In the first month of being away from America, St. Edward’s campus, and everything I established to be normal, overall I would say it has been eye-opening. Culturally, socially, and economically I have been challenged, but the thing that stands out the most so far for this semester is the food. I am always thinking about food; previously, I had not mostly because the accessibility of the food is easy and simplistic, it does not require much thought. However, what I have learned throughout this time living in Angers, nearly everything a person does is scheduled around food. Food is their first priority for walking around in the town. Rather, food is more so a priority for everyone living in France. “The word ‘restaurant’ had thus entered the international vocabulary before the thing itself” could the reason why food is everyone’s main objectives for the day (Root 74). Majority of the time I was walking around town was either to go to the grocery store to buy more food, to go to a bakery for a pain au chocolat (which I may add is my favorite pastry here), or to get lunch during the week days when I was in between classes. Another aspect added to this phenomena is the effect the people you’re interacting with at the time has on you and your relationship with the food either being currently consumed or in the process to consume it. The social aspect of food is a important and meaningful to the French people. The length of the meal, focusing on the multiple courses, and the conversations throughout the meal are the reasons why people get together at a restaurant or someone’s home. One day I went to the T4 coffee shop close to the residence to work on homework and once I sat down with my coffee, opened up my laptop, put in my headphones, I noticed a couple people gave me a quick glance as if out of curiosity and to question why I would do such a thing. I did feel odd and out of place, but I knew this coffee shop, out of the multiple other ones throughout the city, was probably the one most “accepting” of focusing my attention on my technological device instead of the person sitting next to me to discuss our weekend adventures over coffee.
My dinner meal at Faust, an upscale restaurant in Paris, consisting of chicken, vegetables, and potatoes.
Liz & MT representing the dress attire for Faust with their dinner meals
My dinner meal consisting of veal, potatoes, and mushroom sauce with red wine and water
My dessert course of chocolate mouse cake
From upscale restaurants in Paris to the most simplistic meals, if they can even be called that, in my room, multiple aspects were similar and also very different. The upscale restaurant meals in Paris were incredible. The people were incredible. The overall experience for both meals presented a sense of class and etiquette unlike the home cooked meals. Both dinners were each at least 3 hours long allowing for the multiple courses to be enjoyed. Looking throughout the menus, nearly all the options for the main dish included multiple food groups to provide more nutritional value for the dinner. Meat, grain, and vegetables were commonly grouped together for the main course while the dessert focused more on dairy, fruits, and sugars/sweets. Through observation as well as tasting the food myself, I noticed few spices or additional condiments were added to the meal since the flavors of the food stood out enough alone. Salt continues to the be the one most people, myself included, reach for the add to the dish because the demand is high for us since we are all used to the high amount of salt in our diets back home. The energy necessary for these two meals proceeded to be a low output for us, the guests of the restaurant, from knowing there will be no stress in the cleaning of the meal such as the dishes or the tables, and not preparing the food ourselves.
MT eating a salad at a local creperie
My savory egg & cheese crepe with a drink
Vince at a Paris cafe with a hot dog and a savory sausage and cheese crepe
A nutella crepe at a cafe
What stands out to me the most when I am at a restaurant or a cafe, I feel the most comfortable and less stressed when I am in a good conversation with the person or people I am with while eating the course. It is a calming and pleasant event that I have taken for granted in the past. “Good food is a sensory and psychological pleasure in its own right. Meals may also add a sense of security, meaning, order, and structure to an person’s day,” thus proving the fact good, well-rounded meals are essential to our daily lives (Amarantos 55). Many admirable aspects of these dinners can be said, but there are downsides. The higher cost of the meal because in any fancy restaurants the prices of the dishes will be more expensive thus more money taken out of your wallet. The time and effort it took to get to the restaurant would also be a factor because the scheduling and planning for getting ready and walking there then finding the way home is a big part of the energy exhausted in eating out. The process of making it to the restaurant is a big deterrent for people, for me honestly some days as well, to eat thus eating food at home happens more often than not.
Home cooked meal of pasta, meat sauce, vegetables, bread, and red wine
Home cooked meal of pasta, ground beef & bacon, sauce, and vegetables
Full home cooked meals do happen in my room, but maybe not as often as I would like possibly resulting from the inconsistent meal times I am my room with food available in my cabinets and fridge. Walking to the grocery store daily and going to the big market every Saturday morning have become the most routine occurrences since I have arrived in Angers. Throughout these weeks I have learned to buy my fruit and vegetables, if I get any, at the Saturday morning farmer’s market because these fruits and vegetables tend to look better, taste better, and are cheaper. I now understand why so many people go to the farmer’s market and stock up on their food while walking around there. When I go to the grocery store, it is typically for some type of packaged food or a baguette. The food I buy myself at the grocery store typically does not have the proper nutritional requirements, but the fruit I buy on Saturdays helps me with maintaining the nutritional balance throughout the rest of the week. For the home cooked meals, the energy put into everything is high, but the benefits are also high considering the pride I would take in the meal in addition to the taste was always great. Pasta has been a staple in my cooking because the ease and wide range of options it has for cooking helps make this a versatile food. When I am at home in my room, I also have observed that I do not eat many desserts after my main dish, but rather more snack foods which is the opposite if I was to eat out at a restaurant. Eating in my room instead also presents the opportunity for others in the residence to stop by easily or cook alongside me for the meal bringing a relaxed social tone for the meal. The downsides for cooking at home are cleaning before and after the meal such as washing the dishes, wiping down the table, and the place where I prepared the food. The cost of the meal may be lower, but when looking at the overall process it could easily cost more than a cafe experience yet it is all relative in the perspective perceived by the individual.
Over the past few decades, more studies have been conducted looking at the social relationships people conduct while eating out at restaurants and in people’s homes as well. Increasing correlations between the social aspects rather than nutritional values have been the focus for people at restaurants in light of “eating out seems to be expanding as a form of entertainment and a means to display taste, status, and distinction,” (Warde 1). People are more interested in what their companion or friend has to say more so than what they are putting in their mouths; I can agree with these studies because it is the shift in culture I immediately noticed once I arrived in France. Conversations revolve around food and can even describe the type of conservation occurring. Theodore Zeldin explains in his book Conversation that “scientific talk was the equivalent of health food; plain talk was the equivalent of fast food,” thus the words we say affect our overall food experience (Zeldin 12). As for nutritional values, just from an observational point of view, home cooked meals appear to present the ability to have more food groups in each meal. The variety of food groups can change and the amount of additives and preservatives can also be much higher because the food I would cook at home majority of the time is pre-packaged and not grown from my own garden. The farmer’s market helps to improve the nutritional values of my meals at home because I am able to see the cooking and know it’s from locals rather than large, national food companies. Because there are days when I have to eat something quickly since I’m in a rush for time, or those days when I do not want to go through the entire process of a full meal, I would eat more snack-type food in which they often “tend to have low levels of essential nutrients so are often referred to as ‘energy-dense’ but ‘nutrient-poor’ foods,” (“Discretionary”). Habits like this of eating “snack foods” instead of a well-developed meal can have an effect on a person’s health and even cause dietary issues. There was a case study of 14 people changing their modern lifestyles temporarily to more traditional practices and results found that all of the metabolic abnormalities were greatly improved or completely normalized in the people participating that had type II diabetes during the seven week reversion back to the hunter-gatherer way of living (Dufour 515). Traditional meals of the early human species prove time after time their diet was the most nutritional and adaptable at the time without them even realizing what they were establishing as a culture. It is amazing how much has changed over the course of thousands of years in the way we eat and the kind of food we consume on a daily basis.
Throughout the month of September, I learned the beginnings of living a college student’s life in Angers, France and I can now say that it is rather interesting. The social life is great; the food life is what you make of it. Definitely cannot have those 2a.m. pizza deliveries as back home in States when you are up late working on a paper, but I still would not trade having freshly baked baguettes for dinner or eating fresh strawberries from local farms with the ability to go out to a restaurant with people staring at their phones the entire time. Appreciation for the food, people, and culture overall has been renewed and I am looking forward to the rest of the semester we have left in this delicious country.
Bibliography:
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