French Lessons Read Free

seldom knowledgeable, they provide little more than a
transport service between kitchen and customer. A serious waiter, a career
waiter, is in a different league. He can add another layer of enjoyment to your
meal.
    You should ask him to be your guide, because he knows the food
better than you do. He himself has probably eaten everything on the menu dozens
of times over the past twenty years. He can tell you exactly how each dish is
cooked and what would be the ideal combination of courses, light and heavy,
savory and sweet. And he is on close personal terms with the cellar,
particularly with some small local wines that you may not have come across
before.
    Now watch him at work. It seems effortless. There is no furtive
wrestling with the wine bottle; the cork never sticks or breaks, but comes out
with a smooth turn of the wrist, to be given a brief, considered sniff of
approval. Nothing is rushed, and yet all you need—cornichons to go with
the pâté, or a good fierce mustard for the daube—is there on
your table when it should be. The bread basket is refilled; the glasses are
topped up. You don’t have to ask for anything. Your man is telepathic: He
knows what you need before you know it yourself.
    I’m sure that
waiters like this exist in other countries, but in France there seem to be so
many of them—unhurried, calm, on top of their job. It is considered an
honorable occupation. I like that. In fact, I have often thought that these
superlative waiters deserve some official recognition, and there could be no
better place for them to receive it than in the pages of another flourishing
French institution, the Michelin guide.
    The guide celebrated its one
hundredth birthday in 2000. It was published, as usual, in March—a
red-covered tome, bulging with good addresses—and, as usual, it flew off
bookstore shelves. Other countries, of course, have their restaurant guides
(considerably slimmer than the Michelin), and some of them do very well. But
the Michelin does better than very well; it is an immediate national
best-seller, year after year. In a later chapter, we shall see some of the
discreet workings of the red guide in more detail. I only mention it here
because it is another example of a thriving gastronomic tradition, and of the
continuing search for exceptional food in every corner of the country.
    Where else would people get worked up about salt? To the rest of the world,
salt is a necessary but anonymous part of the diet, about as fascinating as a
glass of tap water. But not in France. Here, salt is something that gourmets
argue about. Some of them will tell you that the ultimate saline experience is
sel de Guérande,
the gray crystallized sea salt gathered along
the Brittany coast; others prefer the white
fleur de sel
found in the
Camargue. Not long ago, I bought some of the latter to try. It came in a
decorative cork-topped pot, and the label featured the name—in this case,
Christian Carrel from Aigues-Mortes—of the
saunier
who gathered
the salt. Very good it is, too, particularly when sprinkled on radishes or
fresh tomatoes.
    More and more small companies, or individuals like
Carrel, are making visible efforts through their labels and packaging to
separate themselves from the industrial food business. The chicken farmers of
Bresse have been doing it for years; every single bird wears on one ankle an
aluminum identification ring, marked with the farmer’s name and address.
Now you can find similar detailed information—with its implicit promise
of higher quality—on jams and
tapenades
and cheeses, on sausage
and olive oil and honey and pastis. These delicacies are likely to cost more
than their mass-produced competitors, but the difference in taste is worth the
difference in price.
    More proof that the French stomach is far from
being neglected is spread out in front of you every week at any of a thousand
markets throughout the country. In Provence alone, there are enough of them to
offer you the