French lunchtime rituals

One thing that has been cause for concern as of late is the decline of French lunchtime rituals.  A Frenchwoman knows that rushing one's meals, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon style, can lead to what Mireille Guiliano calls "mindless eating", i.e. where people consume huge amounts and have become so distracted by things around them that they forget to concentrate on their food and end up consuming more of it, given that it has escaped their attention that they are consuming it.  A Frenchwoman likes to savour the moment and mealtimes are no exception.  The picture below is named "Pereza Andaluza" ("Andalusian laziness") and was painted by Julio Romero de Torres around 1900 or so.  I recall seeing it during one of my visits to Andalusia (known as "Andalucía" in Spanish and "Andalousie" in French), though Andalusia is a subject for another blog post.  Though it is a shame I cannot think of a similar painting done by a French artist about France, I think this painting captures very well the way a Frenchwoman loves to savour the moment and enjoy it, rather than rush around American-style saying "time is money, time is money".

The article describes people falling into American ways of working, i.e. rushing for a quick bite to eat and then wolfing it down in a couple of minutes and then resuming one's work.  It is very worrying that French women are falling into American habits.  If living like this, the only way to have an impossibly dainty figure like mine (or that of another quintessential Frenchwoman) is to starve oneself or take dieting pills or something else that is disagreeable to a Frenchwoman seeking to have as much pleasure in life as possible.  France needs to protect itself against American imperialism by keeping its own habits.  Yes, one needs to get a large amount of work done to maintain one's standard of living, but a Frenchwoman knows how to work efficiently, so that she isn't drawn into American habits.

But you don't know what is necessary to have a successful business, I hear people cry.  I do not run my workplace in the Anglo-Saxon style, though I must admit I am nevertheless a diva like Miss Anna Wintour, the British-born editor of the US version of Vogue, one of my competitors!  MDR!

At my workplace, we are not completely rigid about our working hours, as some people make French people out to be.  Obviously, if there is an important fashion show taking place outside of office hours (many of them seem to be mid-evening), then we need to make sure we are properly represented.  However, employees of mine who work beyond the standard 35-hour week tend to receive negative attention from me for not being competent and efficient enough at their jobs to get their work done within 35 hours.  I invest in various things to ensure that my employees can do this.  I send them on organisational skills courses to help them manage their workload and strategically work out what does and does not need to be done in the first place.  Touch-typing courses are a favourite with me as well, given that writing is pretty much what we do (not forgetting photography though).

Ok, so fashion shows require us to do stuff out-of-hours, but on a normal working day, we do not rush lunch or stay in.  French schools are known for having very long hours and some schools run from 8AM to 6PM.  When new employees start with me, just in case they have children, I give them a list of local schools that have timetables from 8AM to 6PM, so that we can observe proper lunchtime rituals the way Frenchwomen do.  In our premises, we have a list of markets and when they are on.

The market picture above is French, though it is in Cherbourg (a place with a much cooler climate, hence the coats), not my beloved Marseille, but never mind.  Anyway, regardless of whether or not it is a market day, we will normally start the working day at 8.30AM, leaving the employees with children half an hour or so to get into the office after dropping off their children.  If there is a market that day, we will take an hour for our lunch break (12PM-1PM) and have a light lunch, normally in a café on the edge of the Vieux Port: - when I say light, I mean light by French standards!  MDR!  This means we finish work at 4.30PM to allow time for combing the markets for the choicest ingredients before picking children up from school.  If there is no market that day, we will take a two-hour lunch break (12PM-2PM) and finish at 5.30PM (leaving half an hour for employees with children to reach their childrens' schools).  During the lunch break, we tend to eat at local brasseries.  I know all the restaurants in the local area and when it comes to the ones with the best food and atmosphere, I strike up relationships with them, meaning that they feed us a low price to my business (sometimes, good food costs less; a slogan for a horrible British supermarket chain) in exchange for regular custom.  Free meals is a perk I give my employees and if one is tough in negotiations with the restaurant, a perk like this need not cost the earth.  During these brasserie meals, we enjoy all the local culinary delights that Provence offers.  Such as what?  Bouillabaise for starters!  Corny pun I know, MDR!

Bouillabaise is probably the dish that Marseille is most famous for.  It is traditionally made up of a large number of different types of fish and is, for want of a better word (English culinary vocabulary is limited), a fish soup.  It is absolutely delicious and when living in London building up my fashion career, I found I needed to go back to Marseille every so often and get my bouillabaise fix!  MDR!

Pissaladière (a dish vaguely related to pizza) is closely associated with Nice, though it is fairly common in many areas of Provence.  Unsophisticated Americans might compare it to a deep-pan pizza!  Yuck!

Aïoli and olives are two things we like to eat as part of meals, though only the Provençal varieties are of sufficient quality for our palates.  Another thing we like to have as a side is Fougasse, that very Provençal bread.  Yuppies visiting my magazine's premises from the UK and USA tend to bleat about being gluten intolerant or having coeliac disease when this comes along, but I ignore their grumblings regarding their phoney yuppie diseases and order more!  MDR!

Did I forget to mention that we always have such things in local brasseries/cafés accompanied by Pastis de Marseille?  No meal in Marseille would be complete without Pastis de Marseille.  Anglo-Saxon visitors with inadequately developed palates tend to moan endlessly about its strong flavour, but I say that an inability to like Pastis de Marseille is a sign that one's palate is not sophisticated enough!

To conclude this blog, all I need to say is that lunchtime is a time for intense pleasure and no business objectives could possibly be important enough to sacrifice the pleasure a Frenchwoman, with her sophisticated palate, gets from eating lunch in a high-quality brasserie or café.