F is for Français

La langue Français. Who doesn't love to hear it spoken, its romantic cadences and musicality?

Learning French at school in the UK does not equip you for life in France. There is probably enough in the English curriculum to get you through buying a baguette or ordering a coffee, but to venture into the territory of answering phone calls and negotiating with artisans, you need substantially more language.

Eddie Izzard captures it brilliantly in his video on learning French at school:  

We moved here in part to perfect our French. Before we arrived, mine was reasonable and my husband's was better although he demurred from speaking it when I was around. But we were both in need of practice and improvement.

There are faux friends to avoid. Words like eventuellement, actuellement and normalement which sound like our familiar English ones but mean something quite different. There are tenses which don't add up to the same thing as ours, leading to all sorts of confusion over when exactly did you place the order? or have you placed the order? or are you trying to place the order now?

Then there is the panoply of expressions that make up real French as spoken by the natives. Words such as donc and alors. Phrases like en faite, par contre and the one I hear a lot which I still haven't quite managed to translate, du coup. My method is to bung a selection of these in at random in the hope they lend my French a little more authenticity. The French are too polite to tell me if I have made a gaffe.

At first, my system was to listen to people talking when I was out and about and to pick up one phrase I could take away and practice. I gave this up when a friend and I went to the local health food shop and I came away demonstrating a new expression. "I wouldn't copy his French if I were you," she said. "He speaks very badly and what you have just said is not very nice!" 

Here in Brittany, especially in the centre, there are drifts of British people, many of whom don't appear to speak French. It amazes me how they cope. One man I spoke to, a large Cockney with a fabulous accent, told me "It's easy. The neighbours come round for a few bottles of wine. They speak French, I speak English, we understand each other perfectly!" 

Hats off for bravery, but I think I will continue to try to learn a bit more of this lovely language.

E is for École

Having a child in school here has been a novel experience.

You would expect school to much the same wherever you go, but no, things are very different.

A year ago, we dropped our ten year old son off at the local École Publique, speaking next to no French and knowing no one. I am sure he was nervous but not half as anxious as his father and I, who waited on tenterhooks for the 4.15pm bell.

He came home cock-a-hoop. Firstly, there is no uniform. For a child used to scratchy jumpers, baggy shorts and the interminable changing from one set of kit to another for games, dance, swimming etc, this is freedom indeed. He can even wear ripped jeans.

Secondly, there is no school on a Wednesday. Yes, that's right. He only has to get up and go to school four days a week. Extraordinary. On Wednesday, French children of primary school age indulge in extra curricular activities from sailing to Tai Chi. It might be a day for playdates too, if all the children weren't so booked up with their whirlwind of activities.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly for our son, there is no homework. Apparently, setting written tasks to be done at home discriminates against those children who come from 'deprived' backgrounds. So, to level the playing fields, no one has homework. Terrific.

Add to this the long lunch break with a three course meal (see D is for Dejeuner)
and you can see that school here in France is a totally different proposition from that in the UK.

At least, it is for the time being. Next year he moves up to College where the rules change a bit. Still no uniform but the homework kicks in like a mule I am told.

D is for Déjeuner

Now you may be thinking my theme in this A to Z Challenge is food and drink. Aperitifs, baguette, café and now the subject is déjeuner. It's an understandable mistake to make.

But today I want to talk not about the food aspect of the midday meal in France, but more the idea of it, l'esprit as it were.

A French friend spun a tale about the origins of the long lunch in France. He said that after the Revolution, those bourgeoisie who had kept their heads had lost their property and their staff. Never having been acquainted with the inside of a kitchen, they struggled to provide decent meals for themselves and so their erstwhile cooks and kitchen maids sniffed an opportunity and started providing decent home cooked repas for a small consideration.

Whether this is true or not, it illustrates nicely the idea of le déjeuner. For at least an hour, more often one and half to two, a body can relax and enjoy a proper meal. Some do this in the privacy of their own home, others - the ouvrier on the road in his truck, the salesperson far from home, the office clerk with very few friends - can duck into the nearest hostelrie for a menu, a set meal of three or four courses with wine and coffee for a modest sum.
                                     
This long leisurely meal is so enshrined in French culture that all places of work are adapted to it. No one raises an eyebrow that the estate agent is closed when a property hunter drops by. A shopper with money to burn is turned away from the exclusive boutique because, arriving at 1 minute past midday they are too late, fermé. Tant pis if a lucrative sale is lost.

I was finishing an interesting chat with the chap at the bank one day, when I noticed Madame the Directrice was pointedly rolling down the shutters. "Bon Appetit!" she called to me as she slipped through the door at 12 o'clock precisely. I took the hint and left.

Recently, we were in Becherel, a Medieval town crammed with second hand bookshops and tourists. It was lunchtime and we headed to a café off the main square only to be met with a pair of chairs blocking the entrance and a blackboard announcing fermeture. In the dim interior I could make out a party of diners having their lunch - the owner and staff presumably.

As a girl I remember cycling somewhere in France with my father. A hot, dusty day, we pulled into a little town to find everywhere closed up and silent. I thought at the time some disaster had perhaps overtaken the community. I realise now, as I see deserted market places and blinds drawn across the boulanger's windows at precisely the hour you might expect people to be buying food, that this is simply the tradition.

In England, 'when the clock strikes four, everything stops for tea.' In France, from midday until two, we all down tools for le déjeuner. So civilised.


This post is part of the A to Z Challenge. You can find more blogs writing on anything and everything from A to Z at the website: http://www.A-to-Zchallenge.com

C is for Café

Another French institution - le café.

So great is its influence, that it has given its name to millions of small (and sometimes large) establishments across the globe, where one can take a break, have a bite to eat, but above all, drink some coffee.

To a French person, the taking of coffee is not about quenching thirst or getting a caffeine hit. It is the ritual that is important.

Take a tiny, dolly's teacup, pour in a thimble full of hot, strong coffee, add a mountain of sugar (lumps not powder) leaving just enough room for a meditative stirring with a spoon. Then ruminate over it for at least an hour, maybe with friends, or alone with a newspaper.

                                       

The French have remained steadfast in their resistance to the worldwide colonisation of the Italian way of coffee. Everywhere in Asia I have been, it has been possible to buy an acceptable, sometimes really good, latte or cappuccino. In Colombo, every new eatery that opens is a coffee shop selling ever more radical combinations of choco-caramel-mocha-menthe-guacamole-lattes. 

I am sure in the really big cities in France, the coffee shops have been anointed with Starbucksdust too. But, as the French will tell you, France is a big country and there are many, many hectares of coffee drinking land that remain obstinately oblivious to the real purpose of a Gaggia steam pipe.

My husband and I have been on a year long quest for a perfect latte and remain unsatisfied. We have taken to asking for an express (the tiny black coffee illustrated above) and a mug of very hot milk in an effort to achieve the right balance of steamed milk with espresso hit. But it is very hit and miss and costs a fortune. 

For a while I tried the cappuccino route but threw up my hands in horror when presented with an express topped off with chantilly cream. So, so wrong.

So now we drink coffee at home where my ancient espresso machine still gets up enough steam for a perfect latte. And we order hot chocolate in the cafés so we can still sit outside on lambskin covered chairs, watching the world go by and enjoying life as only the French know how.

                                            

Incidentally, the word 'Bistro' comes from the Russian word 'быстро' (Pronounced bweestro) which means 'quickly'. Apparently Russian soldiers grew impatient with Parisian café staff, demanding snappy service and quick food. Thus the Bistro was born leaving the Café undisturbed in its leisurely pace of life. 

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge. You can find more blogs writing on anything and everything from A to Z at the website: http://www.A-to-Zchallenge.com

B is for Baguette

Ah the baguette, that quintessential symbol of all that is French. It is up there alongside the Eiffel Tower, the smelly cheese, garlic and snails. It is an icon.

A French friend told us that 'the Frenchman is wedded to his baguette'. How true.

As a comestible it is inconvenient. It breaks on the way home, creates more crumbs over the kitchen worktop than a very crumbly thing, is impossible to eat with any decorum and goes rock hard after a mere 24 hours.

And yet, everyone buys it. The bent old man returning home to his cat, the crewcut adolescent on his moto, the sprightly schoolteacher in her (ridiculously long) lunch break (see D is for Dejeuner), everyone is seen carrying their baguette. Naked or wrapped in a token hanky of paper, the baguette goes everywhere.

Home decor shops sell chintzy patchwork holders long enough to store your baguette in. On the market you can pick up linen bags designed to carry it home unscathed.

It fascinates me, this dedication to an unwieldy stick of bread. OK, it is the only choice when making garlic bread; it is second to none spread with a bit of Camembert, downed with a slug of vin rose on a riverbank in summer; and it is a serviceable weapon after a day in the open air. But otherwise, its limitations far outweigh its usefulness.

People will furnish you with recipes for bread pudding and panzanella. Horses and Donkeys, apparently, are grateful for a chomp on a day old baguette. Slices of stale baguette spread with tapenade are elegant additions to aperitifs. But really, of all the foodstuffs that proliferate in this wonderful pays gourmet, the baguette is a perverse one to be wedded to.

A is for Apéritif

Getting to know one another is always a bit of a dance. We pat snippets of information about ourselves back and forward, waiting for the kids to come out of school, over the fence with a new neighbour, in the office tea room. Then, when we are fairly certain you might make reasonable friend material, we make a move.

In the old days, say when Jane Austen was writing or Queen Victoria was on the throne, we English had rules to follow that involved visiting cards and invitations to take tea. These days, we are more casual and only need to offer the phrase 'drop by for a coffee' to start the ball rolling to a beautiful friendship.

But in France, the rules are different.  In France, you have aperitifs.

When we first arrived, bright eyed, bushy tailed, dead keen to make friends, we offered tea to everyone we met. Our dear neighbours accepted the offer with amusement and good humour but there was an odd formality about the occasion, a stiffness to the conversation.

As a return match, they invited us for aperitifs. We partook of some fierce firewater with little nibbles on the side. Conversation flowed. When we finally took our leave and stepped gingerly over the flowerbed that separates our two properties, we were, to say the least, a bit squiffy. I think we abandoned dinner that night.

I am no expert on the social mores of the French, but from my perspective I am learning that the hour or so before dinner is the ideal time to chew the fat and cement friendship, especially with the aid of something a little stronger than a British cup of tea.

Vive l'aperitif!

Grumpy Hedgehogs

Is it me, or is it improbably clement at the moment?

Not long ago (October to be precise) I was lamenting the passing of Summer. It is true, I have dreaded being back in a land of winters, especially in an old stone house with archaic heating.

So my heart flutters readily at the sight of violets along the disused railway track; working up a sweat under the sunshine in the bay; hearing the chaffinch on my orchard bough. Can Spring be on its way already?

Yet alarm bells ring as I look for new buds on the hawthorn bushes, notice the catkins beginning to unfurl. The sun is shining, 'tis true and the air has a sweet balm to it, but I remember Weather only too well. Sunny days which start on a hillside ramble and end in sodden, footsore despair. Setting off shopping in a lightweight jacket  only to find I am shivering in the aisles as the clouds darken outside.

Call me a worrier, but tell me, what will happen to all the little hibernating creatures, lured from their winter slumbers by this precocious spell of warm weather? Setting aside the concern that if March brings snow and frosts, they will struggle to survive, their hivernale repose has been rudely interrupted. They will be lacking almost a whole month's sleep and if the human race is anything to go by, sleep deprivation can wreak havoc in so many ways.

Will this balmy early spring mean grumpy hedgehogs in 2014?