I wish that everybody who says how much healthier the French diet is could see a) what they feed their kids as after-school snacks and b) what they eat for breakfast.
My friend Christine from San Francisco, who does such crunchy-granola-hippie things as feed her children organic food and even (gasp!) vegetables, describes the after-school scene here as the Sugar Parade. Certainly, when I bring cheese sticks or fresh fruit to the girls at pick-up time, I'm the salmon swimming upstream. And when I bring carrots with hummus, that is just plain freaky. Walking around the streets around 4pm, 99% of the children are eating pain au chocolat, Lulu chocolate-coated sugar cookies, or straight up bars of chocolate. The Lulu cookies are even called -- appropriately enough -- "écolier" (school-ers).
Gigi's teacher once asked in class what all the children eat for breakfast and only Gigi raised her hand to say "croissants." The teacher found it funny that only the American child eats the traditional, stereotypical French breakfast. I found it funny because it's a big fat lie: I think we've only had croissants once for breakfast here and that Gigi just wanted to say that because it sounded French to her. In fact, we eat mostly cereal and fruit with milk, or yogurt with fruit and granola. Similar, though not exactly identical, to our San Francisco breakfasts.
Well, it turns out the traditional French meal of croissants or pain and a big bowl of hot chocolate has been replaced by American-style breakfast cereals. But with a uniquely French twist. Chocolate. And more chocolate. Sometimes caramel. But mostly chocolate. You think I'm exaggerating? Check out our choices, in one of the biggest grocery stores I've seen in France, here in the Normandy countryside. I don't even think of it as cereal. I call it the "choco-aisle":
I don't want you to think I'm selectively sending you just the cocoa-iest section of the aisle, so I've photographed the entire aisle for you. You can see that even many of the "healthy" choices, like Fitness (see photo below) or the Meusli have been chocofied. Others have been honey-fied, though that might not show as well in the photos. The chocolate muesli is called Creusli, and Anthony has taken to calling it, "the Croatian meusli." And if you don't get that reference, it's because you haven't read about our trip there -- see this blog entry in FamilyInCroatia. Our local Monoprix has several choices of Special K, and all but one have chocolate in them. We buy Special K -- the plain kind -- and sometimes find a moderately healthy (well, at least not overtly chocolaty) grainy flake cereal at the organic health food store.
I have found Cheerios at a local store called "Thanksgiving" that specializes in imported American foodstuffs. The girls and I walked in there recently and saw plain Cheerios on the shelf, and I boldly proclaimed, "I know it's going to be overpriced, but I'm buying it for you, no matter what it costs!" I then proceeded to look at the price tag, which was about 12€ (or $18), gasp, and immediately replace it on the shelf as if it were actually radioactive to the touch. Sidenote: Once in San Francisco, I saw a painting in a gallery that I loved and declared I would buy it no matter the price. I then looked at the tag and realized that even if I could remove a zero off the end, it would still be out of our price range. So I really should stop making pronouncements like this until I've won the lottery.
Lest you think the choco-aisle is aimed at Americans, you should know that we are currently on our 10-day October fall break, visiting French friends. The father and daughter first stayed with us 3 years ago when they came as part of an exchange between the girls' school in San Francisco and theirs in the small coastal town of St. Aubin-sur-Mer. The whole family came again to visit us last year, and now we are going to stay with them for this vacation. (This is the same family that is vying for Best Babysitters Ever because they drove to Paris, paid for a hotel, and stocked our fridge with beer while they babysit for free for our girls.) Therefore, the supermarket in the photos is not at all in a tourist area, but rather between the small city of Caen and St. Aubin-sur-Mer.
The regular breakfast (pictured above) of the family we are staying with is: toast, tea, and mugs of dry choco-cereal. We wondered why our fully stocked kitchen in Paris has no cereal bowls and now we know: the French eat choco-cereal from the same enormous mugs from which they used to drink actual hot chocolate. I don't know how they all make it to late lunches, without snacking, when all they've eaten is sugary carbs, and not even the protein from the milk to hold them over (or perhaps other families eat their cereal with milk. I'll research and get back to you). Certainly our girls couldn't do it, and I find myself carting backpacks full of clementines to tide them over.
Needless to say, after a lifetime of plain Cheerios and homemade granola, the girls find breakfast here cocoarifically chocolicious!
My friend Christine from San Francisco, who does such crunchy-granola-hippie things as feed her children organic food and even (gasp!) vegetables, describes the after-school scene here as the Sugar Parade. Certainly, when I bring cheese sticks or fresh fruit to the girls at pick-up time, I'm the salmon swimming upstream. And when I bring carrots with hummus, that is just plain freaky. Walking around the streets around 4pm, 99% of the children are eating pain au chocolat, Lulu chocolate-coated sugar cookies, or straight up bars of chocolate. The Lulu cookies are even called -- appropriately enough -- "écolier" (school-ers).
Gigi's teacher once asked in class what all the children eat for breakfast and only Gigi raised her hand to say "croissants." The teacher found it funny that only the American child eats the traditional, stereotypical French breakfast. I found it funny because it's a big fat lie: I think we've only had croissants once for breakfast here and that Gigi just wanted to say that because it sounded French to her. In fact, we eat mostly cereal and fruit with milk, or yogurt with fruit and granola. Similar, though not exactly identical, to our San Francisco breakfasts.
Well, it turns out the traditional French meal of croissants or pain and a big bowl of hot chocolate has been replaced by American-style breakfast cereals. But with a uniquely French twist. Chocolate. And more chocolate. Sometimes caramel. But mostly chocolate. You think I'm exaggerating? Check out our choices, in one of the biggest grocery stores I've seen in France, here in the Normandy countryside. I don't even think of it as cereal. I call it the "choco-aisle":
I don't want you to think I'm selectively sending you just the cocoa-iest section of the aisle, so I've photographed the entire aisle for you. You can see that even many of the "healthy" choices, like Fitness (see photo below) or the Meusli have been chocofied. Others have been honey-fied, though that might not show as well in the photos. The chocolate muesli is called Creusli, and Anthony has taken to calling it, "the Croatian meusli." And if you don't get that reference, it's because you haven't read about our trip there -- see this blog entry in FamilyInCroatia. Our local Monoprix has several choices of Special K, and all but one have chocolate in them. We buy Special K -- the plain kind -- and sometimes find a moderately healthy (well, at least not overtly chocolaty) grainy flake cereal at the organic health food store.
I have found Cheerios at a local store called "Thanksgiving" that specializes in imported American foodstuffs. The girls and I walked in there recently and saw plain Cheerios on the shelf, and I boldly proclaimed, "I know it's going to be overpriced, but I'm buying it for you, no matter what it costs!" I then proceeded to look at the price tag, which was about 12€ (or $18), gasp, and immediately replace it on the shelf as if it were actually radioactive to the touch. Sidenote: Once in San Francisco, I saw a painting in a gallery that I loved and declared I would buy it no matter the price. I then looked at the tag and realized that even if I could remove a zero off the end, it would still be out of our price range. So I really should stop making pronouncements like this until I've won the lottery.
Lest you think the choco-aisle is aimed at Americans, you should know that we are currently on our 10-day October fall break, visiting French friends. The father and daughter first stayed with us 3 years ago when they came as part of an exchange between the girls' school in San Francisco and theirs in the small coastal town of St. Aubin-sur-Mer. The whole family came again to visit us last year, and now we are going to stay with them for this vacation. (This is the same family that is vying for Best Babysitters Ever because they drove to Paris, paid for a hotel, and stocked our fridge with beer while they babysit for free for our girls.) Therefore, the supermarket in the photos is not at all in a tourist area, but rather between the small city of Caen and St. Aubin-sur-Mer.
The regular breakfast (pictured above) of the family we are staying with is: toast, tea, and mugs of dry choco-cereal. We wondered why our fully stocked kitchen in Paris has no cereal bowls and now we know: the French eat choco-cereal from the same enormous mugs from which they used to drink actual hot chocolate. I don't know how they all make it to late lunches, without snacking, when all they've eaten is sugary carbs, and not even the protein from the milk to hold them over (or perhaps other families eat their cereal with milk. I'll research and get back to you). Certainly our girls couldn't do it, and I find myself carting backpacks full of clementines to tide them over.
Needless to say, after a lifetime of plain Cheerios and homemade granola, the girls find breakfast here cocoarifically chocolicious!
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