French Kids Eat Everything (31 page)

Food, in fact, is big business in France: as Véronique explained to me, agro-industry is the largest industrial sector (even bigger than the car industry) and the second-largest employer in the country. France has the largest agro-industrial sector in Europe (nearly one-fifth of Europe's total production) and is the world's fourth-largest exporter of agricultural and processed food products (despite being ranked twenty-first in terms of population size). What amazed me was the fact that this highly developed agro-industry coexists with an extensive network of local farmers who live and work on the land in a way that enables local connections between growers and consumers. The French have never forgotten what North Americans are now trying to relearn through school and community gardens or “locavore” initiatives like the 100-Mile Diet. And so their tastes are more demanding, as any visit to a local French market will quickly reveal; the French simply won't buy produce that doesn't taste farm-fresh. The French food system has adapted accordingly. This is another apparent paradox of the French food system: they have a highly modern, efficient food system
and
they get the food they want—tasty, fresh, local.

Learning to know local
terroir
, I decided, was one of the better countermarketing strategies that I could develop with my children. Just before we left, the book
The 100-Mile Diet
had sparked a huge debate about the benefits (and downsides) of eating locally. Reading it, I discovered things I never knew about the region around Vancouver (who knew that we could grow wheat in a rain forest climate?).

Inspired, I sought out local farmer's markets—which (I was embarrassed to admit) we had never visited. We soon became regulars. And I found a little
chocolaterie
(the deliciously named Cocoa Nymph) in our neighborhood, making handmade chocolates—sometimes flavored with local foods in season (like rhubarb, blackberry, or even sorrel). They were expensive, but (just as in France) so rich and delicious that one little chocolate was enough. These became some of our favorite treats for the girls (and for Philippe and me too). For things we couldn't find at the markets, we joined a food coop that was dedicated to distributing local produce to city dwellers. Wednesdays, when the big boxes full of “vegetable surprises” (as Sophie termed them) would be dropped off at our house, quickly became my favorite day of the week.

We also decided to try to introduce the girls to local food through family outings: “close encounters with
terroir
” rather than a trip to the mall on the weekends. We took the girls on “berry walks,” amazed at the feast of food along Vancouver's back alleys and woods. August produced a bumper crop of blackberries, which we ate in salads, on top of cereal, even crushed on top of bread as a kind of instant jam. We had missed salmonberry season, but discovered huckleberries (which Claire insisted on calling “blue-bellies,” in a strange hybrid of the English “blueberry” and its French translation
bleuet
).

Inspired by our success with berries, we went to watch salmon spawn. Their fierce flopping impressed the girls as much as the watchful eagles and the gorging bears, so assured of a plentiful harvest that they would take only a few bites from each fish before casually flinging the remains into the forest. Inspired, we made our way down to the docks early one Saturday morning, and came home with enough sockeye salmon to fill half of our newly acquired chest freezer. The other half I filled with local fruits—blueberries, plums, and peaches—to last the winter. The money we saved covered the cost of the freezer in the first month.

I even planted a little garden the following spring: raspberries, strawberries, spinach and lettuce, tomatoes, and (daringly) grapes. Given our rather dark, dank, north-facing backyard, my husband scoffed (
none of this will ever ripen!
). But the sight of the girls nurturing “their” plants with their watering cans and their excitement over our (admittedly rather meager) harvest gradually changed his mind. Our “summer salad” snacks—fresh spinach, lettuce, strawberries, and raspberries plucked and eaten right in the garden—have become a family favorite. And, although it took a while, we even eat our own grapes (small, sour, hard grapes the size of big blueberries, but still all ours).

We aren't eating exactly like the French do in France. But then, we don't want to. The essence of the French approach is this: find a balance between the foods available where you are living, your
terroir
and traditional cooking skills, and a schedule that lends itself to mindful cooking and eating. We had found, at least for the moment, that harmonious balance (
juste équilibre
) that is the core principle of French food culture.

Voici mon petit jardin!
(Here is my little garden!)
Adult holds child's hand, palm up

J'y ai semé des graines
(Here I sowed my seeds)
Taps index finger in child's palm

Je les recouvre de terre noire
(I cover them with soil)
Closes child's hand

Voici la bonne et douce pluie!
(Here is the gentle rain!)
Gently taps child's hand with fingers

Le soleil brille dans le ciel!
(The sun shines in the sky!)
Makes a large, sweeping gesture

Et voici une, deux, trois
,
(And here are one, two, three,)
Unfolds child's fingers one by one

quatre, cinq petites fleurs!
(four, five little flowers!)

—Traditional French nursery rhyme

So, what have been the results of our ongoing experiment
with French food education?

Sophie is now seven, and Claire is nearly four. Tonight's dinner was sole, quinoa, and steamed broccoli, followed by
mousse au chocolat
. They ate it all, happily. The girls now eat a whole host of things they wouldn't touch a few years ago, from grapefruit to granola, tofu to tomatoes. Sophie will even eat cauliflower (although we're still working on Claire). The other day, a neighbor brought over a handful of sweet pea pods from her garden. Claire's face lit up when she tasted them. “They taste as good as chocolate!” she said wonderingly. (No, I am not making this up.)

My daughters have remained more open-minded about food than I had ever expected, given where we were before we moved to France. In fact, we've passed the ultimate hurdle: I'm no longer anxious about bringing our girls to a restaurant with their French relatives.

This has attracted some interest from friends of ours, like the parents of three-year-old Theo, who were worried by his refusal to eat vegetables. After a conversation about the French approach, they tried cutting out his late-afternoon snack, and serving a small bowl of carrot soup as the first course at dinner, which resulted in… Theo loving carrot soup. He's now on to spinach soup.
Eureka!

As for our family, we're managing to observe most of the food rules, most of the time. The most important rule of all is the one about eating together—every day, at least once a day. In the midst of our hectic schedules, our family meal is a haven. We tell stories about our respective days, talk about the future, ask each other questions, wonder out loud. Eating together has allowed us to have conversations we might never otherwise have had. It has helped us to be a happier family.

Most of what we eat is real food. Preparing it takes more time. But I have my personal shortcuts: frozen homemade soups, and the quick versions of French dishes that I learned in France. To my great satisfaction, I can now whip up a delicious quiche in less than five minutes. This is our family's version of “fast food.” As this suggests, I still haven't completely managed the “slow food” thing. I still sometimes succumb to the urge to cook as quickly as I can. But I am eating more slowly. I can usually sit through an entire meal (although my husband still sometimes needs to remind me to sit still). I've even found a new favorite restaurant: just down the street is a tiny hole-in-the-wall oasis called the Dharma Kitchen, which “serves the food of mindfulness” (a motto that would have had me steering well clear before our year in France, but that now has me hooked).

Our family has also, more or less, succeeded in removing emotional attachments from food. I no longer use food as a toy, a pacifier, a bribe, a punishment, or a reward (although I admit, from time to time, to using it as a distraction. But only if I really, really need to). We rarely get into power struggles about food with our children. Eating healthily has become part of our routine, just like brushing our teeth. Like the French parents I met, I try to be nonchalant but cheerful about the food I serve my children. I don't hover. I don't prepare special meals. I never substitute. I still coax, but I give it only a few tries. If either Sophie or Claire refuses to eat, I simply remove the food without too much fuss. But I rarely have to do this anymore.

We have also settled into a routine of four square meals per day. Sophie and Claire have accepted that they have to wait for dinner even if they feel a little hungry. And they are usually calm about waiting because they know dinner will be satisfying when it is time to eat. I admire how patient they have become. There is, however, one (big) exception. Because we've found it impossible (and, from a child's point of view, highly unfair) to prevent the girls from snacking at school and day care, we still let them snack like other children during the week. But we don't snack outside of mealtimes on the weekends. In fact, the kids don't ask, except for the inevitable Halloween, Easter, and Christmas candy frenzy. I'm not happy about it, but I tell them that they will eventually outgrow it (and I think they believe me).

What do they snack on? Despite our periodic lessons in
terroir
, the girls have remained predictably focused on the prepackaged, tasty treats that North American society serves up. So we have struck a balancing act. Mostly they go to school with fruits and vegetables for snacks, but once in a while I pop some chocolate-covered Petit Lu cookies into their lunch bags. We've restricted fast food to “days that start with F,” but once in a while we have girls-only pizza pajama parties (Philippe, who can cope with only so much girl power, gets a night off). This seems to satisfy everyone; although I keep processed snacks on hand for play dates, the girls are equally happy with buttered bread and pieces of fruit for their afternoon
goûter
.

I admit that our progress hasn't been entirely straightforward. Claire has recently decided she's not interested in lettuce (after eating it happily in the past). I'm hoping that this will pass quickly (like her inexplicable refusal, for an entire month last winter, to eat oatmeal, which she now “loves” again). Sophie still absolutely refuses to eat most cheese (although she now eats grilled cheese sandwiches). And she still sometimes whines when something not to her liking appears on her plate (although she doesn't leave the table anymore). And Philippe and I still often overreact to her whining—but less than we used to. I am sometimes so busy that I fall back into a cooking rut and tend to serve the same dishes more frequently than I would like. So we're not learning “new” tastes at the same rate as we were in France. But the need to do so isn't as great because the girls' willingness to eat things has increased so much.

So we're not eating perfectly. But my time in France taught me to be wary of magic bullets or perfect diets. In fact, the French taught me that food rules can occasionally be suspended. The French love food, but their approach to food education is positive and upbeat because it starts from the “pleasure principle.” They don't obsess about calories, and they don't punish their children (or themselves) for liking “bad” food. They're not (with rare exceptions) health nuts. In fact, they believe that it is normal—and even secretly satisfying—to bend or even break the rules once in a while. So they allow their children to do the same. This is so important, particularly in our North American culture of food extremism, that I've named this the Tenth (and Golden) French Food Rule:

French Food Rule #10 (The Golden Rule):

Eating is joyful, not stressful
.

Treat the food rules as habits or routines rather than strict regulations; it's fine to relax them once in a while
.

Simply put, this rule means that the French seek to avoid excesses in eating. Excessive control of food and obsession with healthy eating are to be avoided, just as much as indulgent or unrestrained eating of poor-quality food. Both, in fact, are examples of an obsession with food that the French think is unhealthy. Rather, the principles of moderation and balance (
équilibre
) guide the French. This is even true for their own food rules: you have to be moderate in following the rules, not overzealous and strict.