They Eat Horses, Don't They?
Page 32
12 In 2004, France consumed 25,380 tons of horsemeat. Figures from Production Viande Chevaline, chiffres clés, Fédération Nationale du Cheval, Supplément à Tendances No. 164, December 2006.
13 Just 0.4 kg per French person per year in 2005, compared to 22.5 kg of beef. See Production Viande Chevaline, chiffres clés, op. cit.
14 two-thirds of French light horses and ponies are now protected in this way. See Production Viande Chevaline, chiffres clés, op. cit.
15 Jean-Claude Ribaut. In Le Monde à table, 10 February 2013.
16 Expert on the history and culture of food. See Pourquoi la viande de cheval est un tabou en Grande-Bretagne, Le Monde, 12 February 2013.
17 the association between the French and jumping amphibians. For further elaboration of the historical association between the French and frogs or toads see E. Cobham Brewer (1894), Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable – Revised and Updated Edition, 19th revised edition, Hodder Education, 31 August 2012.
18 ‘Nic Frog’ was once a nickname for a Dutchman. See Jonathon Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Chambers Harrap 2012, entries for Frog and Froglander.
19 redcoats. The term habit rouge became a slang term for Englishman after Waterloo: see Le Grand Robert de la langue française.
20 homards or lobsters. Recorded use in this sense in 1847; see Le Grand Robert de la langue française.
21 The biggest European importer of frogs’ legs is not France. See Altherr, S. et al. (2011): Canapés to extinction – the international trade in frogs’ legs and its ecological impact. A report by Pro Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife and Animal Welfare Institute (eds), Munich (Germany), Washington DC (USA).
22 close to a billion snails eaten every year. See Escargot: une industrie ralentie par la sécheresse, Les Marchés (l’agroalimentaire au quotidien), 9 juin 2011.
23 the average Frenchman eats around 26kg of cheese a year. Per capita cheese consumption figures for France, UK and the USA for 2010 (total per capita consumption) from Canadian Dairy Information Centre.
24 protected by the AOP label. The French AOC label began with wine then caught on with food, to be replaced by the European AOP label for dairy products in 2012. In practice, AOC and AOP mean the same thing.
25 the genius of Roquefort. See Curnonsky, Lettres de Noblesse, Les Éditions Nationales 1935, p. 29.
26 Raw milk cheese made up only 15 per cent. See Enquête annuelle laitière 2009, Agreste Primeur No. 264, June 2011; Les petits entreprises du commerce depuis 30 ans, INSEE No. 831, February 2002.
27 The Lyonnaise cheese known as la galette des Monts-d’Or. See La bataille pour la survie des fromages français, Laprovence.com, 30 mars 2008.
28 the feta-loving Greeks. Total per capita cheese consumption figures for 2010 from the Canadian dairy Information Centre, as above.
29 Russian penicillin. See Alix Lefief-Delcourt, L’Ail Malin, LEDUC.S Éditions 2011, p. 17.
30 Henri IV. See Alix Lefief-Delcourt, op. cit.
31 Temple of Cybele. Alexandre Dumas, Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine.
32 French word chandail. See Dictionnaire Étymologique, Larousse 2001, p. 16.
33 US military pamphlet issued in 1945. See 112 Gripes about the French, US military occupation forces pamphlet, 1945, Kessinger Legacy Reprints.
34 10 kilos per capita annually. Figures from LMJ International Limited; see also Andy Mukherjee, South Korea’s Mr Garlic strives for openness, Bloomberg June 7, 2004.
35 China…. followed by India and South Korea. See Economie et marché de l’ail, Matthieu Serrurier, Centre Technique Interprofessionel des Fruits et Légumes, 16 mars 2011.
36 Recent figures show that the biggest consumers of garlic in France today are the elderly and middle-aged. See Economie et marché de l’ail, 2011, op. cit.
37 Americans eat three times as much garlic as they did in the 1980s. Garlic – tracing its country of origin. US Customs today, Vol 38, no. 8.
38 mercantile empires of standardization and conformism. Cited by Richard F. Kuisel, The French Way: How France Embraced and Rejected American Values and Power, Princeton University Press 2010, p.183.
39 France is the second-biggest market in the world for McDonald’s. See Caroline Castets, A la Une egalement – French paradox, Le Nouvel Economiste.fr, 27 avril 2011.
40 Every day, 1.7 million French people eat at McDonalds. Key figures for meals sold and turnover for the year 2011 from McDonald’s.
41 one of the principal purchasers of French beef. See Caroline Castets, op. cit.
42 fast food represented 7 out of 10 meals. See Le boom de la restauration rapide, Le Figaro, 10 février 2010.
43 The French are now the second-largest consumers of hamburgers in Europe. According to a study conducted by market researchers NPD Group, the French consume on average 14 hamburgers per year in restaurants per person, behind the British (17) but ahead of the Germans (12), Spanish (9) and Italians (5) (Les Français, deuxième plus gros consommateurs de hamburgers en Europe, L’Express, 16 juillet 2012).
44 over a third of French people were overweight. That is, 32 per cent in the Paris-Île de France region and 36 per cent elsewhere. See INSEE report Un tiers des Franciliens présente un excès de poids, 2007.
45 the poet Charles Baudelaire. From Du vin et du haschich (1851).
46 France is still the world’s biggest wine producer. Figures for world wine production and consumption for 2010 from The Wine Institute, California.
47 plummeting from 50 billion litres in 1980 to 32 billion litres in 2008. Studies by VINIFLHOR/INRA (Scientific Institute for Agricultural Research) (2008) on wine consumption in France.
48 And whereas in 1970 the French drank over twice as much alcohol as mineral water or fruit juice. See Boissons alcoolisées: 40 ans de baisse de consommation, INSEE no. 966, mai 2004, p. 3.
49 A 2011 study by researchers at the University of Toulouse. See Lorey, T. and Poutet, P. (2011), The representation of wine in France from generation to generation: a dual generation gap, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 162–80.
50 UK wine imports. See WSTA (Wine and Spirit Trade Association), 2012 UK wine and spirit market overview, p. 5.
51 the most spectacular increases are in Australia and Chile. See L’Avenir de la viticulture française: entre tradition et défi du Nouveau Monde. Sénat, 4 octobre, 2012. In the period 1998–2001, land devoted to vines increased by 21 per cent in Chile and 63 per cent in Australia.
52 He (in)famously once said. Interview with William Langewiesche, correspondent for The Atlantic, in The Atlantic Monthly, December 2000: The Million-Dollar Nose – 00.12; Volume 286, No. 6; page 42–70.
53 China is now the number one buyer of Bordeaux wines. See FranceAgriMer, VINS/COMMERCE EXTERIOR, Bilan 2011/du 1er janvier au 31 décembre, p.13.
54 the French poet Paul Verlaine. Letter to Edmond Lepelletier, cited in Lepelletier, Paul Verlaine: sa vie, son œuvre, Réimpression de l’édition de Paris, 1923, p. 299.
55 Roland Barthes. From Mythologies (New York, The Noonday Press, 1957), p. 59.
56 The French rules of savoir-vivre. See Dominique Picard, Politesse, savoir-vivre et relations sociales, Presses Universitaires de France, 1998, p. 31.
57 On the other hand, the rules of savoir-vivre are closely linked to place. See Dominique Picard, op. cit., p. 42.
58 As the author of the leading French book on etiquette. See Baronne Staffe, Usages du monde: règles du savoir-vivre dans la société moderne (1891), Éditions Tallandier, 2007, p. 257.
59 the principal cause of death among French youth. According to the French health insurers SMENO.
60 In a 2011 survey of European youth by the pan-European agency ESPAD. See ESPAD (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs) 2011, results for France, United Kingdom and Europe as a whole.
PART 2
1 Key rules include: For a comprehensive exposition of the rules of savoir-vivre relating to personal appearance, see Dom
inique Picard, Politesse, savoir-vivre et relations sociales, P.U.F. 1998, pp. 30–4.
2 it’s important not to be noticed too much. Poll conducted by Kairos Future for the Fondation pour l’innovation politique, 2008.
3 the ObÉpi survey. Enquête épidémiologique nationale sur le surpoids et l’obésité (ObÉpi 2012), Inserm/Kantar Health/Roche.
4 Vital Statistics Table. Figures from SizeUK (UK National Sizing Survey) 2004, and from Résultats de la campagne nationale de mensuration, 2 février 2006. All figures have been converted from metric to imperial and rounded.
5 global averages conceal large discrepancies. See L’Obésité en France: les écarts entre catégories sociales s’accroissent, INSEE report Feburary 2007. The strong links between education/class, geographical region and weight are also recorded in the ObÉpi/Roche report, op. cit.
6 Women without the baccalauréat. See INSEE report, op. cit., p.3.
7 An OECD report. See Obesity and the Economics of Prevention: Fit not Fat – France Key Facts. OECD, 2011.
8 Manual of etiquette. Baronne Staffe, Usages du monde: règles du savoir-vivre dans la société moderne (1891). Éditions Tallandier, 2007, p. 257.
9 Madame Robertot. From Elizabeth David, French Provincial Cooking (1960), Grub Street 2007, pp. 22–4.
10 It is a law of most societies. See Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Tasting in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Univ. of Illinois Press 1996, p.201.
11 At a meeting in Paris in 1893. See Martine Bourelly, Le Pouvoir dans la cuisine, Fondation Gabriel Péri, 26 octobre 2009, p. 3.
12 As late as 2006, only 6 per cent of French chefs were women. See Martine Bourelly, Le Pouvoir dans la Cuisine, op. cit.
13 According to a 2011 survey by the polling agency Ipsos. See Les Français et la cuisine, Ipsos/Logica Business Consulting, 21 septembre 2011.
14 an OECD survey of 29 member countries in 2011. See Miranda, V. (2011). Cooking, Caring, and Volunteering: Unpaid Work Around the World. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 116, OECD publishing, p. 25 Figure 12.
15 with the highest birth rate in Europe and one of the highest percentages of women at work. According to French Foreign Ministry figures, over 80 per cent of French women are working. (See La France, championne d’Europe des naissances, French Foreign Ministry circular, March 2011.)
16 no rankness of the wild goat. Ovid, Ars Amatoria Book III Part IV lines 1-2, translated by A.S. Kline, 2001.
17 her pudendum did not match. See Mary Lutyens’ biography, Millais and the Ruskins, John Murray 1967, p. 156, footnote.
18 The postcard of this painting. See Courbet : l’enquête à l’œuvre by Claude Habib, L’Express, 3 August 2006.
19 it has the distinction. See ‘L’Origine du monde’ de Courbet interdit de Facebook pour cause de nudité, A.F.P. 16 février 2011.
20 In Yugoslavia, for example. See Marc-Alain Descamps, L’invention du corps, P.U.F. Paris 1986, p. 124.
21 a landmark advertisement appeared. For an informative although polemical feminist account of the ‘underarm campaign’ of the early twentieth century in American women’s magazines, see Christine Hope, Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture, Journal of American Culture, Vol. 5, Issue 1, Spring 1982, pp. 93–9.
22 A survey of American women from 20 to 81 years old in 1991. See S.A. Basow, The hairless ideal: women and their body hair. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1991, 15, pp. 83–96.
23 postwar arrival of the nylon stocking. Descamps, op. cit., p. 124.
24 An inquiry conducted in 1972. Descamps, op. cit., pp. 124–5.
25 Ipsos for the depilatory brand Nair in 2006. Enquête sur les Français et l’épilation: opinions, attitudes, et comportements, Ipsos, mai 2006.
PART 3
1 His biographer notes. L. Daudet, Clemenceau, 1942, p. 116.
2 the Dominican Republic. See Bruce M. Rothschild, History of Syphilis, Clinical Infectious Diseases 2005:40 (15 May).
3 The first major epidemic of the great pox broke out in Naples in 1495. For the following and a more detailed account of the spread of syphilis in Europe to Asia, see Aine Collier, The humble little condom: a history, Prometheus Books 2007, pp. 47–54.
4 slang phrases containing the word ‘French’. See Jonathon Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Hodder Education 2010.
5 A 2010 survey by the French polling group Ifop. Les Français et la sexualité dans le couple, Ifop, septembre 2010.
6 the Durex 2005 Global Sex Survey. See Give and Receive Global Sex Survey, Durex, 2005.
7 the favoured sexual position. LifeStyle, 2011; Channel 4 Great British Sex Survey, 2011.
8 Continental people have sex-life. See George Mikes, How to be an Alien, Penguin Books 1966, p. 29.
9 grandes horizontales. For an illuminating discussion of the development of extra-marital relations in France in the nineteenth century, see Alain Corbin, La Fascination de l’adultère, Marianne l’Histoire hors-série, juillet–août 2012, pp. 68–73.
10 middle-class salon. See Corbin, op. cit.
11 A 2009 survey by the French magazine Madame Figaro. See Infidélité: les Français passent aux aveux, Madame Figaro/CSA poll, 23 juillet 2009.
12 The United States, on the other hand. See Stephen T. Fife and Gerald R. Weeks, Extramarital Sex/Infidelity. In J. T. Sears (Ed.) The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Courtship, and Sexuality Through History, Vol. 6, The Modern World (pp. 126–9). Westport, CT: Greenwood Pub. Group.
13 Giscard/milk float incident. See Dimitri Casali & Sandrine Gallotta, Sexe & Pouvoir: secrets d’alcôves de César à DSK, Éditions de la Martinière, Paris, 2012.
14 ‘drive-and-tell’ book. Jean-Claude Laumond, Vingt-cinq ans avec lui, Ramsay, 11 septembre 2001.
15 number one reason for divorce in France. See L’Union des Familles en Europe, les enfants du divorce, février 2011.
16 heinous consequences. For example Madame Bovary (Flaubert) and Thérèse Raquin (Zola).
17 The French birth rate, at 2.01 children per woman on average. Figures from the French Office of Foreign and Diplomatic Affairs, La France, championne d’Europe des naissances, March 2011.
18 And while most French families average two children. Figures from the report Does Fertility Respond to Work and Family-life Reconciliation Policies in France? by Olivier Thévenon, CESifo Conference on Fertility and Public Policy, 1st February 2008, pp. 9–10.
19 The French philosopher Montesquieu. From De l’esprit des lois, 1758.
20 Louis introduced in 1666 an edict. See Louis Boucoiran, La famille nombreuse dans l’histoire de nos jours, 1921, p. 39.
21 Revolutionary tax breaks. See Boucoiran, op. cit., p. 45.
22 Posters sprung up featuring Madonna-like materfamilias. See for example the 1920 poster, Journée Nationale des Mères de Familles Nombreuses, preserved in the Musée d’histoire contemporaine/BDIC (Paris).
23 since 1967 it has been legal to take the Pill. The 1920 law banning contraception was finally reversed in 1967 (in the lead-up to the May 1968 revolution), after a great deal of feminist campaigning, by the law commonly known as la Loi Neuwirth in 1967. Abortion was finally sanctioned, under certain conditions, by a law promulgated by the celebrated French writer and feminist Simone Weil (la Loi Weil) in 1975.
24 Spending upwards of 27.5 per cent of GDP per capita on family allowances. See Olivier Thévenon, Family Policies in OECD Countries : A Comparative Analysis. Population and Development Review 37(1): 57–87 (March 2011), p. 78 (Appendix Table A1).
25 Child benefit starts. Figures as at January 2012 (Centre of European and International Liaisons for Social Security database).
26 All in all, while France may not be at quite the level of the Nordic countries. See Thévenon, 2nd op. cit.
27 Chinese parenting. As in the somewhat scary Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (Bloomsbury, February 2012).
28 21–38 per cent of French children aged 1–
2 years woke up at night. M.J Challamel and Marie Thirion, Mon enfant dort mal, Éditions Retz-Pocket, 1993.
29 72 per cent of French children aged between 16 and 24 months had sleep issues. H. Stork, Le sommeil du jeune enfant et ses troubles. Une étude clinique comparative entre trois cultures, in Neuropsychiatrie de l’enfance et de l’adolescence, février 2000, 48(1): 70–9, cited by Nathalie Roques, Dormir avec son bébé, L’Harmattan 2002, p. 52.
30 an unsuitable diet. See study by SFAE/BVA 2009 : Les parents insuffisamment conscients de ce qui se joue au moment du repas.
31 an estimated 25–45 per cent of French babies and toddlers have food issues at some point or other. See M.F. Le Heuzey, Troubles du comportement alimentaire du jeune enfant: 0–6 ans in Troubles du comportement alimentaire de l’enfant du nourrisson au préadolescent, Elsevier Masson 2011, p.31.
32 La fessée… which 64 per cent of French parents in a recent survey were not ashamed to admit to using. According to a poll conducted by the television channel France 5 after a screening of a television debate on la fessée in the daytime series Les Maternelles, 3 May 2012 (Eduquer sans fessée). Out of 1080 parents who voted, 57.5 per cent smacked their children ‘from time to time’, and 6.94 per cent ‘often’.
33 Severe corporal punishment. See Prof. Dr. Kai-D. Bussmann, Claudia Erthal, and Andreas Schroth, The Effect of Banning Corporal Punishment in Europe: a Five Nation Comparison, University of Wittenberg, October 2009.
34 the ritual humiliation of those unable to keep up. For an eloquent and passionate critique of the French education system, see Peter Gumbel, On achève bien les écoliers, Grasset 2010 (available in English as a Kindle edition, They shoot school kids, don’t they?).
35 Like ‘rats in a cage.’ Lucy Wadham, The Secret Life of France, Faber and Faber 2009, p. 123.
36 ranked France fifth from the bottom of 66 countries. See OECD Pisa in Focus, Has discipline in school deteriorated? 2011/4 (May), p. 2.
37 A UNICEF study of French primary schoolchildren. Une enquête de victimation et climat scolaire auprès d’élèves du cycle 3 des écoles élémentaires, Unicef France, March 2011.