Almost French (33 page)

Word travels that the lamb is
à point
, and within seconds, without waiting to be told, our guests surge to the tables, filling the seats. It all happens in one spectacularly swift migratory movement. Only a small island of English-speakers is left standing around the keg, oblivious to the vacuum which has just been created. It is a revealing moment, and later the contrast in cultures will seem comical. The English and Australian contingent is content to keep drinking, knowing that lunch will be served eventually. With plenty of practice standing around in bars and pubs, they’re in no hurry to sit down. It probably wouldn’t have mattered much to them if the lamb was burnt charcoal-black or still bleating in the field.

But judging by their panic, for the French the whole day will be a disaster if the
agneau
is overcooked. They’re not used to having more than one drink before a meal and would much rather be
à table
than on their feet. ‘It’s ready, let’s eat,’ people murmur, knives and forks poised. Forty-eight pairs of eyes accuse me—it’s my fault the salads aren’t on the table,
I
risk ruining the lamb. Relaxed by the rum, I’m having difficulty rousing the frantic urgency which the moment seems to require. ‘Lunch’ll be a few minutes, go and have another drink!’ I shout, causing brows to crinkle, a ripple of disapproval. They are unimpressed with my poor timing, annoyed by my cavalier attitude towards the
cuisson de l’agneau.
How typically Anglo-Saxon, how thoroughly un-French.
I am not one of them, for if I were, I would know that this is not incidental but a matter of great importance.

I am angry too. To me their impatience seems rude, ungrateful. This is not a bloody restaurant, after all. Entertaining is not about everything going perfectly, it’s always a little chaotic. Why not just have fun instead of getting all wound up? (Actually, I’m more wound up than anybody now.) And for what? A couple of slices of meat that might be a few minutes past perfection? I stomp inside where ingredients will be chucked together indiscriminately, the meticulously prepared vinaigrettes ending up on the wrong salads. Frédéric hurtles in to help.

But they are not being rude, they are simply being French. The passion for food is one of the most loveable, enjoyable aspects of France. It requires attention to detail and leaves little room for error. Culinary failures are not treated lightly in this country, not turned into jokes, no more than a barbecue without beer would amuse Australians. There is a culture of criticism in France which means people don’t hold back from telling you something is bad. As a friend, François, once told me, here you don’t have the right to make mistakes. No-one is admired for simply ‘having a go’ in France. Whatever your endeavour, you
have to succeed
. At French dinners, imperfect
plats
will be dissected by the table, each guest offering advice on how the recipe could be
improved, where the host went wrong, how they would have cooked it differently. I am not a gracious recipient of such comments and on occasions have advised friends to shut up and eat, or words to that effect. To me their behaviour is offensive. But to the French it’s no more than constructive criticism with the earnest aim of ensuring the dish is perfect next time.

In the end, lunch is a great success. Having been painstakingly basted with rosemary-flavoured olive oil throughout the cooking, Jean-Michel’s lamb is fragrant and perfectly pink in spite of the extra cooking. The guests are enchanted by the salads which to them seem wildly innovative compared to traditional French staples such as Niçoise and Auvergnate. We arrange the bought tarts in a pretty line along the buffet but it’s the pavlovas which are devoured first. Covered with cream and a topping of strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants they look straight off the cover of a glossy gourmet magazine. No-one in the know mentions the dog disaster. Everyone wants the recipe.

After, we play
pétanque
and the Australian boys try to teach the rules of rugby to Louis, who has been surreptitiously guzzling half-finished beers and can barely focus let alone kick straight. The ball thumps repeatedly into the pretty garden beds. Alain glowers from the sidelines. A few people drive to the beach. Jean-Michel crashes out under a plum tree for a siesta before rising heroically to cook the second lamb, cursing Frédéric and his grand plan to provide two meals (my sentiments precisely). Too little sleep the night before combined with the last-minute rush and all this running back and forward to the kitchen, a good three hundred metres from the garden, has left me exhausted. Frédéric and I have barely sat down all day. (Why didn’t we
get caterers or think to hire waiters?) I would dearly love to relinquish my role of Hostess Lacking the Mostess—relinquish my boyfriend too, with his idiotic, ambitious ideas. To crawl to my bed under the beams.

But any minute now more people will arrive with the reasonable expectation of being fed. And there’s not a lettuce leaf left over from lunch. The salads which were supposed to last two meals have been entirely consumed. There aren’t even enough ingredients to make more. The giant wheels of Brie have been reduced to skinny triangles, the baguettes are a pile of untidy butts. I want to hide.

‘What’ll we eat?’ asks Anne, a Belgian friend from Paris, as we stare in dismay at the avalanche of fruit peelings, olive pips and tomato seeds covering the kitchen benches.

I’m too tired to care. ‘Lamb.’

Our guests seize control. Wonderful, life-saving Anne disappears then returns one hour later bearing plastic bags of groceries, having found her way to the supermarket. The kitchen transforms—chaos is replaced by order, my remote despair by quiet efficiency. A chain of sous-chefs chops and slices more salads. Arnaud (the Harley driving host of that lunch in the country in my first year in France) starts whipping up aïoli even though he’s only just arrived. Sarah, Nathan and Kate make bruschetta. In a spirit of international co-operation, English-speakers try out a few French words and French friends practise the elegant English which they’ve masterfully managed to conceal from me for four years.

About fifty people come for dinner, half of whom have stayed on from lunch. Thanks to the initiative of our friends, the looming
cata complète
is averted and the menu consists of more than just meat. The only thing lacking is beer: the
keg is empty. Unfazed, Vinnie—an Australian friend—heads back to the table, his fingers pinching three plastic cups of wine in each hand. A French group stares, apparently amazed and amused. They must think they’re all for him. ‘We’d better hurry,’ mutters one. ‘They’ve finished the beer, now they’re starting on the wine.’

After dinner, Léon sets up a CD player and loudspeakers and the garage turns into a dance floor. Madonna starts singing, ‘
If we took a holiday …’
and the English-speakers are the first on their feet, shuffling and wiggling in the inexpert, abstract way that for us constitutes moving to music. The song is interrupted, the CD changed and the booming voice of Gallic rocker Eddy Mitchell bounces off the stone walls. The French flood the floor.

And suddenly the garage looks like a choreographed scene from an old rock’n’roll movie. Dancing in pairs, joined at the hands, they spin, bop and step in neat, measured movements which have obviously been learned. They appear to be able to anticipate what their partners will do next, both pulling back at precisely the same moment, hands releasing and rejoining in rhythmic unison. Alain is on his feet too, looking practised and polished and significantly more relaxed than earlier in the day. When the French do something, they like to be good at it—in fact they like to be excellent. The last thing they want is to look funny or foolish. There is no fumbling, no clowning around on this dance floor. Each move is deliberate.

Surrounded by such professionalism, the non-French contingent loses confidence. Impressed but intimidated, they retreat to the sidelines where I am giggling, having experienced this humiliation many times myself. Best leave the rock’n’roll numbers to the experts. Although French youth
are increasingly into contemporary, freestyle dancing, most people over thirty learnt
le rock
, and at weddings, parties—sometimes even dinners—delight in taking to the floor in pairs.

In the northern countryside, the air usually dampens and cools after dark but tonight feels almost tropical. A couple of guitars appear and the remaining crowd settles on the cobbled step which curls around the courtyard. It’s almost impossible to find songs that some of us know the words to and that our musical duo, Rupert (who’s English) and Paul (French) can also play. We end up singing to a limited repertoire of old Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel numbers. Someone decides we need percussion (we need something) and so we pour Alain’s packets of rice and pasta into jars, passing around the improvised maracas.

Without street lights and neon glare bleeding it of blackness, the sky is brightly sequinned. An owl hoots overhead. It’s not a haunting cry but a slow, whimsical sound that could be a laugh, as though the day’s absurdities have been keenly observed. Frédéric and I know this bird, which is often busily hunting when we arrive at Baincthun late on Friday nights. Once we surprised it in the garden during the day and were bewitched by its wide, human eyes. Its pale wings glow in the dark. We watch it floating above us. Then, as though it has just checked the time and seen a new day is about to dawn, the owl performs a sudden seamless arc and vanishes through an opening in the roof of the barn.

‘What’s
that
?’ Frédéric stared suspiciously at the
plat du jour
which a waiter had just set down in front of me.

‘Cod,’ I said, although I was no longer completely certain. We’d decided to eat out at a new restaurant in our
quartier
but on first sight our meal didn’t look too promising. My main dish swam in a thick sea of butter and cream which artfully disguised what lay underneath. Taking a mouthful didn’t provide many clues either: the sauce had overwhelmed all other flavours so that it was difficult to tell whether I was eating fish or chicken, although according to the menu it was the former. It wasn’t that it tasted bad, only that it didn’t really taste of anything except richness. The potatoes were too oily and the beans had been cooked to a grey mush.

This decidedly average dinner isn’t an isolated experience either. Curiously, while the French may be formidable food critics and perfectionist about details such as the
cuisson de l’agneau
, eating out in Paris can be disappointing. Attacking French restaurants has become something of a sport in English-speaking countries and some of what has been written is unjustified, in my opinion. Even London—long regarded as a culinary joke in France—has claimed it serves better food than Paris, an assertion which invariably prompts
Gallic gasps of disbelief. Despite the undisputed revolution in English gastronomy in the last decade, not for a second do I believe that vertiginously expensive London offers better value for your food money than Paris. Often, French restaurants seem to be criticised for little more than their ongoing Frenchness: for not embracing ‘fusion food’ and fads.

The last thing I want is country cooking with a creative sprinkling of coriander. I’m not offended by menus that haven’t changed in thirty years. Why change something that’s good? You can still eat very well and cheaply in France. I’ve had memorable meals at country inns where you can taste
le terroir
(the region) in every mouthful. In Paris, I love having lunch at La Cloche des Halles, a smoky wine bar with a huge ham on the counter and sturdy wines by the glass. To me this simple fare is soul food.

My criticism of traditional Parisian bistros and brasseries concerns quality. Standards do seem to have slipped—or maybe it’s just that the rest of the world has caught up, as many people claim. Whatever the explanation, all too frequently the food is not as good as you’d expect. Although French cuisine is actually incredibly varied, heavy sauces have become its trademark. Surprisingly often, pre-prepared meals are delivered straight from the microwave. Even salads are no guarantee of freshness—the lettuce leaves drown in too much dressing and the tuna or corn or beans come straight from a can. In Paris, French restaurants are now outnumbered by foreign restaurants, which are an increasingly popular option in terms of price and quality. When Frédéric and I go out it’s usually to eat Italian, Moroccan, Chinese or Thai.

Which is why I’m so excited about my next assignment. For a story on Alain Ducasse—only the second person in the one-hundred-year history of the Michelin Guide to gain six-
star status—I’ve been invited to dine at his eponymous Paris restaurant in the fancy 16th
arrondissement
. It will be my first taste of haute cuisine; I’ve never been to a Michelin three-star restaurant before. It’s also an opportunity to see what lies behind France’s reputation as the country that elevated eating to an art form. This is the sort of job journalists dream of: an afternoon of de luxe dining in the name of research. An invitation to play pampered guest at a place where I couldn’t even afford the hors d’oeuvres. I can’t wait.