One of my favorite shows is the BBC serial Wallander. It’s a beautifully filmed series of exquisitely told narratives about a gloomy Swedish detective who solves gloomy crimes. The high point of each episode (at least for me) follows a set formula: Wallander is at home, napping or pondering the latest gloomy personal situation he has gotten himself into when his mobile phone rings, he receives the key piece of information needed to solve the crime, and he leaps out of his chair. The next shot (invariably my favorite of each episode) is of his car, a dark blue Volvo station wagon, speeding through a stunningly gorgeous panorama of the Swedish countryside. I felt this was the rhythm of my time in France: we would be quietly doing some activity at home (fortunately with a good deal more cheer than Wallander) until the anointed hour, when we would leap in to action and our little white Peugeot would zip through the stunningly gorgeous French countryside to our next activity.
In the French countryside, dinner (a bit confusingly to us Yanks) is taken in early afternoon. (Their light evening meal, normally taken at sunset after an aperitif, translates to ‘supper’.) The adults come in from the fields or work (and often children come home from school) to meet, rest, and catch up over the meal. It’s not unusual, if you are out walking at this time, to find several generations of a family around a table in their yard. These meals are no small affair, at least three courses with wine before and during. In town, meals are taken at a café.
The anointed hour upon us, we zipped along stunningly gorgeous country roads (sunflowers smiling at the sky, maize* waving in the breeze, rows of walnut trees doing what they do) to the local café. After introductions (elle est la fille du Jim; I met the proprietor, her family, and local villagers), each with the French kiss on both cheeks, I was seated at the end of a bench at the inside corner of two long plank tables**. There was wine, bottle pairs of red and white strategically placed among us (blanc for me), and lively conversation regarding the antics and accomplishments of friends and family. Those around me would occasionally slip in to English to ask me a question directly (I catch the drift of French conversations, but cannot yet conjugate responses) and return to French to discuss my response.
In French cafes, it is the norm to eat communally, serving each other from common bowls. Bread was set out, quickly followed by a tureen of soup, a beef stew rich with veg***. Bowls were passed forward and filled, the soup shared until it was finished, the bread torn and dipped in the broth so none is wasted. (This is after all, rural farm country.) The two cooks took turns eating with us between serving and clearing. After more conversation we were treated to the main course: a caesar salad made with romaine picked fresh from the garden hours before; new potatoes, diced and roasted in butter until the edges were crisp and crackled with flavor; and chickens, rubbed with local herbs, that had shared the oven with the potatoes until they too had (according to the others) been cooked to perfection.
Somehow I had been placed so the dining partner to my right was what appeared to be a classic older French country gentleman. I say appeared to be because while I did expect a certain flirtatiousness, I was quite surprised when his questions as to why I was not married quickly moved to overt offers of affection. Fortunately he was chastised by his neighbors (it turns out that this was a symptom, or perhaps benefit, of his early dementia) and conversation turned to other topics. Dessert was a plum tart, each plum hand cut with the pieces carefully fanned from the center to edge over layers of crisp pastry. We ate, we talked, we sipped wine, and it was good. After a while it was time to return to the fields (the animals need to be tended, even on Sundays) conversation waned, and folks began to say their au revoirs. Despite its length (over two hours) the meal was far too short.
After another zip in the car we were back home. Zia took to her study to write letters and make calls, and I gathered a book and curled up on my bed. The afternoon was warm, a breeze weaving through frets in the shutters, and I felt sated with good food and good cheer. Soon the pages of my book became fuzzy, and I drifted ever so slowly into a blissful sleep.
* Maize is a starchy version of corn grown to feed the animals.
** In village cafés, it is the norm for the locals to dine at a long communal table. (This is how you catch up on local happenings.) Individual tables are also available for tourists.
*** I will now occasionally eat meat if I trust the farmer who raised it.