Night on the town
We had ‘un repas bien arrossé’ yesterday - great phrase, don’t you think, arrosser is ‘to water’ (as in ‘watering the garden’) but ‘un repas bien arrossé’ is a meal washed down with plenty of wine etc.
Anyway, one of the local communes were having their annual village ‘moules frites‘ evening and some friends invited us to go along.
Now, we have been to quite a few commune meals in France, and there are three ways to see them: as a chance to enjoy a village meal in a traditional French atmosphere, in a way that is no longer possible elsewhere; as a chance to eat school-dinners again, with lots of elderly folk; or as a completely surreal event where you act as an observer, wondering which aspects to blog about. It is of course a mixture of all three.
First view: the meal started with perhaps 100 people in the village hall, eagerly anticipating the evening ahead. Bottles of wine open on the tables, bread cut ready, and a happy convivial atmosphere. But whereas in the UK it would be too much for the hardiest soul to sit for almost an hour with an empty wine glass and a full wine bottle within arms reach, in France that is exactly what happens. The wine is not a pleasure to be enjoyed casually - it must be drunk in small quantities, only with the meal, and not a moment before. But apart from my lacking the necessary self-restraint (or perhaps I am an alcoholic) the meal went well, with plenty of mussels, chips, cheese and profiteroles, although not all at the same time.
Second view: Now we all know about the problems of rural depopulation in France, as youngsters abandon the farmed lands of their ancestors and move to the cities, the bright lights and the employment prospects. Not surprisingly, because there is more or less no work in rural areas, and even less well paid work. And we also know about the enthusiasm that Brits have for buying up pieces of rural France.
Net result - a typical commune meal in France is 75% very elderly French folk, who left it too late to abandon their farms and seek work selling insurance: and 25% slightly younger new arrivals, typically British and Dutch. This does mean a commune meal sometimes gives the impression of being held in a retirement home, and a lot of people seem to have a slightly lost, confused look, despite having attended the same event every year since 1921.
Third view: the surreal. During the course of the meal, the commune had laid on entertainment in the form of a cabaret of sorts. Starting with a particularly unfuny clown, things then got going with a bit of music. Now, the French do have a bit of an ability to make any song sound, well, French - all songs were sung in a kind of ‘Marlene Dietrich meets the background music for a David Lynch movie’ kind of way.
This can either seem appalling or entertaining, depending on how you look at it. Me I like it, but to hear the French version of ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ sounding like a stirring caberet song from 1932 is, well, strange.
Anyway, everyone including me enjoyed themselves, the French went home sober, I didn’t, and all was well. Personally I prefer the annual hunt meals, where we get an enormous range of freshly shot wild game - wild boar, hare, deer etc - instead of mussels, but it’s not my place to complain.
Hi Mr. B! Love your blog and even laugh occassionally at it. But almost everything you describe is exactly like living in rural Dorset, so you’re quite wrong to assume these kinds of surreal events could only happen in France. Attend a harvest supper and it’s the same collection of elderly inhabitants from the time of Thomas Hardy and the incomers from as far afield as America and even London all creating an English country life that probably never existed. Get involved in the village pantomine and be exposed to the delicate politics of village life. Bonfire night gives local farmers the opportunity for legitimate pyrotechnics. The events of New Years Eve give material for the rest of the year. Visit the village ’store’ for gossip - the closeness of village life means that even if Mrs. T ran off with the thatcher during the summer, she still has to be accepted back to the village without comment (to her face, anyway) when the short days arrive - and can be assured of her usual part in the pantomine AND a particularly large attendance at her annual Christmas Eve drinks party. When three youngsters knock down Mr. H’s sunflowers, it is a crime of immense significance, and everyone knows exactly who was involved. People are the same everywhere, and what you describe is a move from town to country (real country, that is, rather than the suburban counterfiet in the South East of England). But cheers, anyway, for your entertaining blog!
Hi Chrissie, you’re right of course - I grew up in a small village in Wales and Mrs B in Yorkshire, and its all very similar. Bet you never have moules frites in Dorset though! Certainly when Parisians etc move in around here they have the same problems integrating with the local community as the English and Dutch do.
Thanks for reading!