Day: March 5, 2011

If you’ve read the previous post, you may be wondering: how can the children cope and spend 5 hours around the table? French kids must be so well behaved!

The truth is that French kids are no different from other kids. They can’t spend 5 hours around the table, and they are not expected to. So, last night, the TV was on all evening, tuned on a cartoon channel. The children were coming and going between each course, watching TV and playing with toys as the adults were chatting away around the table.

It was the same when I was growing up. We were never expected to stay all afternoon around the table. We could go freely between courses, watch TV in another room, or play with toys, or run around in th egarden. a grown up would call us back when the next course was about to be served.

 

Last night, we were invited by a family we know from school. Their youngest daughter is with Jean-Baptiste. We had a great time, and it was good to be in a French house, and to follow French ways of doing things for once.

The food was very simple. But what matters in an occasion like that is the company and spending time with people. There’s no hurry to go from one course to the other, and you end up spending several hours around the table without you noticing. We started with the apéritif. Then we had soup, the main course (Boeuf Bourguignon), salad together with the cheese, pudding, and coffee, or herbal teas for the ladies. During the meal, adults could drink red wine, and the children had water, or sirop (some kind of squash).

About half way through, the neighbour joined us. Here husband is in hospital, and she had only just come back from visiting him. So our friends went out to get some news and invited her to join us. It was a pleasant evening.

There are differences with socializing in the UK. On big difference is the time it takes to eat. We arrived at 7pm and left at 12:15am. That’s 5 hours around the table. Another difference is that in the UK, you would go through the meal and move to the living room to have coffee on the sofas and chat. But you don’t do that in France. You stay around the table until it is time for you to leave.