French Kids Eat Everything

as young and diverse as the United States. They’ll have to evolve their own food culture, but it will take time, just as it did in France.”
Before anyone could object, everyone’s attention was diverted by the main course, which had just arrived at the children’s table. Hugo had prepared a fish dish: dorade à la provençale, served with rice. Everyone got up to watch the children eating (a favorite pastime of French parents). Distracted, I watched the adults watching their children savor the food. Not hovering too close, they kept a discreet eye on the table, allowing Hugo to orchestrate the serving, which was met with an enthusiastic chorus.
By now, Claire and Sophie seemed to be thoroughly carried away by the festive atmosphere. Claire, still dazzled by Jacqueline, ate everything on her plate. She even took a nibble at the bizarre-looking side dish: crosnes, a form of tuber that closely resembles waxy caterpillar larvae. Sophie, however, didn’t do so well, cautiously eating some rice, refusing to touch the fish after one tentative taste, and quickly hopping out of her chair with a mutinous look when the crosnes appeared on her plate. Being told that they were a French delicacy didn’t help, and for a few cringe-inducing moments she refused to return to the table. But after some coaxing, she reluctantly sat down. The adults moved back to their seats. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Sophie still wasn’t eating much, but Philippe motioned to me to say seated.
“Don’t make a fuss,” he said to me quietly. “You’ll only make it worse. Just wait and watch.” He was right. Within a minute or two, Sophie relaxed, and even ate some more fish—having figured out that it was delicious. Meanwhile, I was mulling over everyone’s comments. I knew that Antoine was right. What French people ate at ordinary meals wasn’t so different, at least in spirit, from what was served in high-end restaurants. I thought of my in-laws’ neighbor Bernice, who had almost never left the village and still talked about how happy she was when they tiled the dirt floor of her family home (in which she was still living). Of modest means, Bernice sat down every day to a three-course meal that didn’t differ that much, at least in spirit, from what we’d be eating this evening.
Suddenly timid, I turned quietly to Virginie. “Where I come from, only a few people are interested in gastronomie. Why is it such an obsession for the French?”
“It’s a pleasure, but not an obsession!” she said, laughing.
“Good food was democratized a long time ago,” added Sylvie, overhearing us. “It’s because of the French Revolution: the aristocrats no longer had a monopoly on the best food and the best chefs. The revolutionaries made French food culture accessible to everyone.”
“Not just that!” interrupted Hugo. “It’s economic! Paris was Europe’s first big city with a middle class that had enough disposable income to eat at restaurants. Cooks couldn’t depend on aristocratic patrons any longer, so they opened restaurants and had to compete for customers and public opinion. French food is about capitalism and competition leading to better food for everyone!”
“Actually, it’s really about religion,” offered Sylvie. “Catholic countries have always been more interested in food. French gastronomie is like a secular communion, like a sacrament or a ceremony.”
By this point, I was completely lost. Maybe I was misunderstanding the word “gastronomie.” For me, it meant elaborate, expensive, indulgent meals that had little to do with what interested me about food: nutrition, health, and price.
“Maybe it would help if I understood how French people learn to eat as they are growing up. Why don’t you tell me the most important things that French children learn about eating?” I ventured.
This got everyone’s attention. “Knowing how to enjoy food,” said Sylvie.
“And knowing how to talk about it!” added Hugo.
“How to behave at the table, and to enjoy good meals with family and friends!” said Olivier.
“It’s part of French culture,” someone else chimed in, “that children should learn to eat well!” This got the most enthusiastic nods.
In the meantime, the children had moved on to salad and cheese, and to my quiet delight I saw Jacqueline feeding tiny bits of goat cheese to Claire who, as the youngest child at the table, was the focus of enthusiastic encouragement from the older children. Sophie, not one to be left behind by her younger sister, was making a tentative foray into the salad, although I noticed she was picking out the smallest leaves, and not even this level of peer pressure could make her change her mind about the cheese, which sat untouched on her plate. I had to admit that the scene—the children gaily eating, with parents looking on approvingly—seemed idyllic.
Having finished their main course, the children were dismissed until it was time for dessert, and ran off to play. It was the adults’ turn to eat. Conversation turned to critical scrutiny of the entrée—soufflé à la bisque de homard (lobster bisque soufflé). The French love to talk about food in concrete terms. But soon my question had sparked a more abstract discussion. What, exactly, was French food culture? And how could you explain it to the average American? By the end of the evening, they had their answers pinned down.
French food culture, it turns out, has three core principles. Over the perfectly cooked bar de ligne (European sea bass), we hashed out the first and most important principle: convivialité (conviviality, which for the French means something like “feasting/socializing together”). For the French, eating is inherently social. People of all ages tend to eat together, whether at home with their families or at work with colleagues. This is so socially ingrained that people can’t think of doing otherwise. In fact, French people never, ever eat alone if they can help it; people eating together are often called convives (which means “table companion,” but translates literally as “living together”). So whenever I explain to the French that North Americans