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Small Is Good: Les Petits Plaisirs

by Harriet Welty Rochefort

A minuscule espresso, a petit piece of chocolate, a morsel of sharp cheese, a half-filled glass of wine: the French prefer tasting and sipping to gorging and guzzling. Small is good.

Small Size, Large

When I came to France, I discovered small. It seemed that everything was diminutive, and the word petit was everywhere. I go on a petit tour around the block to drink a petit café. Then I may do a few petites courses (small errands) before I wend my way back to my definitely petite home sweet home. On the way I might sample a piece of fromage, but it won’t ruin my appetite, samples being petit (as in thumbnail). Time for dinner? The meat or fish and accompanying vegetables barely fill, and certainly don’t overlap, the plate. My wineglass is not filled to the brim.

Do you wonder why the French aren’t fat? Here’s the answer: portions are petites.

In Ame…

Emblems and Symbols of France

Symbols and emblems of France are part of the new Civics test for applying for French nationality or residency. Since they are back in the news here's an overview of the emblems of France. An emblem is "a heraldic device or symbolic object as a distinctive badge of a nation, organization, or family or a thing serving as a symbolic representation of a particular quality or concept." as per the Oxford English Dictionary. The symbols and emblems of a country are defined by their constitution or simply by usage. Thus France has only one official symbol, the flag. There are of course also the national anthem, the language and the motto which are official and designated in the Constitution. France also has several other symbols that have come into use over the years such as Marianne, the fasces and the rooster. In this article we'll present the history and development of the official and non official symbols of France. Article II de la Constitution: La langue de la République…

Laughter in France

Laughter is the best medicine they say. According to scientists, we laugh an average of 18 times a day. Laughter is therefore an important part of our everyday lives and even the French know how to rire. Here's a few reflections on laughter in France, the land of La Vache qui rit! By the way, La Vache, a French institution, (She was 100 years old in 2021) has her own maison and museum in Lons-le-Saunier.

The city of Bordeaux seems to be the center of laughter in France

One might say Bordeaux likes to laugh more than elsewhere in France (is it because Bordeaux is also the rainiest city in France?). The city is host to the Festival Les Fous Rires de Bordeaux in March each year http://lesfousriresdebordeaux.fr/. The city also presented an exhibition called "Rire!" in 2019 at their science and nature Muséum. But Bordeaux doesn't own the market there are many other spots are also holding annual festivals and for some funny reason most are in…

Christmas Poem

A Christmas poem? How about two ! To wish our readers a “Merry Christmas to all et Bonne Année à tous!” One is two centuries old and the second a contemporary piece that shares the same rhythm.

The first is the famous Christmas poem thought to be written by Clement Clarke Moore "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Moore was a 19th century American writer and scholar and is mostly remembered for his Christmas poem which was originally title "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" which legend says he wrote on Christmas Eve in 1822 during a sleigh ride home from Greenwich Village (imagine riding in a sleigh in New York city!) after buying a turkey for his family (no doubt fresh from the farm). The poem is known for having defined our now timeless image of Santa Claus and for naming the eight reindeer! It was published (in English only and anonymously) the first time on December 23, 1823 by a New York newspaper, The Sentinel, one of the first daily newspap…

Halloween in Paris: Origins and celebrations

Celebrate HALLOWEEN in Paris November 1st 16h00 at Bill & Rosa's Book Room with a scary story Les origines d'Halloween Peu de fêtes américaines ont une origine aussi étrange, aussi paradoxale que celle de Halloween. Halloween ou "All Hallow's Eve" se situe sur le calendrier à la veille de la Toussaint. En France la Toussaint c'est d'abord une tradition hautement religieuse: on pense aux morts, à tous les saints, et l'on effectue une visite au cimetière par un temps gris et froid. Mais dans les Iles Britanniques et surtout aux Etats Unis, Halloween se déroule sur fond de réunions joyeuses ou se mêlent jeux, feux, prestidigitation, ensorcellement, envoûtement, espiègleries, escapades... and now we celebrate Halloween in Paris in this same joyous manner. Pour comprendre ce mélange singulier du religieux et du profane il faut remonter loin dans le temps. Il est généralement admis que Halloween par son côté populaire au moins, est né des anciens rites celtiques.…

The Palais Royal Cannon and My French Neighbor

A small bronze cannon was installed at Palais Royal in 1786 at the initiative of Mr. Rousseau, a watchmaker who had a shop in the gallery. It was installed on the Paris meridian. A wick, burned by the sun through a magnifying glass, set off the charge of gunpowder on sunny days at noon. The small explosion was used to set timepieces all over Paris, today we Google the «current local time». In 1799, it was moved off the meridian and positioned in the middle of the garden where it worked steadily until 1914. A Latin motto was engraved on the pedestal: Horas non numero Nibi Serenas, liberally meaning «The only hours counted are the sunny ones». In 1990, the cannon was restored and began to thunder again at high noon, but the «Plan Vigipirate» silenced the cannon once more. In 1998 it was stolen. A replica was made in 2002. This year it will go off at noon (À « midi pétante ») on special occasions: July 14, August 25 (Liberation of Paris), September 20-21 (journées du patri…

Paris Lost & Found

Maybe it was the early job at a uranium mine. Perhaps it’s his fascination with the Paris catacombs. For whatever reason, acclaimed author Scott Dominic Carpenter relishes telling stories from beneath life’s mundane surface. A professor of French literature and creative writing at Carleton College, Scott Dominic Carpenter’s books include the 2021 Midwest Bookstore Bestseller French Like Moi: A Midwesterner in Paris, for which he was given a Next Generation Indie Book Award, and This Jealous Earth, a collection of short stories and Paris Lost & Found. In 2018, Carpenter won the Mark Twain House Royal Nonesuch Award, a national humor writing contest. His award-winning first novel, Theory of Remainders, a Kirkus Best Book of 2013, is currently under option by a major motion picture production company. Always searching for the next unexpected story, Scott Dominic Carpenter splits his time between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Paris, France.

List…

Maigret and Columbo

Following up on our article in which we presented three American cultural icons that in fact were French creations we now turn to Maigret and Columbo, two famous detectives of book and film. Was the American Columbo inspired from French Maigret? Well, Maigret certainly came first in time and Columbo certainly shares quite a few of his characteristics plus he has a French car! The son of Georges Simenon, the author of the Maigret series, says that because his father wouldn’t sell the rights for Maigret, Columbo was created as a different character but inspired by the famous Maigret. Maybe that’s why Columbo drives a Peugeot that winks back towards Maigret and Paris. John Simenon is quoted in 2016 : « Les explications d'Alain Sachs, qui a interprété Le Petit Docteur [another Maigret character] à la télévision française, sont peut-être un peu approximatives, mais c'est bien à la suite d'un refus de mon père de céder les droits du personnage du Petit Docteur, comme de Maig…

French strawberries

The Americans think bigger is better, well I’d like to say they are downright wrong when it comes to strawberries. Unfortunately, most of the strawberries I’ve eaten in the USA are indeed huge, nearly hollow, rather dry and essentially tasteless, plus they are in the stores year-round and so lose their seasonal excitement. Then there are French strawberries. Ah! Tout change. And I’m addicted, I eat more than my quote-part of 2.6kg per person each year. During strawberry season I just can’t get enough. There’s nothing I like better than to ride my bike over to 24/7 automat for strawberries and vegetables at the Ferme du Clos d’Ancoigny near us. We usually stand right there in the parking space and devour them, often buying another barquette on the spot. There are quite a number of self-picking places or cueillettes around the Paris region too. One well-known network with many farms in the region is Gally. The Gally headquarters is in St Cyr l’Ecole just outside the wa…

French Elephants

France's many elephants What? French Elephants? Even though, and maybe because, they are not native to France it seems there has been a fascination with elephants throughout French history. When you begin to look around you find there are quite a few more or less famous French elephants. Some are imaginary, others constructed of wood and still others are live ones in zoos or sanctuaries. Let's have a tour of France's beloved elephants through the ages. Early history Cave paintings attest to mammoths, however Hannibal's elephants were likely the first true elephants in Gaul, but they didn't fare so well in the cold climate. The next importation wasn't for quite a few years. The French Kings' Elephants over 900 years 768 to 1668 Many French kings kept elephants at court and by the Renaissance they were quite in vogue. Charlemagne's was named Abul-Abbas and was an Asian elephant brought from Baghdad by a diplomat in about 802. The gift was from the Abbasid caliph and symbo…

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