French Kids Eat Everything (8 page)

So, like many other things, good food is democratized in France. As a result, there is much less difference between the tastes of different income groups than in the United States. Philippe's family was a perfect example: Janine was (as she put it) from very humble origins. But while she and Jo had both stopped school at sixteen, they could hold their own in any five-star restaurant. So I had to admit that Madame's claim that food education was a social equalizer made sense. Providing proper food to
all
children, and teaching
all
children how to eat properly, is, for the French, an important expression of their national motto of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (the former constrained by the latter, I thought to myself a bit sourly).

This explanation made Madame's adamant attitude—that every child must participate—seem more reasonable. The French approach to food is about much more than nutrition or the satisfaction of physical needs. Rather, learning to eat well is also about learning how to eat well
together
. “Taste training” for French children is really a form of citizenship training, because all children have the chance to be exposed to good food, and good taste, in school. Eating at school is a shared rite of citizenship. If Sophie didn't participate, it would affect her socially (and, later, professionally).

And more than this: Sophie's entire education would be enriched. French children learn to listen to their senses, and their bodies, in interacting with food. Food is a subject of scientific study, but it also has an affective, intimate dimension, as children learn to think about their self-image, and family life, through exploring what they eat at home and at school. The terms used to describe this process, such as “gustatory awakening” (
l'éveil gustatif
), suddenly seemed less pompous. Children, I realized, were not just learning to eat; they were also learning to be curious and thoughtful. And they were not only taught about good nutrition, but also encouraged to develop a sense of critical judgment about food.

This sounded promising. So, in spite of my reservations, I agreed that we would gently, but firmly, insist that Sophie continue going to the
cantine
.

Predictably, Sophie reacted badly during the first weeks of school. The first words out of her mouth every morning, barely awake, were a despairing howl: “Maman, I
don't
want to go to school.” I forced her to go and forced back the tears. After all, she was only in kindergarten. Admittedly, the days were long. But kindergarten is still kindergarten, I thought. How stressful could it be?

It was only later that I began to realize why she had such difficulty. She spoke French, but was definitely
not
French; bilingual but not bicultural. She suffered from a complete lack of
éducation
as a result of her North American upbringing. Even the playground games were different: Sophie had to translate the unwritten rules of “What time is it, Mr. Wolf?” into “1 2 3 Soleil,” and to transform “Duck Duck Goose” into “Le facteur n'est pas passé.” Even hopscotch was different.

So she didn't fit in, and she learned the hard way; or, rather, was taught the hard way. At first, her classmates' favorite playground tactic was one of those innocuously malicious rules that sends a
Lord of the Flies
shiver down parents' spines: “Everyone gets to play except the new kids.” Except that my daughter was the only new kid in the school. So Sophie was very alone for the first month; hence the tears. But I only found out about this much later, in part because of the code of silence in the French schooling system (in which parents are treated as interlopers at best). And, if I am being honest, because I didn't really want to listen. Having dragged my family to France, I was determined that we would be happy, even if it required a lot of pretending.

This led to months of frustration. To disapproving glares from the other parents, Sophie would sob in my arms every day as I left her in the classroom. “I know this is good for you,” I would tell her. “I would never put you in a school that was bad for you.” But silently I wondered whether we were doing the right thing.

One of the most difficult things—for me as well as for Sophie—was the lack of choice about when she could eat during school hours. The primary way in which French parents control their kids' access to food is through strictly scheduling mealtimes. The French do this as a matter of course with children, toddlers, and even babies. Food is not provided on demand. Food is provided when adults decide it should be provided. This is not simply because of some autocratic wish to control when children eat. The French believe that scheduling meals leads to more balanced eating habits and a healthier digestive system. I summed this up with the following rule:

French Food Rule #3:

Parents schedule meals and menus
.

Kids eat what adults eat: no substitutes and no short-order cooking
.

I could see the logic in this. But I didn't think it would work for my kids. And, in fact, this is one of the rules to which both my children had the hardest time adapting. One day, I arrived unexpectedly at Claire's day care just before noon. When my husband had dropped her off that morning, he had forgotten to tell the staff that I would be picking her up early to take her to a doctor's appointment. I opened the door to see Claire, red-faced, standing in the middle of the room. Her mouth was open in a long, drawn-out O shape that meant only one thing. Sure enough, her crying soon picked up where it had left off. She was so angry she didn't even notice me standing in the doorway. All of the furious attention bundled up in her little body was directed at the children who were eating and the people who were feeding them.

Four toddlers were seated primly in low-slung high chairs, aligned in a tidy row. Four staff, one per child, were seated facing them. Each of the women had an apron, a tray, a dish, a spoon, and a smile. They were all steadfastly ignoring Claire.

“She is hungry, but she is still learning to wait her turn,” remarked one woman, while slowly scraping the last bit of puree from a bowl. I bit my tongue, reminding myself that North American frankness was not appreciated here. Controlling my urge to stuff something, anything, into Claire's mouth, I took her into my lap, sat down, and waited.
I'm not leaving until she gets something to eat
, I thought, forgetting all about our doctor's appointment.

As Claire (and I) slowly calmed down, the meal quietly continued. The children were served the traditional four courses—
entrée, plat de résistance, fromage
, and
dessert
. Portions were relatively small. The children had to do their best to finish them and were given lots of time to do so. One by one, the chairs were liberated, and the next four children settled in. Again, an adult sat in front of each child, slowly offering food, smilingly accompanying them right to the end of the meal. Considering that the day care had sixteen kids, this seemed incredibly labor-intensive. But every child left the table full and happy. Even Claire: when it was finally her turn, she sat with the other little children and smiled delightedly as the first mouthfuls of food came her way. She finished every morsel and had a long and delicious nap after our delayed visit to the doctor (who, by the way, was completely understanding about why we were late: “The most important meal of the day!” he said, smiling).

What a contrast with Claire's day care back home, where kids would sit at their tables, open their lunch bags, and eat what they could in ten minutes. Most food was served cold and eaten with fingers and hands, and lots of leftovers came home every night. It was the children's responsibility—even as toddlers—to feed themselves. In fact, the ability to feed oneself is viewed, in North America, as a major step toward independence. Food is also a matter of individual choice and preference. Early on, children are given lots of choices. Most American parenting books suggest that kids get to decide whether, what, and how much to eat. Others go further and suggest that kids should also get to decide when they eat. In practice, most families give a high degree of choice to children. And processed foods enable this, as even fairly young kids can find ready-made food in the pantry, or heat it up in the microwave.

Choice is important for North Americans because it is about one of their most dearly held values: individual autonomy. Even young kids have control at the dinner table, and over the dinner menu. Sophie was already used to this, which is why she found it so difficult to have no choice about when and what to eat. So, unsurprisingly, the lack of choice at the
cantine
also bothered me. I thought that the food itself seemed both tasty and healthy. But I worried about Sophie's refusal to eat it, and I worried about the effects of suppressing her autonomy about something so important.

My husband thought this was funny. “My autonomy isn't too suppressed,” he joked. “After all, I married you even though my mother was totally against it!” This was true, although my mother-in-law had long since reconciled herself to her foreign daughter-in-law (or so I could convince myself on my good days).

“And besides,” he said to me one night, “if the food is delicious, why do you need to have a choice?” This was a good question, and I didn't have a good answer. The best response I could come up with was that choosing made me happy. But the French don't see it that way. And, thinking about it, I could see their point. The
cantine
didn't allow choice, but as a result, kids ended up with a highly varied diet. So French parents didn't mind the fact that the kids didn't have choices about food—they didn't think they were ready to handle it.

But the different views on choice held by Americans and French run deeper than this. A simple example of this is their response to the following question (used by scientists in the largest-ever comparative survey of French and American eating habits):

“
You have the choice between two ice cream parlors. The first offers fifty different flavors. The second offers ten. Which one would you choose?
”

Thousands of people in France and the United States responded to this question. The answers were complete opposites. Nearly 70 percent of French people chose the store with only ten flavors. But 60 percent of Americans preferred the store with fifty flavors.

As a very unscientific test, I asked this question of all of my in-laws. Unsurprisingly, they answered just like an average French person. When I asked
why
they'd answer this way, their response was straightforward: “If someone is only making ten flavors, they'll put more care and attention into making those the very best quality. If they're making fifty, the quality will probably be lower.”

Aha!
I thought. For Americans, having lots of choices is synonymous with quality; it makes us happy. But for the French, choice doesn't mean better quality—in fact, just the opposite. Too much choice is (potentially) a symptom of lower quality, which certainly wouldn't make the French—who have such high standards for everything—very happy.

This new perspective on choice seemed to make sense. And that's exactly what I told Sophie. “They're only making one thing because they want it to be absolutely delicious. And it is!” I'd say firmly but cheerfully, as she balked every morning in front of the menu posted on the school door.

In addition to encouraging her to adapt, I also plotted to help her resist. But it wasn't very successful. Secret snacks in Sophie's pocket promptly resulted in a warning. So we found other strategies. We checked out the menus in advance and discussed them, so that Sophie at least wouldn't be surprised by their appearance. And we started giving her bigger breakfasts to tide her over until lunchtime. We also asked one of the sympathetic servers to keep an eye out for Sophie. Initially suspicious, she soon warmed to her special duty (slipping Sophie extra pieces of bread if a meal looked like it was too much to handle). And we told Sophie to try to find a “buddy” to walk into the
cantine
with, to make lunchtime more bearable.

That is how Marie and her family entered our lives. Sophie and Marie started playing together in the playground after school, and I eventually worked up the courage to introduce myself to her dad, Eric. Our first few conversations were formal and polite, but upon learning that we lived just up the road, he immediately (and unusually, for a Frenchman) invited us over to their house, which turned out to be a small farm (the sort that is the envy of English tourists), with a sandy courtyard surrounded by long, low stone buildings covered with vines. Chickens, ducks, geese, and children roamed in the fields. The vegetable garden stretched down to a pond, around which Marie would ride her pony, Fastoche, after school.

In his day job, Eric was a carpenter. But his real calling was training horses for jumping competitions: the herd currently consisted of several fillies, a few foals, and a rambunctious stallion. Marie's mom, Sandrine, was a nurse. On sick leave, but always smiling, she defiantly refused to wear a wig over the tufty thatch of hair that had stubbornly resisted her cancer treatment. We studiously avoided talking about her illness, and I wondered whether our arrival in the village was a relief: new faces, with no history.

Marie and Sophie would spend hours grooming Fastoche, wandering the fields, and running down to the sea and back. Sophie charmed the entire family with her stories (all entirely made up) about bears and wolves and whales back home. Marie became a regular visitor at our place, which helped give Sandrine some much-needed rest. The girls' visits were a welcome distraction for everyone, and Marie and Sophie soon became best friends.