French Lessons

by Peter Mayle

  A cheese stand opposite the café had appeared on Sadler’s radar screen, luring him away for a swift, decisive visit to buy supplies to take back to Paris. He returned to the café looking thoughtful. The sight of a panorama of Livarot spread across the stand had reminded him of the afternoon’s competition. How do you get ready for something like that?

  We tried to imagine the regime of self-denial, the months of struggle and sacrifice, the preparations required to bring a competitor to peak condition before a concentrated onslaught of cheese and cider. Fasting? Calisthenics? Jogging around town? Meditation? Colonic irrigation? Stomach massage? In the end, Lulu’s suggestion—the French answer to circuit training—was probably the one followed by most of the competitors. “Lunch,” she said, “but only a light lunch.”

  “What a good idea,” said Sadler.

  Three o’clock, and a long table had been set up on the platform in the place Pasteur. As a warm-up act before the featured competition, some twisted genius had devised a special contest for the younger gourmet. Children were lined up at the table in teams of two, one sitting, one standing behind. The one standing behind (the feeder) had to spoon yogurt into the mouth of his or her seated teammate (the eater). Simple enough, except that the feeders all had black plastic bags over their heads, and so had to locate the eaters’ mouths blind: by touch, trial, and messy error. The animateur, a young man with a microphone, a breathless line of nonstop patter, and an acrobatic ability to dodge flying gobs of yogurt, supervised the proceedings. After ten minutes, all the children and most of the table had been covered with a coating of white goo. Everyone agreed that the event had been an outstanding success.

  After some swabbing down by the hygiene squad, table and chairs were ready for the grands mangeurs. One by one, these Olympians of gluttony—nine of them—went up to take their places. There was much applause from the crowd, particularly for the favorite, a surprisingly slim man. And a real ovation for the Japanese dark horse from Clermont-Ferrand, Mademoiselle Iku, a small, slender young lady who looked as though she would have difficulty dealing with a baguette, let alone a couple of pounds of Livarot. The animateur asked her how she felt. She giggled and waved to the crowd. “She’s confident, that one,” said someone behind me. “She has beaucoup d’élan. But does she have the stomach for cheese?”

  The animateur explained the rules. There was a time limit of fifteen minutes, during which contestants had to eat their way through two entire cheeses. Each cheese weighed nine hundred grams, or about two pounds. Liquid assistance was available in the form of bottles of cider. Any attempts to secrete cheese in the clothing would be punished by disqualification. May the best mouth win.

  The favorite could be seen warming up, flexing his jaw muscles and rolling his shoulders, eyeing his opponents, taking the cap off his bottle of cider. He was asked what he had done that day in the way of last-minute training. As Lulu had predicted, he said he had made do with a light lunch. Next question: How often did he eat cheese? Once a year, he said. End of interview. He refused to be drawn out, clearly saving himself for the supreme effort to come.

  And they’re off! All nine of them make a strong start, tearing at their cheese like dogs savaging a postman’s trousers. It’s a brutal pace. It can’t possibly last; this is a marathon, not a sprint. After two or three minutes, the contestants settle down to a less frenzied rhythm, and the differences in their techniques begin to show themselves. You can tell the first-time competitors by the uneven size of their mouthfuls, a certain lack of smoothness in their arm movements, and their tendency to glance sideways to see how their opponents are doing. A great mistake, or so we are informed by an expert standing close by, the cheese-eating equivalent of taking your eye off the ball.

  Two different and distinctly superior styles are now apparent. There is the zen of Mademoiselle Iku, her gaze focused on some inspirational sight in the far distance as she chews and swallows at a steady pace, wiping her lips delicately between mouthfuls with a paper napkin, taking ladylike sips of cider. If there were a special prize for the most graceful consumption of an indecent amount of Livarot, she would walk away with it.

  By way of contrast, there are the no-holds-barred tactics of the champ. He takes double bites, double mouthfuls, stuffing one mouthful in each cheek, leaving just enough space in the middle of his mouth to allow the passage of a torrent of cider that swills the cheese down his gullet. The man is like a machine, eating rind and all, mopping his brow, signaling for another bottle of cider. There can be no doubt about it. We are in the presence of cheese-eating greatness here. “Quel mec!” cries one of his fans. “Il est formidable.” What a guy. And what a digestive system.

  With a final double mouthful, a last huge swig of cider, and a well-earned belch, the favorite finishes, raising both arms in a victory salute. He has eaten four pounds of cheese and drunk one and a half liters of cider in twelve minutes flat. This may be a world record. Sweating profusely, he stands up—in itself a small miracle—to be interviewed by the animateur.

  “Congratulations! How does it feel to win again?”

  “Génial. No more cheese for a year.”

  End of interview. The champion is a man of few words. Or perhaps he has a surfeit of Livarot wrapped around his vocal cords.

  The animateur moves on to Mademoiselle Iku, who has acquitted herself with considerable distinction, having consumed two pounds of cheese and a bottle of cider without any visible distress. In between giggles, she tells us that she loves cheese, and that Livarot is ten times more expensive in Tokyo than it is in France. She is presented with a special trophy for the best female performance, and a replica, in chocolate, of a Livarot colonel.

  Other contestants show the strain of pushing their bodies to inhuman limits in the cause of sporting endeavor. Some slump over the table, heads resting on their arms, breathing heavily, barely this side of consciousness; others are draped like sacks across the backs of their chairs, arms hanging down, faces as pale as Camembert, glistening with sweat. And they say professional boxing is tough; they should try competitive cheese eating.

  We leave the exhausted mangeurs to recover, and walk back toward the distant strains of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” coming from the main street.

  What a grand time we’ve had. Rations, company, entertainment, weather, the warmth of the Livarot welcome—everything has conspired to make the weekend memorable. And it has reminded me that there’s nobody—not even Régis—who is Sadler’s equal with knife, fork, and glass. We must do it again.

  A suitable occasion suddenly occurs to me. I shall be going to Burgundy in November to take a look at the Beaune wine auctions, and to attend the winegrowers’ lunch at the Château de Meursault. Perhaps, I say to Sadler, if he is free, he’d like to come and hold my coat. I can tell the idea interests him.

  “A serious lunch, is it?”

  “The lunch to end all lunches,” I tell him. “A good five hours.”

  “The finest of wines, no doubt?”

  “The very finest. Dozens of them.”

  “Done,” says Sadler. “I’ll wear my medal.”

  It is rare for me to return home after one of these celebrations without a few accidental souvenirs decorating my clothes. This time, my wife pointed out that in the heat of the moment I seemed to have sat on, or in, some Livarot. My trousers had suffered. In fact, I doubted they would ever recover.

  Fortunately, madame who presides over the dry cleaner’s shop in Apt is a true artist. Wine, sauce, gravy, oil, butter—none of these has ever resisted her attentions. But even she was impressed by the smears of well-entrenched cheese. Too polite to inquire exactly how they had come to be there, she asked instead what kind of cheese it was. When told it was Livarot, she nodded thoughtfully and offered to clean the trousers for nothing. It was a challenge to her professionalism, she said. Moral: Only sit on the very best cheeses.

  Slow Food

  An adult snail in prime condition has a top speed of just over
four yards per hour. He is a gastropod, making his stately progress through life on a single muscular, self-lubricating foot. He has two sets of horns; the upper set equipped with eyes, the lower with a sense of smell. He (or just as often she) is also a hermaphrodite, having the remarkable and doubtless useful ability to change sex as the occasion demands. The snail is a curious but harmless creature; its great misfortune, in France at least, is to be considered a delicacy.

  I found these basic facts in a book, an elderly copy of L’Escargot Comestible. It is a slim, no-nonsense volume brought out by La Maison Rustique, whose other titles include such gems as How to Tan the Skins of Small Animals, Practical Salmon Raising, and The Capture and Destruction of Moles. I think it would be fair to describe the people at La Maison Rustique as fringe publishers.

  My wife had found the book on a bric-a-brac stand at one of the local markets. Knowing my fascination for the snail, she bought it for me, and I spent an afternoon going through its musty, damp-stained pages. The illustrations were sparse—a couple of anatomical drawings and some faded black-and-white photographs of the snail in two classic poses: hidden inside the shell, or protruding from it. The text was scholarly in tone, and there were no unnecessary typographical flourishes. In other words, it was a serious piece of work, designed to inform students and breeders of the mollusk, rather than entertain snail dilettantes like me.

  But, serious work though it was, a Frenchman had written it. And so, inevitably, there was a recipe section: escargots à la sauce bourguignonne, à la sauce poulette, à la provençale, à l’espagnole, farçis—all set out in the same dry, precise, professorial style that had been used to describe the snail’s mating habits, sleep patterns, and robust digestive system.

  It happened that the book arrived at the perfect moment, just after I had received an invitation to the twenty-eighth annual Foire aux Escargots at Martigny-les-Bains. The fair is now sufficiently well established to have its own official stationery, and my invitation was decorated with a life-size pair of snails—looking, I thought, rather uncomfortable. The illustrator had dressed them for the occasion in collars and ties, and they had that faintly embarrassed expression one sees on dogs that have been obliged by their owners to wear little tartan raincoats.

  As for the program of events, many diversions were promised at Martigny—edible, musical, and commercial, as well as the beauty contest that is an essential part of these celebrations. Here, the organizers had clearly run up against the problem of what title to give the winner. At the frog fair I went to in Vittel, the prettiest girl was elected Miss Grenouille, which was somehow quite flattering, as frogs are renowned for their long legs and delectable thighs. But Miss Snail? What does that bring to mind? Two pairs of horns, a single muscular foot, and a gelatinous undercarriage—hardly the stuff of which beauty queens are made. Well then, how about Miss Mollusk? No, perhaps not. And Miss Hermaphrodite was absolutely out of the question. The day was eventually saved by choosing to give the winner the title of Miss Coquille. Translated into the prosaic English word shell, it might be said to lack glamour, but the French word has a certain saucy sound about it. And besides, even if you can’t eat the shell, it is probably the snail’s single most attractive feature. So Miss Coquille it was.

  Martigny-les-Bains is almost as far northeast as you can go without leaving France. As the names of the villages suggest, it’s a watery region. References to baths and springs are everywhere, from Puits-des-Fées (the fairies’ well) to Plombières-les-Bains, Grandrupt-de-Bains, and—the ultimate liquid village—Bains-les-Bains.

  The complexion of the landscape on that sunny day in May was a testament to the cosmetic benefits of abundant water. It had been a particularly dry and dusty spell in Provence, with two days of rain in three months, and I found the lushness of the northern countryside almost shocking. I must have driven past a hundred shades of green, dark rows of conifers in the distance contrasting with the glowing, luminous bursts of new growth that follow a wet spring. Cream-colored cows were sunbathing in the fields, lying down, so that only their heads were visible above the rich green waves of grass. The ditches on either side of the road overflowed with green. I stopped to check the map. Even most of that was colored green.

  I reached Martigny in the late afternoon. It was hot and quiet, with no obvious indication of the celebrations to come. No posters, no bunting, no strings of colored lights. For a moment, I wondered if I had come to the right Martigny—there are eight or nine to choose from in France—and then I saw what appeared to be a road sign. It was large and triangular and extremely official-looking. But instead of a warning to motorists, the red border framed two snails with their horns cocked, displaying an air of jaunty well-being. As far as one can judge with snails, they looked as though they hadn’t a care in the world.

  The French are not normally sentimental about their food, but they do like whatever it is they are about to eat to look happy. (It is, as these fortunate creatures should realize, a great compliment that a Frenchman would consider them worthy of consumption.) Thus, in butchers’ shops and market stands, on posters and wrapping paper, you will see anthropomorphic expressions applied to the most unlikely faces. Chickens smile, cows laugh, pigs beam, rabbits wink, and fish smirk. All of them seem to be thrilled that they will be making an important contribution to dinner.

  The sign of the snails led me into the main street of Martigny, and I felt the current of curiosity that I’m sure all strangers feel as they walk for the first time through a small French village. Lace curtains flicker in windows, revealing a bright and inquisitive eye that follows you up the street. Conversations stop. Heads turn to inspect someone so obviously from somewhere else. There’s nothing unfriendly about it, but you can’t help feeling like a sore thumb.

  I was looking for Madame Gérard, one of the organizers of the fair, who had given me the rue des Vosges as a meeting point. Seeing three ladies of the village who were taking a break from gossip to stare at me, I asked them for directions.

  “I’m looking for the rue des Vosges.”

  One of the ladies looked at me over the top of her glasses. “You’re standing in it, monsieur.”

  “Ah. Then perhaps you could tell me where I could find Madame Gérard?”

  One shrug. Two shrugs. Three shrugs. And then, as a car came down the empty street: “Voilà! Elle arrive.”

  But Madame Gérard was preoccupied. There were problems. These affairs are not without their complications, and she couldn’t stop to talk. Later, maybe we could meet at the Hotel International. And off she went, leaving me with the three ladies. Naturally, they were fascinated. What was a stranger—even more bizarre, a foreign stranger—doing here? Was I as lost as I appeared to be? Was I part of tomorrow’s festivities?

  I told them I had come to admire the snails, and I was sorry to hear that there were problems. An intake of breath and a shaking of the head from one of the ladies. Let us hope, she said, that they are not as grave as the catastrophe of a few years ago, when the truck bringing snails to Martigny met with an accident and overturned. Two thousand dozen snails! Scattered all over the road! It was très dramatique, and only superhuman efforts by the village butcher to arrange a supply of reinforcements saved the fair from disaster. Imagine a snail fair without snails. The thought of it reduced the ladies to silence.

  It is possible to walk from one end of Martigny to the other and back again in ten minutes, which I did, keeping an eye open for the Hotel International, and wondering how a hotel could survive in these quiet green depths of the French countryside. Perhaps it had a clientele of snail-fanciers; possibly a steady trickle of héliciculteurs, or snail breeders, coming from all over the world to brush up on the latest reproduction techniques. To my disappointment, I saw nothing resembling a hotel, let alone one with such a grand name. But leaning against a van with their arms crossed were two men who had watched me pass by and who were still watching when I came back. They would know where I could find the Hotel Internationa
l. I asked them, and for the second time that afternoon, I felt like a complete bumpkin.

  “You’re standing in front of it, monsieur.” They jerked their heads at the long gray building behind them. It had once been handsome, but now it was blind, its windows boarded up, its days as a hotel long since over. Madame Gérard, still wrestling with her problems, was nowhere to be seen. I asked the men when the fair was going to be set up, and one of them looked at his watch. “Five in the morning,” he said, and winced, shaking his hand as if he’d burned his fingers. And then it began to rain. It seemed like a good moment to duck into a bar.

  I was spending the night a few kilometers away in Contrexéville. It is a town, like Vittel, almost entirely dedicated to the benefits of drinking the local springwater, and the mood of the place was appropriately sober. The sun came out again, and from the café, I could see a few couples taking their evening promenade, armed with umbrellas just in case, walking slowly and carefully on the wet pavement. The streets were clean, the trees well tended. Amazingly for France, there were none of the usual examples of imaginative parking—no cars perched on the sidewalk or shoehorned into alleys. A neat, quiet, orderly town, Contrexéville, the perfect setting for visitors who come not for fun and games but for the solemn purpose of bathing their innards in restorative waters.

  Later, in the hotel restaurant, I witnessed a sight not often seen. In fact, it was an extraordinary sight: several dozen French couples sitting over dinner without a single bottle of wine among them. Water, water everywhere (except at my table). I was reminded of California.