sign) he asked. ‘Signe vegetarian?’ ‘Oui.’ The guy mimed writing a green V. ‘Ah.’ 

Benoit (the waiter) leaned forward and confided to the guy that we wouldn’t dare mark 

anything veggie because that would scare off the French customers.’ 

This discussion goes on for a few pages with the tourist asking if all the French cheeses were 

vegetarian and this was really doing the waiter’s head in. in the end Paul (the English owner of the 

tearoom) steps in to help the waiter. He says…

‘Look, you speak really good French,’ I told the guy, ‘but there’s no point speaking the language

 if you say things they’ll never understand. They honestly don’t care about vegetarianism. 

They think that anyone who doesn’t orgasm over undercooked beef is a total philistine. 

To them a vegetarian coming to France is like someone who takes a vow of chastity and then 

goes to live in a harem. They think vegetarians are nuts. No pun intended, of course.’…. 

I really thought the guy needed to understand the country he was visiting, otherwise he was

 in danger of starving to death…’but you should mark the vegetarian options on your menu,’ 

he replied. ‘I can’t. It’s against French law,’ I told him, falling back on stereotype.

We have seen evidence of this on menus in some restaurants where chicken dishes are under the 

heading of vegetarian options and also in Picard (France’s upmarket version of Iceland) where chicken

 and seafood are also under vegetarian dishes.

Back to today; as Noe was in school today I had to go to Nice to teach him from 5pm to 7pm. As grateful as I am for the work it’s a bit of a pain having to go out late in the day instead of the morning but I’m not complaining. Despite being a bit tired after a full day ay school he was very productive this evening with only one or two moments of stroppiness. He is being evaluated tomorrow at school on the five food groups; carbohydrates, fats and sugar, protein, dairy products and fruit and veg, what these food groups do for you and which ones he likes/doesn’t like. We did three practice exercises and he did very well so I’m pretty confident that he’ll do well tomorrow.