French Kids Eat Everything (4 page)

Fleeting images of potato chips and hot dogs—standard fare at our day care back home—crossed my mind. By now, I was starting to feel hungry, as North American dinnertime approached (despite the disapproval of my in-laws, we still persisted in eating at the barbarically early hour of 5:30
P.M
.). So I eagerly began sampling, congratulating our hostesses in garbled French. A frown crossed the face of the woman holding the tray. Assuming she hadn't understood me, I repeated myself more slowly. But her frown only deepened. Puzzled, I looked around, only to observe that the other parents were dutifully feeding the treats not to themselves but … to their children.

As elaborate as they were, these weren't adult treats. “Those are for the kids,” my husband whispered, explaining that the vegetable purees—beets, broccoli, and cauliflower—were intended to introduce the children to the day care's menu. They were being served at the traditional time for the French
goûter
, which roughly translates as “snack,” but is a word usually reserved for children eating at this hour. Adults are expected to display restraint and wait until the traditional French dinner hour of 7:30 or 8:00
P.M.
For the French, it was obvious: it was the children's snack time, not time for adults to eat.

Guiltily wiping the crumbs from my fingers, I watched the grinning toddlers—some of them almost toothless—munch their way through snacks that looked fit for a sophisticated cocktail party back home. Their obvious pleasure was met with murmuring approval from the adults.

Meanwhile, food—what kids liked, and what they were learning to like—was the focus of many of the conversations going on around us. As I later found out, this is not at all unusual. French parents spend a lot of time discussing food, and their children's eating habits are no exception. But these discussions are not anxiety ridden, as they so often are back home. Rather, French parents talk about their love of food: swapping recipes, sharing rituals. A small crowd had gathered around one dad, for example, who was explaining how he'd figured out a new way to serve artichoke hearts (a local delicacy) to his kids.

But I couldn't concentrate on the conversations around me. I was anxiously focused on Claire, who had just been invited to try one of the pastries. Aware that she usually greeted vegetables with clenched teeth, I offered her what I thought would be the most appealing color—pink.

I breathed a sigh of relief as she sampled the pastry and grinned, then cringed as she bit into the beet puree and immediately spat it out. Calmly, the tray swiveled away. As it retreated, I heard: “Don't worry, she'll learn to like it.” And, within a couple of weeks, she did.

At the time, I realized that this was the start of my daughter's French education. Only later did I realize it was also the start of mine.

Another surprise at Claire's day care was the tidiness with
which the children ate. This was, in fact, one of the first French children's eating habits I discovered. Seeing sixteen toddlers eating tidily with their cutlery and emerging spotless after their midday meal was a revelation. The children were simply not allowed to play with their food. Little fingers that dipped into bowls were kindly but firmly removed. Failure to cooperate (which was rare) was met with a gentle but firm response: plates would be removed. The message was clear: if you can't eat properly (which means eating tidily, even for toddlers), you won't eat at all. This was a stark contrast with how our older daughter had eaten: when she was a baby, Sophie smeared food on the highchair, the floor, the walls, even her hair. At the time, I was resigned to it; I had assumed that my mother-in-law was simply being unreasonable when she kept insisting that even very young children could eat tidily. After all, my parenting books said that children needed to play with their food; it was my job to get out of their way and to clean up after them. But now that I'd seen a French day care in action, I suddenly realized that my mother-in-law might be right: the ten-minute cleaning job I'd had after my first daughter's every meal might not be necessary.

Intrigued, I decided to follow their lead. At home, we resolved never to let Claire use her fingers (except for obvious finger food) and made sure to teach her to position her utensils and her body in such a way that crumbs or drops fell into, rather than beside, her plate. She always had a napkin (and we always had wipes) at the ready to wipe up spills. We made a point of praising her for eating tidily. It worked. Despite the three-year age difference, Claire still eats more tidily than her older sister.

This made Claire's transition into French life easier, because playing with your food is truly, deeply foreign to the French. “
On ne joue pas avec la nourriture!
” sums it up: “WE (the French) don't play with food.” This phrase is much stronger than its English counterpart. “Don't play with your food” sounds feeble to French ears. Indeed, French parents equate their national identity with respectful food behaviors, and assert this to their children in a way that leaves no room for second thoughts. Children grow up assuming that no one who is
bien éduqué
plays with their food, under any circumstances. And because they never see anyone doing so, they don't think to question it.

Above all else, French children are never taught to view food as a reward. I learned this rule the hard way. Shortly after we arrived in France, I was standing in the checkout line at our local grocery store. I had just given my daughter a cookie, complimenting her on how well behaved she had been in the store. “But you'll spoil her appetite!” the cashier declared loudly.

Trapped in the line, with the evidence of my food crime visible on my daughter's crumb-smeared face, I cringed. Whereas I had seen my daughter behaving well, everyone else had seen
me
behaving badly. “Rewarding your daughter with food is a recipe for obesity,” said an equally stern-faced mother. Nods of agreement came from the other equally stern-faced mothers in the line. I ran to the car, fumed all the way home, and threw all of my daughter's mini-snack food containers in the garbage. (Well, except for the one in my purse, in case of a real emergency.) But, later that night, I fished them out. What would I do without them the next time?

The “Supermarket Incident” (as I labeled it), provoked some serious reflection on my part. From the French point of view, I was committing many food faux pas. I summed these up with a second food rule:

French Food Rule #2:

Avoid emotional eating
.

Food is
not
a pacifier, a distraction, a toy, a bribe, a reward, or a substitute for discipline
.

For the French, this rule is so obvious that it is never even spoken aloud. But for me, this rule was incomprehensible, at least at first. To accept it, I had to abandon the belief (widespread in North America) that it is normal to use food for purposes entirely unrelated to hunger or nutrition.

Food is a pacifier: we give kids something to eat when they're impatient, when they're tired, when they're whining, when we need just a few more minutes on the phone. This is a slippery slope. Kids (my own included) soon learn that whining works. For busy or distracted parents, this can result in an almost Pavlovian reaction: Kid Whines = Food, Fast. This often happens when we're on the run, or running late. But the danger is that it sets up a cycle in which snack food makes up the bulk of what kids eat, leaving them with little appetite for the more nutritious foods served at mealtimes.

For many parents, food is also a welcome distraction: we open the cupboards and look for something to eat when the kids are at a loose ends, or when they're bored, whether or not they're hungry. “Why don't we make some cookies?” I'd say to my daughters. “Or a cake?” At one level, this seems harmless. It can even be educational: teaching volume with measuring cups or learning manual dexterity with chopsticks. But the French feel that random snacking—even dressed up as math lessons—encourages a habit of impulsive eating that is hard to break later on. They love to invite children into the kitchen to cook (and even organize special cooking camps for them), but they make sure to organize this around scheduled mealtimes.

Food, in North America, is also sometimes used as a substitute for discipline. Parents withhold food as a punishment, and use the threat of withholding food to enforce good behavior: “Stop teasing your sister or you'll go to bed without supper!” Conversely, food is a bribe. “Do this and you'll get some ice cream!” Worst of all, food is a reward. One of Sophie's preschool teachers used to reward the children with candy for good behavior. French parents, as a rule, don't punish (or reward) with food, believing that this imbues food with emotional baggage—and that their children will, later on, attempt to deal with (or bury) their emotions through eating. This, in their view (which is supported by US and French research), has many negative consequences—not the least of which is disrupting children's ability to regulate their eating habits, increasing the risk of eating disorders.

Perhaps the deepest difference of all between North American and French parents is their attitude to playing with food. The parenting books I read after Sophie was born encouraged me to allow her to play with her food—to finger it, mouth it, even throw it. I patiently draped large sheets of plastic over and around her highchair, and let her go at it. (This was one of the practices that had my in-laws convinced I was truly an irresponsible parent.)

In fact, lots of toddlers that we knew played with food. Back home, before we moved to France, staff at Sophie's day care used to play the “farmyard” game. Cheerfully opening a box of Cheerios, they would scatter them on the floor and laugh with delight as the toddlers, cackling, pretended to be chickens, leaning over and pecking the cereal directly off the floor. For the French, who won't even
sit
on the floor to eat, this type of behavior is unfathomable. (Anticipating the reactions, I still have yet to tell this story to a single soul in France. It would be hard for them to comprehend that the staff were wonderful caregivers, despite this anecdote.)

Given this history, observing the second French Food Rule was a challenge for me: when we arrived in France, I was using food as a reward, a bribe, a toy, a distraction, and a substitute for discipline. The problem, from the French perspective, was that I was teaching my kids to use food as a response to emotional needs, which have little or no nutritional basis. When bored, our kids turn to food. When they're tired, they eat. When they're upset, they eat. A French child would never think to do this. They're just not programmed that way. French kids, like their parents, rarely eat for what psychologists and nutritionists term “non-nutritive” reasons. Rather, they have a deeply respectful attitude toward food.

This respectful attitude is taught to very young children in France, sometimes in the oddest (at least to my eyes) of places. The first time I went to a
restaurant gastronomique
, just before Philippe and I were married, I was astonished at the reverential atmosphere. Conversations were hushed, and long, appreciative silences followed the arrival of each course as we savored the new tastes and textures. The furnishings reflected the formality of the occasion: rows of heavy silver cutlery posed on plush red velvet tablecloths that looked more like rugs. Respectful silence greeted even the rituals that appeared, to me, to be slightly ludicrous—like the discreet sweeping of bread crumbs from the table with an intimidating-looking silver
ramasse-miettes
(literally, “crumb-picker-upper,” an implement that looks like a tiny vacuum cleaner attachment that the waiter rolled across the table at regular intervals).

The food was superb: course after course of playful, sumptuous, and surprising tastes. But the most surprising thing of all that evening (at least to me) was the toddler in the high chair at the table next to us. He sat patiently as the meal progressed, eyes glazing over until he slumped over and fell fast asleep while his parents continued their meal unperturbed. Unhurried, they finished the dessert course only a few minutes before we did, just before midnight. When it was time to go, their child was woken up without ceremony. Popping his thumb in this mouth, he placidly allowed himself to be carried out of the restaurant without making a sound. No one batted an eye. (My children, who were not there, would have been howling the roof down.)

Looking back, this now seems less surprising. French children are exposed early on to elaborate meals and learn that their parents expect them to treat these occasions with respect. Their respectful attitude carries over into everyday meals, which have a slightly ceremonial feeling. The French never, ever, eat without putting a tablecloth on the table. They even have a special phrase for setting the table:
dresser la table
. (The word
habiller
, which is the normal French word for getting dressed, is also used.)

The image of a table getting “dressed” can still send my girls into fits of giggles. But it is actually an accurate description of how the French approach the dining table. They dignify the table, and themselves, through clothing it with the appropriate item to be worn for the most important moment of the day. Setting the table is a ritual that expresses the ceremonial and aesthetic aspects of French eating, at the core of which is the belief that eating is intensely social and that it rightfully happens around the table. This was as true for my in-laws' farming neighbors as it was for Philippe's university friends: everyone “dressed” the table with (at the minimum) a tablecloth, turning eating into a ritual that was about more than the mere physical consumption of food.