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Welcome

Here is your copy of Find Your France - A short guide to rural France.

If you would like to binge read some of my writing the only way at the moment is to join Medium. I'm working on it. You can read a certain amount there without being a member. Here is a link to one of my most popular articles https://chateausurvivor.medium.com/what-will-the-paysans-think-of-your-chateau-rescuing-shenanigans-e1129b2954f0​

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Sophie

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Find Your France

a short guide to rural France

with example newsletter 'The Attractions of France: from the prosaic to the sublime'

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I have not attached the document with this email as data can be cumbersome for internet users

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​Find Your France

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Loving France: from the prosaic to the sublime...,

and how to cope when we’re away

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People love France for a wide spectrum of reasons, from the prosaic ‘having a bigger garden’ to the more elusive Gallic shrug.

Bang for your buck!

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A yearning for space and a bigger home is undoubtedly a great initial pull to rural France. However the humour, warmth and insights borne of the cultural frisson between everything ‘rosbif’ and ‘frog’, add scintillation to bricks and mortar.

Vive la difference

I sometimes see France and Great Britain as two very gifted siblings vying with each other. Each has phases of glory or great flair which, for a time, outshine the other. Sparking each other’s embers we have, over the years and centuries, deeply influenced each other’s questioning, experimenting and pursuits.
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Here are some things I think the French are smashing us at, and how I cope when I’m away.

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Food practice

In the UK you are considered a bit of a foodie if you know the fundamentals of caring for the taste of food. This expertise is commonplace in France. Maybe because paysan life and savoir faire is closer to peopl's hearts.
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Can’t get the tomatoes juicy?

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Rainy Great Britain does not have the summer glut of juicy ripe tomatoes enjoyed in the Aude. Dozens of varieties of sun-ripened tomatoes contribute all summer long to the happy summer mood.

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In the UK there is nothing to compare with the sun-ripened tomate cœur de bœuf (beef heart tomato) that is pretty well a cult in our village.
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I only properly appreciated while in France, the powerful effect of pre-salting tomato salad with coarse natural salt and leaving it to marinate for at least a couple of hours before deavourng. This brings out the juice of even a woeful supermarket tomato.

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A British Sunday magazine said that knowing not to put tomatoes in the fridge is a ‘middle class thing’. Is that true? Don’t keep your tomatoes in the fridge.
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And what about storing cheese?

At the market the producteurs artisanaux of fine natural rind cheeses such as Tome or Cantal, when theyTome, hearing my accent, make me promise not to put their creation in a fridge. It’s believed to destroy the flavour. It does!. If you have a good cheese, take it out of the fridge a couple of hours before you eat it.

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To keep cheese at its best it should never be wrapped in plastic or kept at the higher temperatures supermarkets use in transit and on display.

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Emballer le fromage - Wrapping the cheese

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We know to take cheese out of the fridge, unwrap it and leave a couple of hours before use.

There is more you can do to enhance your cheese.

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Ideal storage conditions are airy, cool and humid. Try to fake the ideal cave (literally cave. But closer in meaning to larder) in your fridge.
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Properly refined cheese is having a revival in France and the US. Hurrah!

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I deal with the different cheese culture in the UK by buying minute quantities of good stuff, and eating it quickly.

Casse-croûte - Breaking bread

Other contrasts in values are borne of the love of all things food. Pen knives, for example, are regarded in the UK as something that delinquents carry, but in France the iconic Opinel is a symbol of convivial readiness to share food.

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Real men smell aubergines

It is probably fair to say that France is a more chauvinist nation than Britain, but fastidiousness about food blurs some of the UK’s margins of a woman’s role. In the British nuclear family the woman is usually the hunter and the gatherer, as far as food is concerned.

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The sight of blokes waiting in queues for vegetables, tenderly holding a vegetable to their nose is dear.

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Good Fresh food is not only the reserve of those who have the time to scour far flung wholefood shops, farmer's market's or work an allotment. Most centres commerciaux (shopping centres) will have a superstore health food shop where you can park and properly stock up with your healthy bio (organic) stuff. Market days are sacrosanct and have not been taken over by inflatable Mickey Mouse hydrogen balloons and cigarette lighter multi-packs.

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Bien sûr! garez-vous où vous voulez

Please park where you please

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It helps with shopping that, in most of France outside Paris, parking has not become an arnaque (scam). It really does seem that in the UK an expert fun-busting team has gone through every town and city systematically eradicating any form of free or casual parking. I have not found a solution for this one except to scrutinise and memorise parking rates and rules that differ all over town very carefully. I feel for those who are even slightly technologically challenged.

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Roads of course - not only the lack of traffic

Last weekend in the UK I made the mistake of travelling on a Saturday from Oxford to Kent.

Living in the Aude I got very spoiled with traffic moving at any time of day, everywhere I went. Acute and chronic road congestion is one of the things that I most dread about spending time in the UK.

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Remind me to never plan a drive anywhere on Saturdays

Last Saturday as I sat there on the M25, I reminded myself that I had reminded myself not to travel on a Saturday unless absolutely necessary.

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Des routes merveilleuses, mais ne négligez pas les ronds-points

Marvellous roads but don’t overlook the roundabouts
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I am told that the French roundabout greatly appeals to the Japanese aesthetic. They are truly works of art. Between our little town and Carcassonne, almost an hour away, two glorious examples always stay with me. One is decked out with ancient olive trees and the other, a profusion of blooming roses all summer long.

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Britain, and even more so the USA, prefers to keep their roads and trees unkempt.

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I once took a group of French friends to the West of Ireland where I learnt that our wild and untended trees can be exotic to our French friends. Some waxed lyrical about the windswept natural and untidy look of the trees. They chastised their French ways for so brutally making their trees behave and look a certain way. Others were baffled that we are not killed off daily by rogue falling branches.

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We can feel a bit brave for our toleration of wild beauty with all its dangers. Romantics!

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Don’t let health and safety ruin a good story

Do you think that the French quality of life is enhanced by France’s more relaxed attitude to health and safety? Whether it’s having a beer with your Big Mac, or climbing to castles like Peyreperteuse, up slippery paths, over stone polished by centuries of use, grasping at gnarled branches of box trees, with roots bursting out of the boulders underfoot.

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With more relaxed health and safety interventions, you have to look out for yourself more, but to me, the adventure and proximity to nature is easily worth it.

Paris: A world apart

This account is based on my experience of rural France. I’m told that Parisians have a similar dependency on supermarkets as we do in the English speaking world. Apparently not quite. Even French supermarkets have not yet reached the point where every fruit and vegetable is available 12 months of the year. Viva la Difference.



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The End

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Please share this newsletter if you enjoyed it.​

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Tips that never die

If you are going to learn French, start by learning the alphabet.

Just as you would in your own language. YouTube links to sing-alongs are easy to find.

​Duolingo​

A painless, free and effective way to practice and improve your French every day

# 10 Alter Ego

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Copyright: Sophie Duncan

Acknowledgements

​https://minim-municipalism.org/db/french-municipalisms-from-roundabouts-to-the-commune-of-communes​

Darien Bernstein

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