Walking

Philosophers love to walk. Aristotle’s school was actually named the “walking” place. Well, being philosophers, they liked the esoteric “peripatetic,” but it comes to the same thing. Nietzsche apparently could easily pound the pavement for 2-4 hours each day. Rousseau even wrote a book “Reveries of a Solitary Walker.” Most famous of all philosopher-walkers was Immanuel Kant. The punctuality of his walks around Koenigsberg was such that people would set their watches by his arrival at certain intersections.

Continuing in this tradition, each morning I head off for a day-initiating constitutional. What the more famous philosophers did during their walks is unknown to me. Being new to the village, I mostly try to notice things. This being a village in France, one bustling early-morning place is the local bakery, or, more accurately bakeries. No Provençal village worth its salt would shortchange its residents on bakeries. Mine does not disappoint. There are four of them, not bad for a place with 2700 inhabitants.

What also caught my eye right away, was the prominence of another kind of food provider: pizza places. They almost equal the number of bakeries. Still, what is it with pizza places in the village? Pizza does not feature prominently in traditional Provence cuisine. Postcards have yet to replace the beret clad man carrying baguettes, with a bermuda shorts clad individual clutching a cardboard take-out box. What is going on here?

Part of the answer may be that France is changing. People like quick and easy food. Pizza, let’s face it, fits this bill. My village is also a summer resort area. Within walking distance, there are five camping areas, one vacation village, and one vacation nudist colony. I suspect that when those areas are filled, the people who populate them, not having easy access to refrigerators or stoves, and tired of barbecue, prefer the quick phone call ordering pizzas to go.

Even the nudists, or “naturists,” as is their preferred label, need to eat. Clothing may be considered artificial rather than natural, but eating is undeniably necessary and so, natural. But, wait, here the philosophical ruminations associating with walking awaken. What exactly is “natural?” If clothing is not natural, then what about cooking? After all, eating, in a strict sense, does not require, heated, prepared foods.

We have to be careful here of a too restrictive use of “natural.” Humans, after all, are communal and mimetic. Culture and cultural practices are fully continuous with, not automatically opposed, to our nature. Recent anthropological evidence suggests that, biologically, cooking food is crucial for maximizing nutritional intake while minimizing expenditure of energy. Cooking may, in fact, be the answer to that perennial philosophical question: what defines human beings?
The longest surviving answer was the simple: man is a rational animal. We had rationality, other animals did not. In the hands of rather narrow, rather cerebral, eggheads, “rational” was understood in an eliminationist (philosophers like big words) way. To be “rational” one had to exclude emotions. To be rational, one had to be detached and disinterested, “objective” as that word came to be understood. For 19th century economic theory “rational” involved eliminating concern for others. “Rational choice” signified objective calculation to maximize one’s own interests. As all of this suggests, “rational” eliminated many of the dimensions of life we tend to cherish. It turns out to be not that flattering as a distinguishing trait. It doesn’t seem to be all that “natural” either, more an affected stance based on some ideological assumptions.

Now that anthropologists are showing the way maybe philosophers can offer a new definition: humans are the animals who cook. Cooking as that which proudly marks us off? Why not? Here is an area where we can unabashedly celebrate our uniqueness. Animals eat, we cook. Unlike "rational" which is eliminationist, cooking is inclusionist. It requires intelligence, care, the invention and use of tools, and the handing down of tradition. Meal taking is typically social, and often celebratory. Our Linnaean classification calls us homo sapiens. The sapiens, which means wisdom, is derived from a Latin verb sapere, to “taste or to savor.” It thus seems that dropping “rational animal” in favor of “cooking animal” is a return to basics, not a radically novel move. Maybe that’s why a small village should welcome various purveyors of food, even pizza places.

Plus ça change...

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose goes a familiar French saying “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Indeed the dance of stability and innovation itself seems to be one of the things that stays the same about the human condition.


The mythical picture of France envisioned by many of us is of a place that has successfully resisted change. For me, that France was best described by M.F.K. Fisher, a wonderful writer who shared her living, dining, cooking and food shopping experiences in a series of lovely books. Her memoir of living in Dijon in the early 1930s depicts an era of daily trips to do food shopping (various stops were required for milk, bread, meat, vegetables—no supermarkets here), cold water flats, gathering snails, wonderful pastries and an assortment of locals no one could really make up.

More recently Peter Mayle, celebrating Provence, has added his own stock of colorful characters and events from a world that time may not have forgotten, but where it sure moves more slowly. Mayle’s way with words makes him a great chronicler of the plus c’est la même chose side of things. Side by side with this sits another France, one which epitomizes plus ça change. When we were renting a car in January, the clerk reminded us that the tank had to be brought back full, adding, “the best price for gas is at the nearby Carrefour.” Carrefour is a household name here, a giant retailer that is second in the world only to Wal-Mart. Its stores are massive supercenters. Indeed, the structure of a hypermarché, combining a department store and a grocery store, was an innovation of Carrefour in the early 1960s. Whereas M.F.K. Fisher went from specialized place to specialized place, and whereas many of Peter Mayle’s neighbors still frequent outdoor markets, the food shopping experience of most French people now involves one enclosed destination: the hypermarket.

For buying food already prepared, it is la restauration rapide, fast food, which has taken hold. One of the great successful enterprises in France is none other than the American company symbolized by golden arches. McDo is doing boffo business in the land of haute cuisine. The French subsidiary ranks behind only the American original in profit for the corporation. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, evidence for the French love of le big Mac and other delights of le fast-food comes in the form of a knock-off chain, Quick. Quick looks like a McDonald’s, has a menu eerily similar to McDo’s, offers a drive-thru, embraces speed in its very name, and, well, is an unabashed copy. So, despite the voluble complaints about la malbouffe, “sorry-ass eating,” when people vote with their feet it is through the doors of a McDo or a Quick they go.



As far as actual voting, the main political opposition, the socialist party, falls on the side of plus c’est la même chose. Despite having long ago given up on the imposition of state capitalism, i.e. socialism, the membership steadfastly refuses to change its name. It is not as if names more attractive to voters are lacking. The simple “social democratic party” offers one accurate alternative. After several election debacles in a row, one would think that plus ça change would be in order here, but so far, “more of the same” remains the rule.

That kind of frozen in time attitude has not afflicted a political movement even further on the left. The Revolutionary Communist League, LCR, in the crowded bestiary of French political abbreviations, has decided to shed the tired term “communist.” Just a few weeks ago, after much debate (some things don’t change), the membership opted to shift the emphasis away from a fixed, and failed, 19th century utopian ideal, toward an emphasis on what should be changed. It is now called the New Anticapitalist Party, NPA. By contrast, the old-left PCF, French Communist Party, keeping change at bay, clings to its Marx-Engels inspired label.
So the dance goes on, some things changing, others remaining the same. On the local level, far from multi-national corporations and major political parties, our village still hosts a weekly outdoor market. Monday at 10:00 a.m. four of the vendors were seated around a table. On the table: 2 baguettes, some paté, and, to wash it all down, 2 bottles of wine. Oh what Peter Mayle could do with such a scene.

It's a whole new ball game

As long as the president of the United States was named Bush, the vice-president Cheney, and, especially when the Secretary of Defense was named Rumsfeld, French commentators found little good to say about America. Although both are democratic republics with roots in 18th century revolutions, the French treated the U.S. as a foil. It represented a land where something had gone wrong. A country which had begun in a revolt against a foreign overseer had itself morphed into an imperialist power. A society based on the principle “of the people, by the people, for the people,” was now a place where the forces of capital could dictate policy to the elected representatives and supposed servants of the people. Hollywood movies, American television shows, music, fashion, and even the American language all retained favor, but there was little but disenchantment about what once had been a shining light now gone dark.

Fast forward to 2009. The election of Barack Obama has kind of put a quick end to automatic America bashing. Indeed, things have almost turned around 180 degrees. It is now the U.S. which stands as the model of a democratic republic living out its ideals. By contrast, it is France, a country with huge ghettoes, racial unrest, little social mobility, and a general inability to come to terms with the reality of being a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation, that comes up short.

A recent headline in the newspaper Libération put it bluntly: “France: Where are our Obamas?” Various commentators associated with “terra nova,” a progressivist (and thus not inherently friendly to the U.S.) movement, shared their ideas on the need for France to change. Many of the suggestions were familiar: spending more on schools and social services, especially in areas where the poor are congregated, finding the right balance between assimilation and integration, welcoming what is positive about diversity, and moving beyond the lip service given to an ideal of equality. This ideal, it was claimed, remains formal and abstract, doing little but repeating the privileges of the privileged.

Dossier Terra Nova / Libération : "Où sont nos Obama ?"
17 février 2009
Dans le cadre de son partenariat avec Libération,

Terra Nova publie aujourd’hui un dossier sur

la France de la diversité.

Looking across the Atlantic, one commentator mentioned how for a long time the U.S. had served as a point of contrast, a sort of object lesson in how a republic could lose its way. Now, however, the “arrival of Barack Obama suggests that we should be less categorical.” The American experiment with affirmative action (“positive discrimination” as it is known here) was offered several times as a prototype. Also praised was the practice, booed at the Republican convention, of “community organizers.” Without using the phrase “rent control” another writer mentioned that no real social mobility can result until one great, often unrecognized barrier, housing prices, has been dealt with.

One difference between the two countries has to do with the almost automatically pejorative connotation, in France, of “multiculturalism.” It suggests a sort of relativism where any community or culture should be allowed to live according to its own codes, ignoring, if it wishes, the principles of a democratic, secular republic. Cultural relativism is not widely championed in the land of “universal” human rights. The main fear is the large and still quite religious Muslim community. France, which had to wrest republican government by force from both a king and a Catholicism which was no friend to democratic life, is not multi-culturally flexible on the principle of a secular republic.

There is plenty of room between France’s present notion of formal equality (all French people are simply “citizens,” no official surveys are taken identifying racial or ethnic classifications), and an extreme multi-culturalism. One small step was suggested by a writer from terra nova. Each night on the weather report, the following day is identified by the name of the saint associated with it in the Catholic calendar, i.e. “tomorrow we celebrate the Jeromes.” The French are not especially observant, but they are possessive about holding on to religious holidays. Why not, this writer proposed, add holidays from other religious traditions to the mix, especially Jewish and Muslim ones. France, after all, is home to large populations adhering to both those religions. For someone whose home is in a country where December holiday displays can include Menorahs along with Crèches, this sounds like a good place to start. Indeed, when Islam joins the mix, it sounds like a right path to follow for both countries.

Urban Gleaners

Like all countries, France has its share of poor people. The poor, like the rich, still need to eat. Unlike the rich, access to food for the poor is not always easy. A recent French study has highlighted how, while most of us do our shopping in the supermarket, plenty of people gather their food outside the store. Tapping into a cultural reference, these people who forage through whatever is discarded by stores or outdoor markets are known as les glaneurs modernes (the modern gleaners). The word “gleaner” became a cultural benchmark as a result of a well-known 1867 painting by Jean-François Millet, Les Glaneuses. Millet depicted the plight of people reduced to scouring the fields after a harvest, hopeful of picking up usable grain that was left behind.

The study released just last month described the profile of the new, urban, gleaners. One surprising result of the survey: it is not only the homeless who forage through refuse. There is now also another group, actually more prominent, those who have a regular residence. Unlike the homeless, who tend to consume what they scavenge right away, these domiciled gleaners, take the food home, as they would groceries from a supermarket. The extent of how the practice of gleaning went well beyond the ultra-poor was one shocking result of the study. The new gleaners are sort of caught in a difficult in-between. They are neither poor enough to receive regular food subsidies nor well-off enough to do their food procuring as a market transaction.

A whole culture has apparently emerged as the new gleaners become regulars at certain sites. Grocery store operators and trash collectors come to know them and often provide tips about recuperating prize material among the refuse. So prominent is the new gleaner movement that not only have their been news stories about them, but, one of the remaining New Wave filmmakers, Agnes Varda has made a documentary about the practice.

A new wrinkle to urban gleaning has recently been added. This comes via a movement that originated in the U.S. One recent news story featured well-off young professionals on their way to a local outdoor market. Unlike most market goers, they timed their arrival to coincide with the market’s closing. Why? They planned to sort through the garbage. This time the foraging is not undertaken for financial reasons. It is now a matter of ideology. Reacting to the waste engendered by a consumer society, these green gleaners forage as a way of establishing an alternative model of consumption. They seek a return to a simpler, less wasteful lifestyle.

In the U.S., this movement goes by the name “freegan”. Here in France, they call themselves “freegan” (any Americanism is welcome, even by those who oppose the great giant of consumerist excess) or gratuivores (free eaters). They are also referred to as déchétariens, “trashitarians” we might say. Some get a bit carried away in their exuberance, claiming, as one web site does, that “nothing is really healthier than dining on food from trash: free food for the taking, reduction of waste, and immonuvolution.” This last, strange, word indicates the surprising health benefits of ingesting food that may be a bit spoiled. Immonuvolution even comes with a snappy slogan: “Mildew, it’s loaded with vitamins."

Whatever the label, what unites participants on both sides of the Atlantic are principles enunciated on the freegan website: “As freegans we forage instead of buying to avoid being wasteful consumers ourselves, to politically challenge the injustice of allowing vital resources to be wasted while multitudes lack basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter, and to reduce the waste going to landfills and incinerators which are disproportionately situated within poor, non-white neighborhoods, where they cause elevated levels of cancer and asthma.”

What happens when freegan gleaners, homeless gleaners, and urban poor gleaners congregate on the same spot? Hopefully the freegan gleaners decide that, maybe this once, being a standard grocery store consumer offers the nobler path.

Saint Valentine Day

Here in France the 14th of February is still called Saint Valentine day, La Saint Valentin. As far as celebrations go, the pattern is pretty much as it is in the U.S.: Dining out, chocolates, flowers, candelit dinners at home, love notes left on pillows. It’s an important enough holiday to warrant plenty of television and newspaper coverage.

Libération one of the three national dailies, actually included a special Saint Valentine insert. For history buffs, it related how, in lore at least, Saint Valentine was famous for defying an emperor. The emperor wanted to staff his army but too many men resisted, preferring life at home with a wife to that in battle gear. Solution: forbid marriages. Valentine (3d century) married people on the sly anyway. He was executed, a martyr to conjugal love.

The United States was given its due in several ways. Esther Howland, a Massachusetts artist, was mentioned as the first person to come up with Valentine’s cards (see image). Although Saint Valentine belongs to Europe, the tradition of making February 14 a major day did not really get going until the World War II arrival of GIs. They made their presence felt in many more important ways, but one legacy involved setting aside Valentine’s day as an important occasion for expressing one’s love. Contemporary Hollywood is also well estabished here. Asked about the people who best represent the holiday of love, the French chose George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson.

Speaking of the U.S., a creative soul at the web site ironic sans has developed science-themed love cards. Darwin is featured on the one pictured here. Marie Curie, Newton, and Carl Sagan figure prominently in others. Also from the U.S., a study tracking changing attitudes toward relationships. In the 1930s, when marriages were more stable, love and attraction did not even make it in the top three reasons for choosing a mate. Today, a more precarious time for marriages, love and attraction rank at the top. See the story here.

A few women cited in French news stories indicate how precarious indeed is today’s love scene. One admitted always celebrating la saint valentin, though not often with the same partner, “but always with gusto.” Another remembered a candlelit dinner interrupted by her honest admission that, sorry, there’s no more cheese in the relationship, it’s all over.

Two French towns make of themselves tourist attractions for Feb. 14. Not far from here is the village of Roquemaure. Its church claims the relics of a Saint Valentine (there are apparently three saints with this name). The locals had gone to Rome in search of relics that would bring a halt to phylloxera, the wood louse that ruins grape vines. All they could afford was St. Valentine. The relic probably did not do much for the vineyards, but today the town’s chamber of commerce knows how to exploit the link between its relics and the holiday of love. The events culminate in a great procession, with the locals dressed in costumes of yore.

Even better than having the saint’s relics would be to have a town actually named Saint Valentin. Well, there is one, and it too knows how to draw in the tourist cash. During the French Revolution, the purist, anti-religious ideologues who had the upper hand, actually renamed the town La Cadoue. In the new world announced by the revolution, no towns would carry the names of saints. Fortunately for local businesses, the old name was restored. Now, the town hall, appropriately adorned by a heart, welcomes lovers in mid-February every year.

Wherever they celebrate it, a survey of the French revealed that 91% associated the day with what, in their quaint metaphor, is known as “going horizontal.”

Car Bubble

A car is like a bubble that seals us off from the direct experiencing of things. Suburbanites enter their garage without even stepping outside, get into the waiting automobile, and, thus ensconced, head off for their destination. In between—radio listening, phone calling, traffic signal following, and, possibly, a passing notice of what is around them.

How different it is when one travels in ways other than a private car. Several years ago, needing to get from Little Rock to Memphis, an inter-city bus offered the best transportation. Such a trip is one that all suburbanites, all professionals, all professors (speaking for my own group) ought to take. What does such a trip entail? First, some time at a bus station. Here is a location unlike the suburban home or the modern office. First of all, it’s a bit grungy. Then, although no one likes to talk about class in the U.S., the denizens of a bus station are of a different economic, let’s call it “stratum” instead of class. There is also a different racial composition from the typical suburb. Many of the people on my bus were black. There was also a young woman from Central America, continuing an 18 hr bus ride that would take her to Kentucky for vegetable picking. The most interesting conversation overheard took place while waiting to board. Person in back of me to friend: “You know, it’s different now. Parole officers are just not what they used to be.”

The memory of this trip came back to me recently since we are living in a French village without a car. That means for most of our travel, some form of public transportation is a requirement. One recent trip had us taking busses, trains, planes and, to finish things off, a cab. The final, taxi leg, provided a repetition of the car bubble experience. Airports, because they are usually quite a distance from the center of cities, tend to be another buffered zone. Bus and train stations, however, represent a whole other story.

Sitting in the waiting room of the Marseille train station, it became obvious that the person seated back to back with us was the kind of individual we would never come close to in our automobile. The spectator in the car bubble is isolated from particular kinds of sights, sounds, and, yes, smells. Impossible here not to realize in a direct sense the plight of fellow humans. Before this person began to speak (in a loud, slurred, voice) his presence was signaled by the very obvious fact that he had not bathed in quite a while. The voice and subsequent additional odor (of cigarette smoke) gave evidence of someone in the grip of alcohol and tobacco addiction. When the security agent came over with a stern reminder that smoking was forbidden, another, sadly typical, fact became obvious: he was a member of the Arab subclass that makes up much of the bottom rung in French society.

The waiting room, a fairly warm place, (nowhere in a French train station is “toasty” by U.S. standards) provides a bit of free shelter. Not that it’s easy to get to. Marseille’s St. Charles Station sits atop a knoll overlooking the lower city. It is best approached by a famous, long, staircase. There are 103 steps to climb before reaching the top. Hard to get to or not, the destination is sought after, if your only alternative is walking the even colder streets.

The next leg on our journey involved a bus ride between Avignon and Carpentras. The Avignon bus station has open doors at either end. This means it is always cold in there. It’s kind of dingy, even more so than public transport places in French cities. Once again, what passengers cannot fail to notice, is how many of their fellow human beings find such a location to be the closest thing to a home. As we left the station, the final sight was that of a shabby bedroll occupied by someone catching some sleep, on the sidewalk just by bus exit.

Non-car travel brings with it sounds (parole officer talk), smells (bath-deprived neighbor) and sights (makeshift outdoor bed) not ordinarily experienced. It also breaks the bubble and creates discomfort, which is not always a bad thing.

Hand and Foot (Ball)

Sunday February 1 was a major sports day here in France as it was in the U.S. Devoted sports fans could spend Sunday afternoon watching the world handball championships, and, having taken a nap, tune in at midnight for a live broadcast of the Super Bowl. Le Super Bowl, ce n’est pas un gros saladier ( "The super bowl is not a gigantic container for salad") explained one commentator.

Subsequent television news shows, ignoring many possible leads (the economic crisis, Somali pirates, smoldering Gaza, Iraqi elections) began and ended with sports stories. The first, of great importance here, was the victory which made the French team, already Olympic gold medal winners, world handball champions.



The last story featured the victory of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl (it’s a game not a piece of dinnerware). In between, were all those other pesky possible stories dealing with other goings on in the world.

Les Steelers dans la légende
Santonio Holmes et Ben Roethlisberger se congratulent après le touchdown décisif

Les Steelers sont devenus la franchise la plus titrée de l'histoire de la NFL en remportant une 6e fois le Superbowl.

The two ball games, hand and foot, are valued differently. Handball is a major sport here, as is evidenced by the coverage given to the world championships. There is a French League of American Football, the FFFA (Fédération Française de Football Américain) but it is a marginal presence on the French sports scene. The U.S., similarly, has a handball league and an olympic team, but the sport is not yet a major attention getter.

Handball which is sort of water polo without the water, is called, in French, handball. Why they use the English word, I’m not sure. What I do know is that its pronunciation follows the rule enunciated by my French teacher wife: If it’s an English word adopted directly, it will be impossible to understand when it comes out of the mouth of a French person.

However they pronounce it, it may be that they have held on to the English term because it makes a nice parallel with basketball (the French are great fans, especially since a Frenchman, Tony Parker, is an NBA star), and, of course football, their major sport. Local football, soccer to those of us from the land that still measures in feet and inches, can regularly be found on TV.

Whether of the hand or foot variety, a sport event to lead and close the evening news is kind of a nice break from the downer stories that have of late been dominant.

Truffles and Taste

My experiences with truffles have been few and unimpressive. The first time I tasted a truffle-infused food was at a place that is impressive: Paul Bocuse’s restaurant. Neither I nor the others around the table were especially appreciative. The rest of the meal was remarkable, and, best of all, my brother-in-law the doctor, thanking us for our hospitality, picked up the considerable tab.

That, my first truffle contact, was also, for a long time, my last. But now I find myself in the middle of truffle country. Not the area of Périgord most identified by Americans with truffles, but my home village’s department of Vaucluse, which, it turns out, is a major truffle producing area. Every year from the middle of November to early March, there is a truffle market in what, for us, is the local “big” city. Carpentras has something like 26,000 residents, which from the perspective of a 2600 resident village is big.


We were in Carpentras for the Friday outdoor market. What we noticed right away was a large crowd in front of the Hotel Dieu, a wonderful 18th century building that used to be the city’s hospital. As we got closer, we noticed tables behind which were individuals with baskets. In the baskets: truffles. Across the table: buyers. Some of were them engaging in the famous act of sniffing before buying. We couldn’t tell how much money was being exchanged, but an NPR program just before we left noted that prices per pound were between $250.00 and $400.00.

Closer to our new home, the village wine cooperative held a special truffle feast Friday evening. This event was to celebrate the famous fungus and to be a sort of coming out party for the latest local vintages. The truffles were brought out in a small basket. They were accompanied by a special tool, the “truffle slicer” which shaves off slivers. A chef was on hand to make the special omelets. Ample bottles of wine, red, white, rosé, were uncorked. Guests could partake in the omelet and taste as many of the new vintages as they wished. Whereas a US tasting typically means a thimblefull of wine, these folks actually poured a really drinkable quantity in the glass. As a nice bonus, unlike the wallet draining dinner at Bocuse’s, this event was completely free.

How was the omelet? Really good, I must admit. Though, once again, either my palate is not refined enough or some other venue is needed to gain a real appreciation for the famed fungus. The problem is a common one with new foods that do not overpower with salt, sugar or fat. When I was young, growing up in Maine, for example, I was no fan of my home state’s favorite crustacean.

What I have noticed in my students is a major reluctance to expand their childish palette of tastes. Plenty of them can eat cereal three times a day. We once took a group of students to France and one of them ate nothing but cereal and pasta the entire two weeks. There seems to be a general belief that tastes are just fixed and final. Students see themselves as sort of standing in the middle of things, saying “I like this,” “I like this,” “I don’t like this” as if these were definitive, unchangeable pronouncements.

Even worse, what they like and don’t like has not been influenced by traditional cuisines or holidays at grandma’s. They have been shaped by advertising which puts a premium on the sugar-salt-fat products. These products have one great advantage: they can readily be mass produced, or for the ones purveyed by fast-food restaurants, can be prepared by unskilled labor. This means that the tastes of young people, once fixed and frozen, can serve an important purpose: enhancing the revenue of companies proferring mass-marketed food. The losers in all of this are the students. They come to have a limited, faulty sense of who they are (narrow creatures with fixed, unchangeable tastes). Then they congratulate themselves on being “free” in their choices, when those are carefully guided by very astute marketing strategists.

As for me, I will assume for now that the problem lies not with the truffles, but with an inability to appreciate them on my part.