Nine years ago, I traveled through the winding pastures of
France in the Champagne region. Lush terrain with the chance for a glass of
bubbly at every turn. It gave me a passion for the farm estate makers that have
lovingly created small batches of sparkling for generations. But this year’s
trip to France was entirely different.
My family and I covered southern France this time, mainly
Provence with a quick sidebar in the Riviera. While Champagne had been a
pregnant green, Provence was arid and chalky. The ground’s surface a boxing
ring for sunlight. (Perfect conditions for vines to render concentrated grape juice,
however.)
I could wax rhapsodic evoking Peter Mayle and his infamous
year in Provence. His main focus may have been renovating an 18th
century farmhouse, but the real nugget of truth about the region is life’s joys—food,
wine, and a very languid pace. It is a culture, much like the rest of the
Mediterranean, that respects the pleasures life has to offer and believes you
should exercise that pleasure every day.
What struck me most during this visit was the emphasis on
quality, not quantity. Whether we like to admit it or not, this is the
antithesis of American life. We focus on the biggest bang for our buck. Get a
Big Gulp for half price with two Slushies and a Twinkie? Awesome! For the
French, the pleasure of food and wine is about savoring not only the flavors of
the product but the effort that went in to making that product. It is a respect
for our surroundings—land, sea, air, and all the things in them—that
differentiates the French from us.
Americans tend to take things for granted. We have gotten
used to the gigantic, tasteless strawberries in the supermarket because we’ve
forgotten what a real strawberry straight off the vine tastes like. We think a
block of cheese is an orange brick with a picture of Pocahontas on it. The U.S.
has certainly undergone a food renaissance in recent years, but we still have a
long way to go.
That brings me to the subject of how the French make bread.
This is something, quite frankly, the French have perfected. A crusty baguette
is one of the most perfect foods. Crunchy on the outside, soft and pillowy on
the inside. The Italians and the Spanish have bread, but it is merely used as a
carbohydrate spoon. You mop up olive oil or sauce with it, but you don’t linger
on it. The French make a loaf of bread like a long-lost lover you’ve suddenly
reconnected with and never want to lose again.
French baking is an art form. Because of that, they don’t
hork down a whole log of it in one sitting. They have a few pieces with a
picnic in the park or perhaps a hunk of it with jam and coffee as a morning
pick-me-up. They certainly don’t lob it down their gullet as fast as possible
while doing 10 other things before heading out the door. And, they don’t eat
standing up. One must savor one’s food to completely enjoy it. (Hence, the lazy
pace.)
When on vacation, I often take pictures of the food I eat
because I want to remember the dish in order to recreate it back home. This
time, I didn’t fumble for the camera on my iPhone. I ate with gusto, not caring
that what I was thoroughly enjoying would never see the light of day on
Facebook. I didn’t feel the need to take a selfie with my salade Niçoise.
I walked away from this trip hoping to take just a tiny
piece of that leisurely lifestyle with me. It’s a slice of France I want to
have with me even when I’m not on vacation.
