Thursday, 1 September 2022

French Parenting

The expectant mother

[Parenting] books can be useful to people who lack confidence, but [the French] don’t think you can raise a child while reading a book. You have to go with your feeling,

French women signal their commitment to motherhood and their baby's well-being by projecting calm and flaunting the fact that they haven’t renounced pleasure.

During pregnancy, it’s important to pamper your inner woman and above all, resist the urge to borrow your partner’s shirts. A list of aphrodisiacs for mothers-to-be includes: chocolate, ginger, cinnamon and [French] mustard.

The forty-week metamorphosis into mother shouldn’t make you any less of a woman.

The French Health Ministry says eating guidelines favour the baby’s harmonious growth and that women should find inspiration from different flavours. Pregnancy should be a time of great happiness!


Eating

Women who are 'waiting for a child'/ pregnant are supposed to eat the same balanced meals as any healthy adult. One guide says that if a woman is still hungry, she should add an afternoon snack consisting of, for instance, a sixth of a baguette, a piece of cheese,
and a glass of water.

In the French view, a pregnant woman’s food cravings are a nuisance to be vanquished. Frenchwomen don’t let themselves believe that the fetus wants cheesecake. The Guidebook for Mothers to Be, a French pregnancy book, says that instead of caving in to cravings, women should distract their bodies by eating an apple or a raw carrot.

This isn’t all as austere as it sounds. Frenchwomen don’t see pregnancy as a free pass to overeat, in part because they haven’t been denying themselves the foods they love or secretly bingeing on those foods for most of their adult lives.


Giving birth

In French, giving birth without an epidural isn’t called a natural childbirth. It’s called 'giving birth without an epidural' (accouchement sans péridurale).


Sleep teaching for newborn babies

The Pause: Observing to see if your baby is actually awake or if they are just whimpering in their sleep and giving your baby a chance to self-soothe and go back to sleep.


Sleep teaching for babies aged four months and older

'Crying it out' with a French twist:  in the evening, you speak to your baby and tell them that, if they wake up once, you’re going to give them their pacifier once. 

But after that, you’re not going to get up. It’s time to sleep. You’re not far away, and you’re going to come in and reassure then once. But not all night long.

You need to truly believe that a baby is a person who’s capable of learning things and coping with some frustration. A baby might be hungry during the night but they do not need to eat.

The little baby learns in their cradle that they can be alone from time to time, without being hungry, without being thirsty, without sleeping, just being
calmly awake. At a very young age, they need time alone, and they need to go to sleep and wake up without being immediately watched by their parents. 


National baby meal plan

After the first few months, a baby should eat at roughly the same time each day.

Breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner spaced four hours apart between meals.

Babies should have a few big feeds that fit into the rhythm of the family rather than a lot of smaller ones.

Baby learns to wait patiently and happily between meals.


Delaying gratification

Using the word 'wait' instead of 'quiet' or 'stop'. 

'Sois sage': behaving appropriately, self controlled and calm.

Learning self distraction techniques that make waiting less frustrating. Willpower.

Learning to play by themselves.

'N’importe quoi': means doing whatever or anything they like. This phrase is used when kids have no
boundaries,  when parents have a lack of authority and that anything goes. The complete opposite of the French ideal of kids having very firm limits.

Waiting is not just an important skill among many, but a cornerstone of raising kids.


Awakening and discovering

Awakening is about introducing a child to sensory experiences, including tastes. It doesn’t always require the parent’s active involvement.

Awakening trains children how to soak up the pleasure and richness of the moment and forge  psychological qualities such as self-assurance and
tolerance of difference. 

Some parents believe in exposing children to a variety of tastes, colours and sights, simply because doing so gives the children pleasure. 

This pleasure is the motivation for life and the reason to live.


Génération Dolto

Talking to children like human beings and accepting  that children are rational as a first principle.

Teaching them quite a lot while they’re very young. That includes for example, how to eat in a restaurant.

It is crucial that parents tell their babies the truth in order to gently affirm what the babies already know.

The child’s best interest is not always what will make them happy, but will give them rational understanding.

Parents should listen carefully to their kids and explain the world to them and it is important  that this world would include many limits and boundaries and that the rational child could absorb and handle these limits. 

Preserving Rousseau’s cadre model with the additional measure of empathy and respect for the child.

Listening to their kids and being clear that it’s the parents who are in charge.


Government subsidised crèches/ day care

A communal experience for your child to socialise with other kids.

Children have lots of freedom within firm boundaries and they’re supposed to learn to cope with boredom and to play by themselves. 

Energetic discovery: children are left to exercise their appetite for experimentation of their five senses, of using their muscles, of sensations, and of physical space. 

As kids get older, organised activities are proposed/offered, but no one is obliged to participate.

Teaching kids patience and to wait. They can't have everything straight away.

Kids are potty-trained; taught table manners; and to those with 'foreign' parents, given French immersion courses.

(French kids are not taught how to read until they start school at the age of 6/7).


Crèche dining experience

Lunch is served in four courses: a cold vegetable starter; a main dish with a side of grains or cooked vegetables; a different cheese each day; and a dessert of fresh fruit or fruit puree. 

There are slightly modified versions for each age group; the youngest kids mostly have the same food, but pureed.

Aside from the occasional can of tomato paste,
nothing is processed or precooked. A few vegetables are frozen, but never precooked.


A typical menu:

~
1) Hearts of palm and tomato salad in vinaigrette.

2a) Sliced turkey au basilic accompanied by rice in a Provençal cream sauce
or
2b) White fish in a light butter sauce and a side dish of peas, carrots, and onions

3) A slice of St. Nectaire cheese or blue cheese with a slice of fresh baguette

4) Fresh kiwi or whole apples, sliced at the table
~


Breastfeeding/formula

Breastfeeding after three months is always viewed badly by one’s entourage. 

French parents see no reason to believe that artificial milk is terrible or to treat breastfeeding as a holy rite. 

They assume that breast milk is far more critical for a baby born to a poor mother in a developing country than it is for one born to middle-class Parisians.


Getting back in shape after giving birth

The French believe that there is no reason why a woman wouldn’t be sexy just because she happens to have children. 

It’s not uncommon to hear someone say that being a mother gives a woman an appealing air of plenitude (happiness and fullness of spirit).

Losing the baby weight within three months appears to be the goal in France.

No diets. Just 'paying very close attention' some of the time (eating mindfully). For example, no bread during the week and then eating what you want at the weekend whilst not overdoing it too much.

Sounds like a better concept than 'being good' and having 'cheat days'.


Female identity 

As well as getting their pre-baby bodies back, they get back their pre-baby identities too.

French women not only allow themselves physical time off; they also mentally detach from their kids. 

In France, the dominant social message is that while being a parent is very important, it shouldn’t subsume one’s other roles. Mothers shouldn’t become 'enslaved' to their children.

An ideal of French motherhood:

She is at her base the most simple expression of female liberty: happy in her role as mother; avid and curious about new experiences; perfect in
‘crisis situations,’ and always attentive to her children, but not chained to the concept of the perfect mother, which, does not exist.

In France, being a woman and a mother are not separate identities. You are both.

According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 91% of French adults said the most satisfying kind of marriage is one in which both spouses have jobs.

Quitting work for even a few years is a precarious choice. 

When the kids are grown up, what is your social usefulness?


Detach and relax

The let-them-be principle.

The conviction that it is unhealthy for mothers and children to spend all their time together. They believe there’s a risk of smothering kids with attention and anxiety, or developing a relationship where a mother’s and a child’s needs are too intertwined. 

If your child is your only goal in life, it’s not good for the child. What happens to the child if they are the only hope for their mother?


Ecole maternelle

France’s free public preschool. 

Turning three year old olds into civilised and empathetic French people.

Toddlers discover the richness and the constraints of the group that they’re part of. They feel the pleasure of being welcomed and recognised, and they progressively participate in welcoming their fellow students.

They learn letters, sounds, how to write their own names and taught to perfect their spoken French so that it's rich, organised and comprehensible to others.

A French child learns to observe, ask questions
and make their interrogations increasingly rational. 

They learn to adopt a point of view other than their own and this confrontation with logical thinking gives them a taste of reasoning. They become capable of counting, of classifying, ordering, and describing...


Bonjour and au revoir (hello and goodbye)

Greeting adults acknowledges their humanity, recognising someone as a person.


Virtuous cycle

Frenchwomen don’t harp on men about their shortcomings or mistakes. So the men aren’t demoralized. They feel more generous toward their wives, whom they praise for their feats of micromanagement and their command of household details. This praise (instead of the tension and resentment that builds in Anglophone households) seems to make the inequality easier to bear.

If you drop the forlorn hope of fifty-fifty equality, it becomes easier to enjoy the fact that some urban French husbands do quite a lot of child care, cooking, and dishwashing.

One of the great feelings of a couple and of marriage is gratitude to the person who hasn’t left.


Commission Menus in Paris

French ideas about kids and food. 

There’s no such thing as 'kids’ food. A four course meal can be chopped/cut up or pureed according to the age of the kids.

Importance of variety. This includes visual and textual variety. 

The driving principle of the Commission Menus is that if at first the kids don’t like something, they should try it repeatedly.

Introducing new foods gradually and to prepare the foods all different ways. 

For example, with berries, try it first as a puree, then cut into pieces. For grapefruit, give them a thin slice sprinkled with sugar, then gradually serving it on its own. For spinach, mix it with rice to make it more appetising.

Repropose the food in different ways throughout the year; eventually they will like it.

Try a bite of everything. 

Everybody eats the same meal at home.

For the French, eating means sitting at the table with others, taking one’s time and not doing other things
at the same time.


Child autonomy

This means leaving children safely alone to figure
things out for themselves and respecting them as a separate being who can cope with challenges. By the time a child is six years old, they should be able to do everything in the house and in society.




* Information taken from 'Bringing Up Bebe' written by Pamela Druckerman *


Roses are Red, Violets are Blue

A Brief History of Modern Art in Poetry by Brian Bilston


Impressionism

Roses sway in softened reds,
Violets swim in murky blues.
Sugar sparkles in the light,
Blurring into golden you.


Surrealism

Roses are melting.
Violets are too.
Ceci n'est pas le sucre.
Keith is a giant crab.


Social Realism

 Roses are dead.
Violence is rife.
Don't sugar coat 
This bitter life.


Abstract Expressionism

So you violets sweet.
Roses you are is
red are roses blue
Sugar?


Pop Art

Roses go BLAM!
Violets go POW!
Sugar is COOL!
You are so WOW!


Conceptual Art

Roses are red,
coated in blood.
A deer's severed head
drips from above.





The Culinary Journey of Hassan Haji

La Fourchette in Mumbai

Menu complet:

Salade frisée with mustard vinegerette
Minute steak with frites and a dollop of Café de Paris sauce (herbs and garlic butter)
Crème brûlée



Porcini Mushroom Festival in Cortona, Tuscany

Menu completo trifolato:

Pasta ai Porcini
Scaloppine ai Porcini 
Contorno di Porcini



On the Pensione roof terrace

 Wild asparagus served with fagiole
Beef charbroiled on wood fires
Walnut biscotti dunked in Vin Santo



Dufour estate, Lumiere in the French Jura

Pain chemin de fer



Maison Mumbai - la culture indienne en Lumière

Clear trotters soup

Lamb brain stuffed with green chutney, coated with egg and tawa-grilled

Chicken cinnamon masala and beef cooked with vinegar-spices 

Steamed rice crumpets and cottage cheese simmered with fenugreek

~

Prawn samosas

Goa fish stew

Chicken tikka marinated in pink spices and lemon then grilled
A skewer of yogurt-marinated lamb liver, sprinkled with crunchy pine nuts

Okra and tomatoes
Cauliflower heads in brown sauce

Fluffy yellow basmati rice

Pickled carrots, cool yogurt and cucumber, unleavened bread 




Le Saule Pleureur (The Weeping Willow)

 Nineteenth-century oil painting of the Marseille fish
markets
Orchid centrepieces
Satie music in the backbround

~

Hors d’oeuvres of pike carpaccio with a truffle and asparagus vinaigrette
Fricassee of freshwater oysters

Spinach and carrot semolina two-toned bread with chilled terrine de foie gras served under a white truffle and port gelée

Bouillabaisse

Roast suckling pig

Fennel ice cream and toasted figs with nougatine


Salmisde palombes (pigeon pie in a Merlot and shallot sauce)

~

Goat cheese and pistachio soufflé

~

Mille-feuille with preserved citrus cream made
from Menton lemons

 Chunks of pike grilled on metal skewers accompanied by a crayfish and sherry saffron sauce
Rouget stuffed with asparagus and simmered in a grapefruit bouillon

Stewed hare served with infused couscous and a cucumber and sour cream salad with a handful of lingonberries

~



Hassan's French Cooking Apprenticeship with Madame Mallory

Study the Lyon butcher’s treatise.

Early morning visits to the market with Madame Mallory for purchases and lessons.

Kitchen duties: Washing dishes, mopping the kitchen floors, scrubbing and preparing les légumes.

Restaurant: a bread-boy in tunic
and white cotton gloves, closely studying the ballet of service.

 Set the dining room off-hours under the supervision of Madame Mallory.
 
Kitchen: Plucking and cleaning wild pigeons, quail,
and pheasant.

Front desk with Monsieur LeBlanc: Taking reservations and learning the skill of properly seating a restaurant and the delicate politics of not offending repeat customers.

Early evening: Thirty minutes of wine tasting
and corresponding lecture, under the tutelage of the sommelier.

Promoted to commis chef after passing an oyster test.



La Gavroche, Paris

Hired by Chef Pierre Berri.

Working as sous chef then promoted to senior sous chef.



La Belle Cluny

Working as chef de cuisine alongside Chef Marc Rossier.



Le Chien Méchant

Number 11 Rue Valette
(Landlord: Le Comte de Nancy Selière)

Hassan opens up his own restaurant with his sister, Mehtab, as business partner and funded by his father.

Chef de cuisine: Serge Poutron.
Maître d’hôtel: Jacques.

~

Daurade aux citrons confits

Smoked eel with fresh horseradish cream

Siberian ptarmigan roasted with tundra herbs 
served with caramelized pears in an Armagnac sauce



 Le Coq d’Or, Courgains, Normandy

Owned by Chef Paul Verdun.


Omelet with codfish cheeks and caviar.

Poularde Alexandre Dumas.



Chez Pierre, Marseilles

1928 Krug Champagne

Teacup of Marseille fish soup

Dish of tiny clams

Loup de mer 
(sea bass grilled on fennel stalks and bathed in warm Pernod then flambéed)



Maison Dada, Aix-en-Provence

A minimalist restaurant owned by Chef Mafitte.

~

Crystallized foam
(a hard froth made from sea urchin eggs, kiwi and fennel)
 
Bowl of 'pasta' 
(made entirely out of Gruyère cheese and reine des reinettes apples)

Lobster lollipops served with truffle ice cream

 Frogs legs deboned and caramelized in fig juice and dry vermouth served alongside a polenta 'bomb' studded with foie gras and pomegranates



Paul Verdun’s memorial dinner

Champagne under Monet’s Gare Saint-Lazare and Seurat’s Circus.

Dinner was served in the grand salon with white tables dressed with long-stemmed irises in glass; adorned with Baroque murals and Rococo mirrors; surrounded by tall windows offering a panoramic view of Paris.

~

Amuse bouche: 
A shot glass filled with a bite-sized baby octopus cooked in its natural essence, extra virgin olive oil from Puglia, and a single caper on a long stem.
Served with the 1959 Château Musar from Lebanon.

Oyster in clear broth.
Salad of Belgian endive garnished with chunks of
Norwegian smoked lamb and quails’ eggs.
Served with the 1989 Testuz Dezaley l’Arbalete.

Poached halibut in champagne sauce.
Served with a 1976 Montrachet Grand Cru, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. 

Paul’s Partridge in Mourning.
Served with the 1996 Côtes du Rhône Cuvée Romaine.



Guests at table seventeen

Hassan Haji
Chef André Piquot
Madame Elisabet (fish wholesaler to northern France)
Le Comte de Nancy Selière
James Harrison Hewitt (American expat writer and food critic for Vine & Pestle)



One of Hassan's favourite paintings

'Gray Partridge, Pear, and Snare on Stone Table' a still life painting by Chardin



Books mentioned

 Le Bottin Gourmande
 
De Re Coquinaria by Apicius

Margaridou: The Journal of an Auvergne Cook

1871 edition of Larousse Gastronomique



* Information taken from The Hundred-Foot Journey written by Richard C. Morais *


Omnes Thermae Romam Dugunt

Lucius Modestus, a thermae architect and personal designer for Emperor Hadrian from Ancient Rome; he finds himself randomly transported to various time periods in Japan where he encounters the "flat-faces" and their bathing culture and practices as well as their bathhouse innovations, and incorporates them once he is transported back to Ancient Rome. 

Items, ideas and advanced looking technologies from modern Japan he is mind-blown by: 


Episode Two

~ A painting of Mount Vesuvius from the Gulf of Naples and framed by pine trees as the main background.

~ A plastic bucket
The shade of yellow on this epicurean anomaly is beautiful.

~ Massive pane of glass (mirror).

~ Bulletin board - notices for weekly performances (film posters).

~ A contraption creating wind from nothing (electric fan).

~ Curtains for blocking the sun at the entrance (noren).

~ Fruit Milk (chilled and sweet nectar from the gods).


Episode Three

~ Outdoor hot spring (onsen)
A picturesque fountain of rejuvenation tucked away in the mountains.

~ A wooden pipe bringing spring water in and water drains into the river.

~ Hot spring eggs (onsen tamago)
Eggs slowly boiled using the heat of the spring water. Ambrosial texture, silky and smooth soft boiled snack.

~ Warm sake
Complements the egg.


Episode Four

~ A bath inside the comfort of one's own home.

~ Bath tub for a single individual with a lid to help maintain the hot temperature.

~ Shower nozzle.

~ Soap dispenser.

~ Bath shoes.

~ Exfoliating body cloth.

~ Shampoo cap
To avoid suds getting into eyes.

~ Can of beer.


Episode Five

~ A built-in TV
Lucius mistakes this for a jellyfish aquarium within the walls of the bathroom whilst bathing in a customised bath tub.

~ Private toilet rooms
High tech toilet with automated lid; music playing in the background and automated shower spray for washing.


Episode Six

~ Hot stone spa.

~ Healing hut with Ondol underfloor heating system (geothermal energy in the hot spring)
Used for rest and recuperation, thus improving circulation and bodily aches.

~ Boiled up bamboo shoots with shottsuru sauce
An intense scent that reminds Lucius of Roman garam fish sauce. 

~ Drinkable spring water
The sodium in the water acts as an antidote and cure for many things such as upsets stomachs.


Episode Seven

~   An Edo-era rest inn for travellers, Tokaido Road.

~ Men bathing with women.

- Yukata
When Lucius wears his correctly, it envelopes the skin like a gentle embrace from the softest of clouds.

~ Dinner
Simple meal bursting with flavour.

~ Live shamisen music as entertainment 
Splendid melody soothes the diner.

~ Chopsticks
Tiny javelins. Simple elegant motions.

~ Beautiful artwork with fine delicate lines flowing into one another like the Tigris into the Euphrates.

~ Interchangable work area and sleeping area in a small space.

~ Concepts applied to Taverna Deveroria.


Episode Eight

~ Bathing etiquette
Illustrated instructions for guests to understand how to pre clean themselves and not to wear a towel (for hygiene purposes) when entering the bath to relax.


Episode Nine

~ A golden bathhouse for the common people  inspired by the Golden Pavillion in Kyoto (Kinkaku-ji).

~ Use of gold in an understated way but remains classy and glamourous.

~ Diana, Goddess of the hunt and the moon, perched on top of a golden bath tub and lit up by moonlight. The golden splendour looks divine.


Episode Ten

~ A bathhouse that will inspire the people of Rome and to believe in the new ruler.

~ Water theme park for adults and children.

~ Hot water slides made of marble.

~ A pool with a shallow end for younger children.

~ Red wine bath for the adults.

~ Massage chairs.


Episode Eleven

~ A wellness retreat/spa town using the hot water at the base of Mount Vesuvius. Nature's copious bounty - water at the perfect bathing temperature.

~ A wonderfully relaxing vista enveloped in hot spring steam.

~ Food stalls such as hot and steamy Manju buns.

~ Souvenir shops selling items such as shell figurines.

~ Flowers of Sulfur
A bath additive that helps to recreate the soothing atmosphere of a hot spring in their own home bath.

~ Ramen restaurant
Shoyu ramen containing an entrancing soup with thinly sliced near and boiled eggs served in a bowl with a Greek meander pattern.

Complimentary side dish of gyoza.

~ Papyrus currency.




* Information derived from the anime Netflix series: Thermae Romae Novae *

Tnetennba

The IT department at Reynholm Industries in London consists of Jen Barber (Head of IT and Relationship Manager); Maurice Moss (IT Technician) and Roy Trenneman (IT Technician).




Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again? (Roy)

I have lots of experience with the whole computer thing: emails; sending emails; receiving emails; deleting emails - I could go on...the Web; using mouse - mices - using mice; clicking; double clicking; the computer screen of course; the keyboard; the bit that goes on the floor down there... (Jen, when asked about her IT experience).


Moss and Roy attempts to talk about football in a 'football voice':
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
Thing about Arsenal is, they always try and walk it in. 


Lies that Roy and Moss tell to Jen:
If you type Google into Google, you can break the internet. 
There's an apple inside every Apple Mac.
Bill Gates is called Bill Gates because he owns a lot of gates.
The internet doesn't weigh anything.
The Elders of the Internet.


This, Jen, is the Internet



Friendface (fictional social networking website).

Cuke: it's heaven in a can (fictional fizzy drink).

Tnetennba: Good morning, that's a nice tnetennba (Moss' nine letter word on Countdown).


8+ 

An exclusive club for those gifted few who make it through to eight episodes of Countdown.

Moss wears a red beret and drinks a glass of milk, straight up. Ribena for Prime.  

Countdown groupies are the most sexually voracious of all groupies and the most beautiful.


* The Domestic Goblin cannot believe that it has taken her more than a decade to write a blog post on the IT Crowd *