Over the course of the semester, we've been doing all sorts of writing in my Creative Writing class. Recently, we've been working hardest on a long midterm essay, but now and then we just do simpler free-writing exercises. I will post the most polished version of my midterm essay when I receive my second draft back from my professor, but in the meantime, here is a short piece I wrote up when my professor basically said to us, "It's spring! Things are changing in Aix! What's different? You have half an hour. Use all five senses! Write! Go!"
France, of course, is known for its cuisine. I knew that even before coming here. What I didn’t realize until more recently was that I didn’t know why. When I thought “French cuisine,” I thought Julia Child and Disney’s Ratatouille: chefs in big white hats mixing up delicate sauces and flowery desserts, chopping vegetables with a practiced speed and drizzling chocolate with graceful abandon, experimenting with all sorts of nonsense from frog’s legs to escargot. And maybe there is some value in that impression, especially up in Paris. I’ve been to Paris before, and tried both escargot and frog’s legs there. That’s where the biggest cooking schools are, and the five-star restaurants, and world-renowned fashions—food is subject to la mode just as much as clothing is. From the recipe to the plate, much of French food culture does have to do with design.
That being said, living in the south of France, away from the flashy cooking schools and restaurants renommés (renowned), it seems to me that what really separates French cuisine isn’t design—there are excellent chefs autour du monde (around the world)—but a sort of profound respect. It’s ingrained into the culture as a whole: food isn’t simply a means of sustenance, of fuel, but it’s a pleasure. The preparation of food is a ritual. It’s a means of sharing your life with other people. It’s tremendously important—and if it takes a long time, then so be it. It is worth it. |
DesiraeThe School of Humanities and Social Sciences Archives
June 2013
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