This post is hard to write, so it will undoubtably be hard to read. When I cook angry or sad, the food always tastes bad, over-seasoned with tears or perspiration (oh, get over it…if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant kitchen, you know exactly what I’m talking about; if you haven’t, well, just go back to the confines of your naive hygienic imaginings, else you’ll never eat out again). I’ve given it the mandatory three-day waiting period, and I’m still as angry, frustrated and confused as was when it first happened, so, here goes.
I believe it’s a sign of respect to try to speak the local language when visiting a foreign country. Since one of our objectives on this crazy coddiwomple is to immerse ourselves in local custom and culture, it’s important to make a bit of an effort at speaking the native tongue. Sometimes, like Mexico, it’s easy. We were there for years, and I had decades of practice in school. Sometimes, like Italy, it just flows naturally, because the people are so welcoming and lovely, and they correct your minor gaffes gently. Sometimes, like Iceland, it’s utterly hopeless, and you just ask “English?” hopefully at the beginning of every transaction, and pray that when you said “cod”, you will actually get, cod. Actually, in Iceland, you will likely get cod no matter what you say, in any language. The point is, in most places, there is a graciousness even when you stumble, if only because they see you as potential partner in their quest to practice their English. It’s a nice way to greet the world.
Being Australian is a world-wide calling card in a way that being American just isn’t. Regardless of how the “Ugly American” got her reputation (theories abound, and I won’t debate them here), Darren’s accent gets a warm reception wherever we go. ” Oh, you’re Australian….!” The friendly Aussie schtick – even when it’s all in English – often goes a lot farther than the best efforts of the American girl, butchering the local dialect. But, for the most part, making an effort is appreciated, and rewarded.
Then, there’s France. I don’t speak French. I took two years in junior high, only because at the end of the eighth grade, the entire French class took a trip to the Chateau Frautnac in Quebec. Because I got into some mischief of my own that semester, I was grounded and not allowed to make the longed-for trip to French Canada. I believe that this unimaginable trauma has lodged itself in the language center of my brain, and I am completely stymied by French. Duo Lingo, Babble, the French Companion (which sounded a good deal sexier than it is) have all been epic failures. I am hopelessly attached to Google Translate in France, keeping up the reputation of ugly, idiotic Americans everywhere.
It’s a funny place, France. We were already minor World War II buffs; but it has really become a passion during our journey these past few months. Coming from home countries that boast a scant four hundred-ish years of combined history, it’s extraordinary to visit places where you are likely to be staying in structures that are 700 years old; although we have Revolutionary and Civil battlegrounds, and the Aussies have Invasion Day, certainly, it’s a new slant for us here that they are still celebrating the liberation of their cities from horrors of the second World War, surrounded by living monuments to the destruction it wrought.
France suffered incredible misery at the hands of the Nazis…most of Northern France, including Paris, was occupied for over four desperate years. Whatever France was before 1940, the war created a nation divided between collaborators and brave resistors. Divided by history, allegiance, and geography, France is a hodgepodge of cultures still.
We’ll cover our two visits to Paris, eventually, and I hope, with good humor. Suffice it to say, it really doesn’t matter where you come from, when you’re in Paris, you’re either Parisian, or you’re not. My ingenue delight at the sheer beauty and rich history, architecture, and incredible food was somewhat dampened by the utter disinterest of the locals. It’s okay, when they come to Boston, Chicago or LA, I think I can take ’em. But we’ll give them inches here one day soon just for fun, because one thing is for certain, writers and photographers never leave Paris empty-handed.
Normandy was awe-inspiring on every level. We had the incredible honor of spending a week in Normandy, just to ourselves, retracing the years and days leading up to the Allied Invasion. We really could have, and someday will, spent months exploring the topography, the destruction, the victory, the solemnity, the struggle, and humility. The American Cemetery alone is one of the most extraordinary examples of tribute and testimony we’ve ever experienced. My Uncle Ray was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne division, dropped into Belgium during the Battle of Bulge, to secure the northwest flank and secure the Allies’ advance towards Paris shortly after D-Day. We’ll cover our emerging connections to WWII more fully elsewhere, as it sadly, importantly parallels so much that is happening today, but it was an honor to stand where incredible bravery confronted the purest evil of that terrible war. Normandy shouldn’t wait for your bucket list.
In Normandy, being an American is a pretty good deal. And while English is widely spoken, owing to the daily pilgrimages of Canadians, British, Americans, and Australians, they were also patient and kind about my faltering French; amused, certainly, but with none of the condescension of their Parisian counterparts.
And, we had the loveliest housesit in Bordeaux. The people, pets and places who touched us in Bordeaux are deserving of their own dedicated tribute in another post in due time. No regrets from those lazy, Indian Summer weeks amid the forests, lakes and vineyards; given that it coincided with a major family crisis for me, is really a credit to an otherwise lovely and peaceful time for us. Bordeaux is special.
But Brittany? In spite of our lovely hosts and their sweet, quirky dogs, Brittany has managed to take the glow out of my standby, treasured pastime, which I freely admit, without irony, is grocery shopping. This is an art form for me, and the form requires little actual art to give me great joy. The spectrum can range from the unpredictable treasures of a local farmers market to the cavernous warehouse sterility of a Costco, and everything in between. If we’re old friends on social media, you already know I was as likely to post about a trip to Wegmans as a hike to a waterfall. I love the entire process end to end: devising the next few days’ menus, picturing the prep and cooking, making lists that are sensitive to the shop’s unique layout…I really get a lot of joy out of the whole silly shebang. Even the intimidating stall-masters in Paris or Venice couldn’t rob me of the simple delights of the local vendors’ bounty.
But, Brittany, you have confounded me to the point where my dark fantasies now run to shrink-wrapped tikka masala and pre-packaged pizza kits. Darren’s “don’t hurt anyone,” as I exit the vehicle is meant to sincerely cheer me on; my joyless shopping is affecting the way his meals taste, after all…and I know he grows weary of talking me off the ledge when I emerge, frustrated, often empty-handed, lists shredded and tear-stained.
Forget the language barrier, which also means forgetting that I have been inquiring about the location of ice-cream cubes, instead of ice cubes, for weeks now. I know, hopeless Americans! This obsession with ice cubes is just part of the great divide. For me, it’s a genetic defect. I have many childhood memories of my grandmother forcing us to leave restaurants if the ice proved unsuitable…and that was that in the Michelin-starred mecca of Spokane, Washington! I like my beverages cold and sparkly. But, here, of course, they’re mostly drinking wine and cider., flat and lukewarm. I laughed out loud last week when I ordered a sparkling water, with ice, in perfect French. I must’ve misspoken the plural for ice (um, it’s “ice”, right?) — as the waiter proudly returned with a single cube already melting in the base of my narrow glass. Such is Europe, I adjust. Most days, the tradeoffs are worth it.
But the subject of this rant isn’t ice, or some other equally esoteric product like Worcestershire Sauce (how I long for England, where, while hardly a foodie paradise, they at least recognize the basic mother sauce of a condiment for what it is). The title subject of this prickly episode is Milk. Fresh milk.
We’ve been in Brittany for nearly a month by the Fresh Milk Debacle of ’23, and I’ve got L’éclerc, the local supermarket, down to a passable, tense routine. I have learned that since I cannot manage the translations on the scales, we’re better off buying the sad produce that is already pre-bundled. I know where the pasta, rice, baguettes, canned goods, coffee, etc. are. I can find both the fresh herbs and dried spices. It has shrunk our repertoire, and required a lowering of our standards, but it’s manageable. Since it has also rained for 22 straight days, following a hurricane that claimed the life of a dozen people, and honestly, we’ve eaten a bit too well through the rest of our coddiwomple, my consistently lousy grocery store experiences seem a bit petty on our list of November complaints. We make do.
I take my plastic token, which is considered somewhat less risky to the cash bond alternative, and stuff it in the trolley slot, releasing the cart from its chain gang bondage. In another post, let’s please delve into this line of demarcation: where in the decay of a society do we stand that we must now provide a deposit in order to be trusted with a cart at the grocery? Is it that we can’t be counted on to return the cart a few meters to the designated area without this sacrament? Or, has our society frayed to the point where the trolleys now have such intrinsic value to the discarded among us, that it’s just a subtle reminder that, plastic token or euro or pound or quarter, we possess the minimum requirement to be allowed to shop with the luxury of a wheeled carry-all? Regardless, all we really need on this trip is coffee and fresh milk. But, owing to the extreme outside chance that I will find a bag of ice cubes, I always take the trolley.
Naturally, my trolley is full of more than coffee, but, having paced every refrigerated aisle and cabinet, I still have yet to discover the fresh milk. The aisle of “long life milk” is larger than the entire refrigerated section, but we prefer the fancy, fresh, elusive cold stuff. I sigh at my misfortune, consult google translate, even though I already know, and tentatively approach two checkout lines with no customers in queue.
I say, to either, or really, neither of the ladies eyeing me with suspicion (is it possible to look uniquely American? Does something in my plain sweat shirt and black pants somehow reveal that this transaction will take all I have to give?)
“Pardon, mais óu est le lait frais, síl vous plaît?”.
Blank stares, cold dead eyes. Perhaps they are just lost in their own thoughts.
I try again, “le lait frais, síl vous plaît?”
“Eh?!”one of them grunts at me, looking away. Again, “le Lait. Frais. Síl. Vous. Plaît.” Nothing. Desperate now, feeling the familiar prick of tears heating the back of my eyes, I attempt a language I used to know, “Milk? Fresh Milk, please? Le Lait Frais?”
The ringleader (I have decided she must be the more tenured of the two as she met my imploring gaze with her steely glare the longest) gestures behind me to the vast stretch of the long-life milk aisle, grimacing at the pathetic American. I dutifully look, already knowing it is wrong.
“Non, s’íl vous plait,” and at that moment, because I am too stunned by their rudeness, I cannot for the life of me remember the world for “cold”, remembering the time in Puerto Vallarta when, trying to buy a cooler, and not knowing the word, I asked for the “box or bag that you put cold food in, which insists it stays cold for a very long time” (the lovely Mexican clerk walked me all the way to the cooler section and showed me ice packs as well). But since I cannot seem to remember the word for “cold” in French, and not wanting to give them the satisfaction, I simply grasp my upper arms with my hands and shiver, the clear, universal gesture for cold. They shrug, in unison, and look away.
This. This is how nearly every shopping trip in Brittany has gone. Except, in most of those cases, I really am looking for something esoteric or non-existent. But this time, I am looking for Fresh Milk. What’s more, I’m very sure that I have asked for it correctly, in French, slowly, and patiently. Completely dejected, I brush away a tear, and turn my high-priced hostage of a trolley away so that they won’t get another moment’s pleasure out of my abject humiliation.
Fifteen minutes later (a consequence of piloting my cart in a strange store in tears, and the seeming inexistence in this enormous warehouse of a supermarket of a carton of fresh milk, I find tucked in the back corner of the bottom of one refrigerated panel four liters of fresh milk. I take two of the bottles, somewhat victorious, but hardly triumphant at this point, given that I have once again been reduced to tears by the seemingly simplest of errands.
It is of course the exact shade of my Brittany luck that the same two lanes are the only ones available when I return to the checkout. When the dead-eyed woman scans the first bottle, I ask, “comment aurais-je dû appeler ça?” which translates, “what should I have called this?”.
In complete deadpan, she retorts, in perfect English, “Fresh Milk.”
I am so stunned by her coldness that for a moment, I’m speechless in every language. Even in Paris, their dismissiveness seems borne more of efficiency than cruelty. I leave the store, unable to lessen my death grip on the trolley handlebar, and make my way to the car, really thinking that we have arrived at the complete dead end of humanity, when the most basic, innocent of pleas, politely proffered, can be treated so thoughtlessly by another fellow human being. I’m so lost in my own hurt and anger that I forget to meet the eyes of the homeless man huddled in the entry way with his beautiful gentle lab as I wordlessly place a euro on in his cardboard box and keep moving.
I’m sobbing now, more from shock, really shaken. Darren must have thought I’d lost my mind when I blurted out the beginning of the story, which dissolved in, “so, please drive me back to the front of the store…I need to give something more to that man and his beautiful dog.” Baffled, but sensing that this is more than another fruitless search for ice cubes, he pilots the car the wrong way to the front of the store, and watches me get out.
The man is filthy, shivering, and looks to be exactly our age. His blue eyes are kind, there are still unlikely laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes; I place a €5 bill in his hand, and he takes mine, saying, in perfect English, “thank you, and God bless you.” I smile, return his greeting in French, and pet his dog, squeeze his hand, dizzy and unbalanced by how ridiculously upside down the entire world must be for these two interactions to occur mere moments apart.
The first, so simple, ended so needlessly tragically. The second, so tragically complicated, ended with so much grace. I’m still not sure which person taught me the greater lesson that rainy evening…perhaps the woman had gotten very bad news that day, perhaps her son is dealing drugs or her husband is cheating; maybe the homeless man is a con artist, floating effortlessly between alcoves, bilking shaking Americans out of the last of their cash. What I do know is this: one encounter created the kind of negative energy that shook me to my core, made me physically ill; and the second, which should have been far more hopeless and urgent, created the kind of energy that entrusted us both into one another’s care and the protection of the Universe.
Please, please, please. Let’s take better care of one another in every encounter, beginning today. Fresh milk, indeed.