By Boyd Lemon / Guest contributor
Many of you who have read my column from time-to-time know that I recently returned from living in Paris for almost a year. One of the first things I noticed about eating in Paris was that the food tasted better. Being a curious sort, I wondered why. I have come to believe that one of the reasons is that food is more important in the French culture, and so they try harder. But it is not just that they are better cooks, though they may be. The product they are working with, that is, the food, is fresher and tastes better.
For one thing it is against the law in France to feed any animal to be eaten chemicals or hormones of any kind. Their cattle eat grass and whole grains with no additives. The result—the meat tastes better, not to mention, it is healthier. Chicken, beef, lamb, pork, all of it simply tastes better, and it isn’t wholly because of those delicious French sauces, though delicious they are. I know, because when I first came here I didn’t know how to make any of those sauces, and the meat I cooked tasted better.
The vegetables and fruits taste better too. Why? Because they are fresher. Every district (called arrondissements) in Paris has several public markets. So do other cites in France. It is almost impossible to live anywhere that doesn’t have a public market nearby. Fruits and vegetables are brought in by farmers’ employees the night before. Since there are many farms within a half hour’s drive of Paris and countless farms within a few hours, that can be and is done. So when you buy them, they are fresh. The French also have a custom of shopping more frequently than Americans generally do. They don’t buy a week’s supply of groceries. Many shop every day for the evening meal. That means they are dining on fruits and vegetables that have been picked less than 48 hours before. Who knows how long ago vegetables in an American supermarket were picked — not the consumer.
The public markets in Paris (and all over France) also sell fresh meat, and fish that came off the boats yesterday. And conveniently, for the shopper, they sell cheese and olives and wine and clothing and jewelry — just about anything that an American supermarket sells and more (like snails and intestines, but never mind). At the end of each day, the booths are taken down and put up again for the next market. Different markets are open on different days.
Americans who live in Paris are enamored with the public markets. ”I love the public markets,” I hear over and over again from Americans who live here, as well as tourists.
The other custom in France, as anyone who has been here knows, is to have small shops that specialize in a specific food: butcher shops, fish shops, produce shops, cheese shops etc. I don’t know why, but the food in these shops seems to be better than what you find in an American supermarket. I suspect that it is fresher.
Alas, though, starting in the 1960’s supermarkets started appearing in Paris and other big French cities, and now they are common. Many people still shop in the public markets and the small shops, but I fear that the trend is toward the American way of shopping. Many French deplore this trend and deplore that France is becoming more like America every year. It all started, says one French writer, when in the 1920’s Parisians adopted the American term, “weekend” to refer to Saturdays and Sundays, and I hear it frequently now. I don’t know about that, but the trend now certainly is toward the American way of life. I doubt, though, that France will ever allow chemicals or hormones to be fed to animals they eat.
In my view, the best thing to happen to food in America in the past few decades is the growing popularity of farmers’ markets. Most cities now have them, but there must be more in order to get fresh food to the American public. I had the pleasure of living near the city that claims to have established the first farmers’ market in America, San Luis Obispo, California. I don’t know if their claim is accurate, but they certainly have had a hugely popular farmers’ market for many years.
The farmers’ market not only provides fresh produce, but many of them sell other items, offer cooked food for customers to dine on, places to sit and eat when the weather permits and even live music. It becomes a fun family event, which attracts more people. I hope this trend continues. For Americans to be able to eat healthy, tasty food, the growth of farmers’ markets will have to be accompanied by a grass roots campaign to convince Congress and state legislatures to prohibit feeding animals we eat chemicals, hormones and anything that is not natural, as France and a number of other countries have done.
Finally, we need to change our food distribution system so that food is distributed and eaten closer to where it grows. We probably won’t, and maybe we shouldn’t, go back to the days I remember as a child, when we didn’t import fruits and vegetables from the southern hemisphere during our winter, so that we only had peaches and plums, for example, in the summer. It made summer a more exciting time to look forward to. But each individual does have the choice not to eat peaches and plums sold in January.
In the end, it is up to us, as the consumers of food, to demand better, fresher natural food. That is what will cause changes in the food distribution system. And enjoy your local farmers’ markets.
— Boyd Lemon is a retired lawyer, who re-invented himself as a writer, living in Ventura. He recently returned from a year in France and Italy and is writing a book on retirement. His upcoming book, “Retirement: A 10 Step Program to the Best Time of Your Life,” he expects to be released early next year. His memoir, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages,” published last May, is about his journey to understand his role in the destruction of his three marriages. He believes it will help others to deal with their own relationship issues. Excerpts are on his website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.com