French Toast (15 page)

To leave a dinner party, instead of turning to our hosts and saying, “Well, it's really been fun, but it's late and time to go,” he starts staring at me very hard. When I don't get that, he resorts to his pained look, mouth curved down at the corners. All the while, I am laughing it up. When we finally leave, he says, “It's so late. Didn't you see me telling you it was time to go?”

I stare at him, astonished. “Why didn't you just say ‘It's time to go'?” I ask him.

“Because you're supposed to see my signal,” he replies.

We will never get together on this particular cultural divide.

The need for delicacy and privacy is seen in the fact that the French don't really appreciate personal questions such as “What do you do?” or, worse, “Where do you work?” Even such a seemingly innocent question as “What does your father do?” is best avoided. Why? Because the person might come from a lower-class family and have a high-level job—or come from an aristocratic family and have a low-level job. This is changing now, but it is safe to say that you can have a ten-hour conversation with a French person and never know his name, job, or personal status. Try to do that in the States.

Americans, generally speaking, are just looking for information and couldn't care less if a person's family is composed of nobles or cobblers. Hence, we have a hard time coping with the twists and turns of roundabout conversations. But the French are constantly aware of social hierarchy, the place they occupy in society, whether it be their job or their social class. A French friend explained the difference to me this way: “Politeness is avoiding asking a question that will put the person in a position that could show either that he is wrong or criticizable. You have to think of the difficulty
he may have in giving an answer.” So much for direct questions.

The complications involved in avoiding direct references to your profession or employer can result in curious situations. A new acquaintance told us, without ever naming the firm, that he worked for a huge public company employing thousands of people doing very special kinds of projects in the field of housing and transportation. About five minutes into this byzantine description, my husband named a company and said, “You wouldn't happen to work there, would you?” And they both laughed, as the company turned out to be the one my husband works for, as well.

Anglo-Saxons feel they have to proffer their names if they're going to sustain a conversation lasting any longer than five minutes. They also feel the need to introduce people who don't know one another, even if they can't remember the people's names. The French are just the opposite. I have been going to a gym class near my home for the past four years. The women are perfectly friendly for the most part, but I don't know the name of any of the women I stand and sweat next to. We exchange smiles and even conversations, but not
names
. Another example: At a luncheon, I sat next to a charming mother and daughter with whom I conversed for approximately five hours. Never once did we exchange names!

A young American told me of his astonishment at not being remarked upon or included when he found himself in a group of people he didn't know: “When you go to a party in the States and you're the newcomer, everyone would want to know your name, what you do, where you are from—but in France, I can't tell you the number of parties I have been to where I am the only American in a group of close-knit friends and no one says anything to me. The guy who invites you doesn't even say, ‘This is Dave' to the others. If the guy next to you is outgoing, you'll get questions, but if you are shy, you're out of luck. As soon as
I
ask questions, it breaks the ice.” You will note that he said “as soon as
I
ask questions”—the burden is on the newcomer.

While taking a walk in the park one Sunday, we saw someone my husband works with every day. He was with his wife and children, both of whom we knew. Accompanying them was an older woman, whom I presumed was the mother of one of them, but I'll never know, because no one ever introduced us. We just stood there and chatted and then left. My husband's comment: “Thank God we didn't get into introductions. I have no desire to know his relatives, and I'm sure he feels the same about mine!”

One good thing about this formality is that you don't have to invite the boss to dinner: The French Revolution was supposed to usher in an age of equality, but don't ever go so far as to think that the French forget
their sense of hierarchy. You may be invited to dinner by your husband's boss, or your husband may invite his secretary to dinner, but the subordinate is not expected to repay the invitation: In fact, it just wouldn't do. The higher-up can in this way exercise his power of noblesse oblige. The underling is supposed to stay in his proper place. An invitation from the subordinate would put his hierarchical superior in a disadvantageous situation, forcing him to “come down.” In addition, the underling might feel apologetic for not having a big-enough house or nice-enough furniture. Fortunately for both parties, the rules are clear, so no one has to worry about it.

There is one occasion, however, when naming names becomes vital. When invited to someone's home, you're not to show up with a friend; you're to ask permission and then give the name. I knew the part about asking permission to invite a friend, of course, but I had to be told that the name part is very important. In this land of complicated professional and private relationships, it is essential to provide the names when asking permission to take an extra guest to a party. Who knows, you may have inadvertently invited someone's mistress!

It would seem that there are a series of written and unwritten rules for just about everything. Take a breeze, for example. The French call it a
courant d'air
(draft) and, in my French family at least, flee it like the pest, believing perhaps that it will bring the plague. The first time I opened doors to let in a breeze, my in-laws rushed
around feverishly shutting them, fearing perhaps that I was letting in an evil spirit, or worse. I now save my breezes for when I am alone. Perhaps for this reason, when you are on a bus or train and there is a discussion about whether the window should be opened or closed, the person who wants it closed will always win.

Then there's the dinner party. In my early days here, I didn't know the following:

When French people invite you at a certain hour, you should add fifteen or twenty minutes to that time. If you arrive right on time, not only will you be the first but chances are things may not be ready. The announced time is the first possible time at which you could arrive, but not the time the host really expects you or hopes to see you.

You are not to show up—ever—with a bouquet of chrysanthemums, flowers the French reserve for cemeteries, or carnations, which are considered bad luck! In fact, if you're a supersophisticate, you either send flowers before, giving the hostess time to arrange them, or send them after the dinner with a thank-you note. The French being proud of their logic, the Cartesian point here is that it is awkward for the hostess to have to run around finding the right-size vase. Also, if you have brought an especially grand bouquet, it might embarrass other guests, whose offerings pale in comparison.
C'est logique
.

You won't be shown around the house. Once again, the French like to keep what's private . . . private.

In a dinner party situation, it's vital to keep in mind everything I've said earlier about noise levels. Don't talk or laugh too loudly. Avoid frank outbursts. In terms of wine, they drink enough to enjoy it, but not enough to get plastered and make fools of themselves. “Use, do not abuse: neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy,” wrote Voltaire.

It all boils down to the observance of a state the French admire greatly: moderation. In line with this, it is considered extremely impolite to call attention to oneself. As French journalist Ghislaine Andreani observes in her
Guide du Nouveau Savoir-Vivre (Guide to New Etiquette)
, “There are ways to express your joy in life.” However, she warns, “Don't guffaw, don't burst out laughing, don't laugh loudly in society, in a restaurant, in the street.” Perhaps that explains the withering looks we non-French (and ill-mannered French) often get as we heartily crack up in movies, restaurants, and all sorts of other public places.

It's when you hit the dinner table that the number of mistakes you can make increases considerably. The first thing I learned was that once you get to the table, you shouldn't plan to leave it except in dire stress, and even then, you are to fade away gently. Do not—
quelle horreur
—announce where it is that you might be going.

Then there's the delicate matter of where to put your hands. Elbows on the table? Hands under the table? The rule on this is essentially Latin in spirit. Etiquette
decrees that hands should always be on or above the table, lest it seem that any hanky-panky be going on under it.

Eating with one's fingers is another dinner table no-no. The French have perfected the art of eating with a knife and fork. Picking up a chicken leg or a barbecued sparerib with one's fingers is definitely out. That also includes pizza, which is eaten with a knife and fork, not the hands.

I thought that this rule could easily be violated in the company of French-American couples, and so on one occasion where I was being served fried chicken, I asked my American hostess if I could pick it up and eat it with my hands, which in my book is the only way to eat fried chicken. (This, while everyone else was cutting away ever so delicately.) Of course, she assented, not daring to do so herself, because her French husband would have killed her on the spot.

At formal parties, asparagus is always fun to eat. I hear that it is to be decapitated ever so neatly with a knife and fork, and the sauce should be recovered with the fork, as well. On informal occasions, you can actually pick the asparagus up with your fingers and maneuver it around to get the sauce. In both cases, however, you're supposed to eat only the tips.

The French extend the use of knife and fork to fruit. One American friend of mine reports having once seen a woman in a restaurant eating a
banana
with a knife and
fork. You have to see it to believe it. And no fair taking the fruit in your hands to cut: Proper etiquette requires that it remain on the plate during this surgical operation.

On the other hand, cutting salad greenery is unforgivable. The knife should be used gently to help fold really big lettuce leaves so that they can be speared with the fork, with the ever-present risk, of course, that a leaf will pop up and unfold just before reaching one's mouth. The tradition of not cutting salad apparently stems from the fact that the acidity of the vinegar used to rust the blade of the knife. This is no longer true, but the custom holds.

While we're on the subject of food, it would appear that soup should always be sipped from the end of the soup spoon, not the side, in direct opposition to Anglo-Saxon etiquette.

When you see a delicious sauce sitting in front of you, you're very tempted to sop it up with the bread. Actually, millions of Frenchmen do—at home—but when invited out, it's a big no-no. Even cheating by skewing a piece of bread on the fork and then swishing it around the plate is bad form. At my mother-in-law's house, I used to do something that no polite person would ever do, which was to take the white out of the bread and just eat the crust (I redden even to tell it). In her Périgourdine dialect, she called these little balls my
tapous
. Well, let me tell you, it didn't take me long to figure out that making
tapous
was taboo.

From the time he learns to chew, every Frenchman is taught that
le pain
is a commodity not to be wasted. Hence, it is generally served already cut and you take only what you intend to eat (a general rule for the rest of the meal, as well). If an entire baguette is put on the table, you break it rather than cut it. Why break rather than cut the baguette? The answer to this is best provided by the Baronne Staffe in her book
Règles du Savoir-Vivre (Rules of Etiquette)
. For the Baronne, it is quite obvious that “pieces could, under the effort of the knife, jump into the eyes of the guests” or, even worse, “on uncovered shoulders.” Of course, the Baronne Staffe's little guide was written in 1889, when women dressed (or undressed) for dinner, and perhaps baguettes were crustier than they are now—but the tradition still holds today.

What to do when confronted with French cheese? This is a very unsettling experience the first time around. For people like me from the land of Velveeta, how exciting and frightening to see, all on one plate, a gorgeous blue-veined Roquefort, a whitey-yellow Gruyère, a perfect ash-covered chèvre, a creamy Reblochon. My late father-in-law took particular pride in presenting the cheese plate. Every single time he passed it, he would tell me exactly which cheese was on the plate and then present it as if it were a very special gift. “You must try this,” he would say, indicating the
feuille de Dreux
, a regional specialty, or say, “The Brie is particularly good today.”

But how does one cut cheese without perpetrating an
atrocity? I learned, after cutting the nose off a Brie and massacring the Roquefort, that this is basically a question of common sense. Gruyère is cut lengthwise, round cheeses in wedges. Roquefort and all blue cheese are cut so that the last person doesn't end up with all the white. Stands to reason. For all but the most calorie-conscious, Roquefort is often eaten with butter, all mashed up. Very bad for the cholesterol, but I refuse to get into that argument, because it would ruin my appetite. If people do choose to indulge in the Roquefort-butter combination, though, they mostly do so in the privacy of their own homes, not when invited out.

Another thing I've learned is that cheese goes around the table only once, and French custom is to never serve coffee with dessert, but after, as a separate course.
Très civilisé
.