“Why do you think I left France intending never to come back?” was his reply. It was true: my husband didn’t cope well with the many rules and routines of French society.
But he also pointed out something really important about the French schooling system: by making food education mandatory, the government ensured that healthy diets would not be restricted to the elite. In countries where food education and nutrition are not mandatory at school, children from wealthier families with higher levels of education tend to eat much more healthily. In contrast, our village school—which included families from all walks of life (from farmers to pharmacists, fishermen to factory workers)—had a mission to teach everyone to eat well, supporting what children learned at home. And low-income parents had more help, I knew, than did North American parents, through tax breaks, reduced fees for all sorts of things (even train fares), and government-subsidized day care and after-school care. The French approach levels the playing field (although the exclusion of Muslim children due to the lack of halal foods is a longstanding issue).
So, like many other things, good food is democratized in France. As a result, there is much less difference between the tastes of different income groups than in the United States. Philippe’s family was a perfect example: Janine was (as she put it) from very humble origins. But while she and Jo had both stopped school at sixteen, they could hold their own in any five-star restaurant. So I had to admit that Madame’s claim that food education was a social equalizer made sense. Providing proper food to all children, and teaching all children how to eat properly, is, for the French, an important expression of their national motto of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (the former constrained by the latter, I thought to myself a bit sourly).
This explanation made Madame’s adamant attitude—that every child must participate—seem more reasonable. The French approach to food is about much more than nutrition or the satisfaction of physical needs. Rather, learning to eat well is also about learning how to eat well together. “Taste training” for French children is really a form of citizenship training, because all children have the chance to be exposed to good food, and good taste, in school. Eating at school is a shared rite of citizenship. If Sophie didn’t participate, it would affect her socially (and, later, professionally).
And more than this: Sophie’s entire education would be enriched. French children learn to listen to their senses, and their bodies, in interacting with food. Food is a subject of scientific study, but it also has an affective, intimate dimension, as children learn to think about their self-image, and family life, through exploring what they eat at home and at school. The terms used to describe this process, such as “gustatory awakening” (l’éveil gustatif), suddenly seemed less pompous. Children, I realized, were not just learning to eat; they were also learning to be curious and thoughtful. And they were not only taught about good nutrition, but also encouraged to develop a sense of critical judgment about food.
This sounded promising. So, in spite of my reservations, I agreed that we would gently, but firmly, insist that Sophie continue going to the cantine.
Predictably, Sophie reacted badly during the first weeks of school. The first words out of her mouth every morning, barely awake, were a despairing howl: “Maman, I don’t want to go to school.” I forced her to go and forced back the tears. After all, she was only in kindergarten. Admittedly, the days were long. But kindergarten is still kindergarten, I thought. How stressful could it be?
It was only later that I began to realize why she had such difficulty. She spoke French, but was definitely not French; bilingual but not bicultural. She suffered from a complete lack of éducation as a result of her North American upbringing. Even the playground games were different: Sophie had to translate the unwritten rules of “What time is it, Mr. Wolf?” into “1 2 3 Soleil,” and to transform “Duck Duck Goose” into “Le facteur n’est pas passé.” Even hopscotch was different.
So she didn’t fit in, and she learned the hard way; or, rather, was taught the hard way. At first, her classmates’ favorite playground tactic was one of those innocuously malicious rules that sends a Lord of the Flies shiver down parents’ spines: “Everyone gets to play except the new kids.” Except that my daughter was the only new kid in the school. So Sophie was very alone for the first month; hence the tears. But I only found out about this much later, in part because of the code of silence in the French schooling system (in which parents are treated as interlopers at best). And, if I am being honest, because I didn’t really want to listen. Having dragged my family to France, I was determined that we would be happy, even if it required a lot of pretending.
This led to months of frustration. To disapproving glares from the other parents, Sophie would sob in my arms every day as I left her in the classroom. “I know this is good for you,” I would tell her. “I would never put you in a school that was bad for you.” But silently I wondered whether we were doing the right thing.
One of the most difficult things—for me as well as for Sophie—was the lack of choice about when she could eat during school hours. The primary way in which French parents control their kids’ access to food is through strictly scheduling mealtimes. The French do this as a matter of course with children, toddlers, and even babies. Food is not provided on demand. Food is provided when adults decide it should be provided. This is not simply because of some autocratic wish to control when children eat. The French believe that scheduling meals leads to more balanced eating habits and a healthier digestive system. I
