Coeliac disease is no longer a yuppie illness

Over Christmas, Bilal had some very strange times.  Being my new boyfriend, he was invited to spend Christmas with my family, given that his gormless family members don't celebrate this occasion.  I remember when my mother invited him over.  He seemed very unenthusiastic, but my mother persisted and he agreed to spend Christmas with us reluctantly.  I stayed in my own flat while he stayed with my parents.  I was enthusiastically looking forward to having Les Treize Desserts, that great Provençal equivalent of a smörgåsbord.

One of the things that has been regarded as extremely odd about Bilal is his refusal to eat any local French cuisine.  There are a few specialist shops in or near La Savine selling traditional Malian products and Bilal always refused to eat anything other than traditional Malian cuisine and nobody had the faintest idea why.  Our church is one where people tend to stay the whole day.  Given Bilal's responsibilities at church, it was not really practical for him to go back to La Savine and come back again for his next task, so he would bring in a packed lunch, perhaps eating it in a room out of sight.  Even on House Party, he would insist on bringing his own food and he would cook it himself if need be, setting up a fire to cook taguella, a traditional Malian bread, which tends to be cooked in sand and ashes.

During the various meals at Christmas, Bilal was constantly trying to make excuses not to participate in mealtimes, saying that he didn't have much of an appetite.  In France, this is quite normal for women with dainty figures such as myself, MDR.  However, it is not normal for a man to have no interest in food: - as I have explained in a previous posting, if a Frenchman is overweight, it is regarded as a sign that he is living the good live.  Anyway, Bilal found that there was no way to avoid eating food at my parents' home without seriously offending those who had cooked it, so he reluctantly ate the food available.  I did not witness the events of the early hours of Christmas Day, as I was sleeping in my own flat after the midnight celebrations of Christmas Eve.  However, when I arrived on Christmas Day, I saw Bilal walking towards the door of my parents' home in order to leave and looking very upset and humilliated.  There was quite a commotion of people trying to persuade him to stay.  What apparently happened is that in the early hours of the morning, he had some extremely violent bowel problems and unfortunately, because the bathroom is not soundproofed, he was not able to hide the sounds resulting from these violent bowel problems and he made very loud moans of pain.  Toilet humour is not exactly to a French woman's taste, so I will bypass some of the details.

After a lot of persuading from me and my parents, Bilal eventually agreed to stay.  This he did for a few further weeks and he ate whatever food was in front of him (and continued having the same bowel problems).  One of my relatives who is known for being a hypochondriac happened to be staying with us this Christmas.  She spoke with Bilal and persuaded him to see a doctor.  Bilal is quietly a macho man, as he is used to surviving in harsh conditions in the Sahara Desert facing down threats to his family's livestock, be they wild animals, armed raiders, lack of water etc, so he wasn't all that enthused by a visit to the doctor.  However, after a very large amount of persuasion, he agreed to visit the doctor.  The doctor took a blood sample from him and told him to visit for a follow-up appointment to discuss the results after the sample had been tested.

When Bilal returned for his follow-up appointment, the doctor asked his permission to refer him to the local hospital for a biopsy, as the blood sample confirmed suspicions that there were antibodies present.  Bilal was a bit apprehensive, but he agreed, as he felt that if there was something wrong with him, he may as well stick the course and find out.  I remember accompanying him to hospital for the biopsy and seeing how nervous he was, even though a biopsy is a reasonably routine surgical procedure.  In this case, it involved pushing a tube all the way through his digestive system and scraping out a sample of his lower intestine.  The sample was later analysed to see if the villi had been blunted on account of inflammation, as in the picture below.

When Bilal visited the doctor again, the doctor informed him that he has coeliac disease (spelled "celiac" by silly Americans who like to murder the English language).  Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition in which ingestion of gluten causes the villi in the lower intestines to become inflamed.  It is lifelong and there is no way of treating it; one can only prevent the negative effects thereof by not eating gluten, which is found in wheat, barley, rye and spelt.  All this perfectly explains why Bilal never liked deviating from normal Malian cuisine.  Malian cuisine, particularly in the north, is not completely free of wheat, though Bilal comes from the area around Timbuktoo, which is further south.  The foods he tends to eat include taguella (a bread made out of millet flour), rice, beef, mutton, goat, chicken, baobab leaves, spinach, jollof rice, fufu (no, this has nothing to do with men being camp, in spite of how its name sounds), maafe etc.  These foods are not sophisticated in the opinion of a stylish Frenchwoman like myself (at least in the way they are prepared in Malian cuisine), but unknowingly, it appears that they allowed Bilal to live with coeliac disease for so long.  He abstained from French cuisine (in which gluten features so heavily), as he found it inflamed his bowels.

I don't personally know what I would do if I had coeliac disease myself.  I would struggle to abstain from all those foods with gluten in them that make French cuisine so sophisticated.  Granted, not all French recipes have gluten in them: - tartiflette and cassoulet are two examples I have discussed in previous blog posts that don't normally contain gluten.  However, I would struggle to do without my morning baguette: - a micro baguette of course.  One can buy large French sticks like the ones in the photo above.  However, as Mireille Guiliano agrees, the optimum size of a portion of bread for a sophisticated Frenchwoman such as myself is about the size of an old cassette tape.  Gosh, I feel so old, given that I can remember these!  Still, as Zoë Williams correctly points out (grudingly and somewhat sarcastically), we Frenchwomen excel in all of life's seasons, whether it be the young filly season or the old bag season, tee hee.

Anyway, enough about that silly woman!  Bilal has introduced me to various aspects of Malian cuisine and some of it, though nowhere near as sophisticated as French cuisine, at least appears to be vaguely edible.  I am particularly curious about the way tea is drunk.  Normally, what happens is they pour the tea from a great height into the pot several times over.  Supposedly, this enhances the flavour, but even my sophisticated French palate can't tell the difference, so I have no doubt that this is made up.  It isn't as sophisticated as Mariage Frères tea, but it is just about bearable.  Still, if I get married to Bilal, I will have to make some adjustments: - it won't do for him to be in bed alongside me and having bowel problems!  MDR!

So there you have it: - coeliac disease is definitely not a yuppie disease (along the lines of man flu), as I indicated in a previous blog posting about gluten intolerances, tee hee!  Bilal is about as un-yuppieish (yes, I acknowledge there is no such word) as you can imagine.  Granted, some Anglo-Saxon yuppies like to spend ages reading medical textbooks and therefore induce symptoms psychosomatically, but occasionally, there are genuine cases of food issues and Bilal is one such example.  All you yuppies out there, stop pretending you have diseases you don't really have!  It makes a mockery of the people who really do have them!

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.