Free French Lessons by Peter Mayle Page B

champagne that it was a distinctly benign
Régis who took his place opposite me in the restaurant, humming as he
looked around.
    The Auberge Bressane sits at the upper end of the scale
between the simple bistro and those more elaborate establishments festooned
with stars by the Michelin guide. The lighting is soft, the table linen thick,
the atmosphere relaxed and comfortable; a man can take off his jacket and tuck
his napkin in his shirt collar without fear of provoking a sniff and a raised
eyebrow from a sartorially sensitive headwaiter.
    After a few minutes of
pleasant indecision, we both chose the same dishes: frogs’ legs, followed
by chicken, with white and red Burgundies from just the other side of the
autoroute. When the bottles were brought to us, I noticed there were no
warnings about the presence of sulfites.
    “Good God, no,”
Régis said. “Not here in France. Not in
Burgundy.
Mind
you, one never knows what the law says they have to add when they send it over
to America.” He held his glass up to the light and studied the pale
shimmer of the Meursault. “Which reminds me …” He
chewed on a mouthful of wine before reaching into his pocket. “I cut this
out for you,” he said, smoothing a newspaper clipping on the table in
front of him and passing it over to me. “I thought it was a sign of the
times.”
    It was an advertisement. A grizzled gentleman dressed as
a typical cowboy—work shirt, large hat, picturesque wrinkles—was
remarking on the fact that McDonald’s, that most American of
institutions, was now serving only homegrown French chicken in its restaurants
in France. The timing of the advertisement was significant: There had just been
a major scandal in neighboring Belgium involving tainted food, some of it
chicken, while across the Channel, the English, perfidious as always, were
taking France to court for refusing to accept their beef for fear of
la
vache folle,
or mad cow disease. All in all, these were trying times for
the country of Brillat-Savarin and Escoffier, and extra vigilance was needed to
make sure that crafty foreigners didn’t succeed in foisting suspect food
on the trusting French public. The cowboy was there to reassure
McDonald’s addicts that correct Gallic standards were being
maintained.
    I asked Régis if he’d ever been to a
McDonald’s. He looked at me as though I were deranged, then shook his
head.
    “
Moi?”
he said. “I
wouldn’t go, as a matter of principle. Do you know the average time taken
to eat a McDonald’s meal? Seven and a half minutes! And they’re
proud of it! It’s an affront to the digestion. No, you’ll never
catch me in McDonald’s—although, to be fair, I have heard good
reports about their
pommes
frites.
” I saw his nose
twitch, and he turned his head. “Ah, here come the frogs’
legs.”
    The essentials were arranged in front of us: two
well-filled plates, still sizzling; finger bowls; a basket of bread. The tiny
aromatic legs had been sautéed with garlic, then dusted with chopped
parsley. After refilling our glasses and warning us that the plates were hotter
than hot, our young waitress wished us
bon appétit.
Régis bent over to inhale the scent and, using a piece of bread,
maneuvered his first leg to the side of the plate, picked it up with careful
fingers, and examined it.
    “The English don’t know what
they’re missing,” he said, stripping the flesh off the bone with
his teeth. He chewed for a moment. “Or are they worried about mad frog
disease?” He dabbed his mouth with his napkin and nodded. “That
must be it.”
    With the assurance that comes from being an official
member of the brotherhood of thigh-tasters of Vittel, I dealt with my first few
legs—moist, almost crisp, with the clean flavor of parsley coming through
the garlic. Delicious. Why don’t the English eat them? We certainly have
the ideal climate for frogs, damp and cool. But then the thought occurred to me
that perhaps we have a national aversion