Day four of French Week!

Today's post will be another long one, but we only have a week, and there are very many good things left to say about France, so I hope you will bear with me.

Take a look at these two school lunch menus, both for the week of March 24-28, 2003. The menu on the left [full version] is from a school in the town of Montigny le Bretonneux, just southwest of Paris; the menu on the right [full version] comes from a school in Pittsford, New York.

For the American menu, children are allowed to choose three additional items from the following list: milk, chocolate milk, salad, 'hot vegetable', fresh fruit, canned fruit in syrup, crackers. They can also purchase a dessert.

I chose these school menus at random from a large pool - you can run the searches yourself and see that they are representative. A Google query on restauration scolaire menu will get you a long list of French and Belgian school menus.

Note that not only do the French students eat more interesting meals than the American kids, but they get a different message from mealtime, too. You get the sense that a French school lunch is considered part of the child's education. Students learn that there are many kinds of foods and many kinds of main courses. They notice that meals have a structure, and consist of an appetizer, main dish, vegetable, cheese, and dessert. And most importantly, kids (who are not dumb) see that thought and care has gone into designing their school menu, and that what they eat at school is considered important by the school administrators.

Contrast this with the American school, where the kids are fed a monotonous diet of pizza, burgers, chicken parts and meat. The school this menu was taken from actually has weekly Domino's pizza day. Although children are ostensibly allowed to pick healthy foods as side dishes, anyone who's been through public school in the States knows that the 'fresh fruit' and 'garden salads' are unappetizing and unpalatable.

Finally, notice how hard it is to eat a healthy diet at the American school. You would be relegated to a ghetto of garden salads, 'soups of the day', and whatever nutritious innards you could pull out of the breaded main dish. The message American kids get is that healthy food is second-rate and tastes bad, that they should eat lots of meat, cheese and potatoes, and that eating fast food every day is a normal diet.

There is no suggestion (like in the French schools) that a palate is something that must be nurtured and formed over time. Instead, kids are taught to favor sweet, fatty, salty foods and treat eating as just another source of entertainment.

School administrators (along with many parents) will argue that they have no choice in what they can offer, because kids just won't eat healthy food. But that is Lord of the Flies logic. If you applied it in the classroom, you would be forced to teach English from comic books and math not at all. In fact, some schools do take this line of thinking it to its logical conclusion, and allow fast food franchises to take over their lunch programs. Many more set up vending machines that give kids unrestricted access to candy, soda, and snacks.

The dirty fact about American school lunches is that they are a dumping ground for surplus and substandard beef, chicken and dairy products. Many of these foods cannot be served fresh because they would be too dangerous to eat. This is especially true for ground meat, which is at times so contaminated with bacteria that it would not be legal to sell it in a supermarket. A couple of hundred years ago, Louis Pasteur (a Frenchman, of course) discovered that you can kill bacteria in many foods by heating them to an elevated temperature for a certain period of time. Pasteur's discovery was revolutionary. Pasteurized foods (like milk, honey, cider or wine) could be stored longer without going off. And of course pasteurization can render dubious foods safe. But the legacy of Pasteur's invention, in this country, has been perverted. Instead of improving the quality of our food supply, we've used techniques like pasteurization and antibiotic prophylaxis to make it possible to create food on an industrial scale, artificially fighting back the disease and contamination that would otherwise make modern factory farming impossible.

The process shows no signs of slowing, either. The current push for irradiating meat (under the euphemism of 'cold pasteurization') is an attempt by the beef industry to make meat safer not by improving hygiene at the slaughterhouse, but by rendering contaminated meat harmless. Presumably, it doesn't matter whether meat in school lunches has been in contact with cowshit, as long as it is no longer infectious.

At the same time, we take great pains to ban certain natural foods like raw milk cheeses, on the dubious grounds that they could carry pathogens.

As a culture, we Americans tend to fixate on certain exotic dangers (unpasteurized cheese will kill our children!) while completely ignoring real and pervasive dangers (there's shit in our meat; our schools are feeding children swill). And we have a strangely Calvinist attitude to our food: healthy eating has to be dour, and unpleasant, an almost unattainable ideal. Sin surrounds us, and often we fall.

The French attitude seems to be much healthier. Food is one of life's many pleasures, there is an elaborate (of course) intellectual superstructure to its proper preparation and enjoyment, and French children are introduced to the intricacies of good eating from an early age. And as they grow to adulthood, they find themselves in a country where one is expected to eat well, and where there are many opportunities to do so.

I had this difference in sophistication vividly demonstrated some years ago, when I was a student in Paris. I had been hired to babysit a five-year-old boy twice a week, in the hopes of teaching him a little English. One evening, as I was preparing a snack, I held up a piece of cheese.

"Nicolas, in English this is called cheese. Can you say that?" "Cheeeese!" "Very good! Cheese. What would you call this in French?" "Reblochon."

Five years old, and he knew his cheeses by name. I checked him on every one in the fridge. He even knew the names of the ones that were unpasteurized.

So tonight we lift our glasses (of Orangina) to Nicolas, and to all the other miniature gourmets who will be eating lunch in a French school tomorrow.

Undocumented assertions in this post are all abundantly documented in Eric Schlosser's excellent Fast Food Nation.

French week plows on, undaunted! Welcome to day three: Day of the Crêpe.

I write to you tonight fortified by a crêpe supper, rich in Béchamel sauce and an undisclosed (but shocking) quantity of butter, and I would like to share the joy.

Crêpes can sound intimidating if you have never made them, but I want to reassure every reader that a crêpe is the perfect bachelor food - easy to make, hard to ruin. More pliable than a steak or a pancake, a crêpe can also hold a wider variety of fillings, both sweet and savory. Most importantly, it is forgiving of mistakes in making the batter. Forget to add milk? No problem, you just made noodles! Leave out the eggs, and you have a dairy motzah; leave out the flour, and you've made custard. Each alternative is delicious, particularly when you add Béchamel sauce. And even if you forget two ingredients, you have an odds-on chance of making something edible, like scrambled eggs, or a nice glass of hot milk.

Our own crêpes tonight were very conservative: one set with mushrooms, the other with ham. But it is my fervent hope that someone out there has the courage (and the sweet tooth) to try the following crêpe recipe, and report back forthwith:

Crêpes des chartreux

2 cups crêpe batter (see below)
2 tbsp. butter (of course)
1/4 cup sugar
3 meringues
1 shot chartreuse
1 orange peel (for zest, pesticide free)
6 macaroons
1 shot cognac
1 tablespoon peanut oil
powdered sugar

Prepare the crêpe batter and let rest for 2 hours. Set the butter out and allow it to soften. Put the butter in a bowl and fluff it up with a fork. Mix in the sugar. Crumble the meringues into the bowl. Add the chartreuse. Grate some of the orange zest into the bowl and mix. Chop the macaroons into small pieces and add them to the bowl, along with the cognac. Mix well.

With a brush, spread peanut oil on the pan and fry the crêpes. Spread them with the filling and fold them into quarters. Place them on a warmed plate, dust with powdered sugar, and serve immediately.

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That recipe is taken from the Petit Larousse de la Cuisine, an 1800 page pocket book of recipes I purchased when I lived in France some years ago. One of the many, many things to love about that country is that they can publish an 1800 page, two-pound book and call it a pocket cookbook. In all fairness, they managed to shrink the volume down quite a bit, so it is possible to carry the book in your pocket much like it is possible to carry a brick in your pocket.

The Petit Larousse crêpe batter mix is all in metric units, so I am substituting my own personal crêpe recipe, free of charge:

Crêpes à la manière de Idle Words

3 eggs
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
A bunch of whole milk
Pinch o'salt
1/4 cup sugar, for sweet crêpes
1 glass red wine

If you're making sweet crêpes, use white flour instead of whole wheat, and add a quarter cup of sugar to the batter at some point. Mix the eggs and flour together, and then stir in milk until the batter is runnier than you think it should be. You want the consistency of very thin gravy, but without any lumps. Let sit for at least 2 hours at room temperature. Salmonella, shlalmonella.

Drink the red wine.

After two hours have passed, heat up a large heavy frying pan good and hot. Rub the pan with butter or oil at the outset, and after every other crêpe. You want only enough batter to coat the pan surface; pour the batter in the center and spread it evenly by tilting the pan. The crepes should come out very thin and pliable. It's tempting to set the the heat too low - if the crêpe is sticking to the pan, takes a long time to cook, and the edges aren't curling up, the pan is too cold. If the crêpe has black blisters on its belly, or goes up in a smoky fireball as soon as the batter hits the pan, then reduce the heat a little bit.

You can test for doneness by trying to flip the crêpe - waggle the pan rapidly from side to side to separate the crêpe from the bottom. The top should be dry, and there will be steam bubbles lifting the crêpe from underneath. When the underside is done, flip the crêpe by moving the pan down, forward, and up in a big circular motion, as if you were pitching a softball. Now try again, but this time catch the crêpe on the pan. Etc. If it is your first time making crêpes, make a double portion of batter so you can practice a bit. If you are a wuss or have a very thin pan, go ahead and use a spatula.

The other side should fry much faster than the first. When the crêpe is done, stack it onto a plate, and repeat. If you are making crêpes in bachelor mode™, it is permissible to eat the crêpes as soon as they are done. Just spread jam, sugar, salami, cheese, sausage, Grand Marnier, peanut butter, or anything else you like on the crêpe, fold into a triangle, and devour. Repeat until no longer hungry.

Bon appétit!

Tomorrow on French week: the Cheese Wars

It's French week here at Idle Words, where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle salute the country that made them great. Every day for the next seven days, the better half and I will be manning the barricades (right next to the hot topless Liberty chick) for our beleaguered French friends, a daily défense d'honneur. If you're looking for liberty fries, you came to the wrong place.

Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!

We start our seven days of hot francophile action with a list of:

Ten Reasons to Love France

Just a few days ago I took a six hour trip on an Amtrak train from Rutland to New York City, a distance of about 200 miles. A one-way ticket on this speed monster costs $50. In France, you can get on a train at the Gare de Lyon in Paris at noon and be in Marseille (600 miles south) by four in the afternoon. Not only is the French train four times faster, but it's also quiet. A TGV is a smoother ride than a Mercedes.

Hungry? Amtrak offers you the turkey Reuben, which consists of sliced turkey on a hamburger bun, sealed in a plastic bag and microwaved, with a packet of salad dressing (fat free!) on the side. This will set you back nine dollars.
In France, you can get yourself a fresh ham and butter sandwich, on a real baguette, for half that amount. And it's possible to carry the meal back to your seat without falling into anyone's lap.

9. The Statue of Liberty

A 100th birthday gift from France to the United States, and probably one of the nicest presents one country has ever given another (compare the Soviet Union's generous gift to Warsaw). Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue, Alexandre Eiffel figured out how to support its weight. The Americans couldn't scrape up the money to build the pedestal, their part of the deal, until (Hungarian-born) Joseph Pulitzer pitched in. The Statue of Liberty is one of those things that is a miracle ever got built, when you really think about it. And it's there because tens of thousands of ordinary French people passed the hat.

8. Treating exiles right

Oh boy, where do you even start? From the nineteenth century onwards, if you were a creative type who needed to take sudden leave of his country (or if you just decided to hit the road on your own), France was the place to go. The country amassed a pretty impressive A-list: Nabokov, Zamyatin, Ionesco, Beckett, Stravinsky, Van Gogh, and Picasso all lived in France at one time or other. Whole cultures in exile flourished in Paris (notably for the countries of the Soviet Bloc), and smuggled their wares back to the home countries that wouldn't have them. The French even suffered D.H. Lawrence. That is some serious hospitality.

7. Comic Strips for grown-ups

The Japanese have manga, and the French have the bande dessinée. For someone who grew up on Marvel comics and MAD magazine, it may be hard to take comic books seriously as an art form, but a visit to any French bookstore will quickly change your mind. In France, comics are taken seriously, and they are wonderful. The books are large, in hardcover, and run the gamut from kids' books to satire to erotica to full-on graphic novels.

6. Real family values

If you're a new dad in France, you get two weeks paid leave to spend with your new kid, whether adopted or natural-born. A new mom gets four months of paid maternity leave, with a guarantee that she will not lose her job to someone else. For a third child, maternity leave goes up to six months, still paid. When the kids are older, working parents can rely on excellent and affordable day care, or they can get government assistance in hiring a nanny. Single moms can get help finding an affordable place to live. When it's finally time to send the child to school, parents can count on the kid getting an actual education, in a clean and safe classroom, with teachers who are both well trained and well paid.

5. The food

What more can I say?

4. Real vacations for everyone

Five weeks! Five weeks of paid vacation, for everybody, and it's the law. Imagine cops coming to arrest your boss because you didn't get five weeks of paid vacation. At my own job, where the benefits are considered very good, it's not even possible to accumulate five weeks of 'personal time' because anything over four weeks gets transferred to a category called 'Sick Leave Reserve'. After all, what is illness, if not a vacation from health?

3. World's best Euroschlock

When it comes to effusive displays of jaw-dropping spectacular excess, no one holds a candle to the French. There is a reason why the word 'camp' doesn't translate. Whether you're looking for giant inflatable multiracial robots (World Cup 1998), an entire artificial universe of quadrilinear topiary, Habitrail architecture on a human scale, or a giant windowless mechanized library, chances are you can find an enormous, state-funded project in France that fits the bill.

2. They saved our ass

If it weren't for French money, French diplomacy, and French military assistance, we would still be paying taxes to London. Check back later in French week for all the Revolutionary details.

1. Living proof that the "Clash of Civilizations" is bullshit

Ten years ago, you could get a lot of mileage out of the argument that France was facing a crisis of identity. One one side were the millions of disaffected Arab immigrants in the project surrounding Paris and other large cities. On the other was an increasingly polarized white right wing, centered on the Front National. Algerian terrorists were bombing the Paris metro, and had almost succeeded in crashing a hijacked airliner into the Eiffel tower.

But Le Pen got his bubble pricked, both in the dramatic Presidential election, and in the local elections some weeks later, when his candidates saw their share of the vote recede in their traditional strongholds. The Algerian terrorists were brought under control - no more bombs in the metro. The tensions in the banlieue simmer on, but slowly enough, France is becoming a multicultural and democratic society where Arabs and Europeans, both secular and devout, are assimilating to each other. And they're creating a common identity, as French citizens, that leaves room for them all. That's pretty damned inspiring.

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Tomorrow on French week: World War II, the real story.