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Published: January 6th 2011
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9. Restaurant Hygiene
I only thought it best to mention this difference directly afterward, because like I said, there is a huge (HUGE) difference between "normal" everyday hygiene and the hygiene surrounding the food you eat.
I will start by telling a story. There was this restaurant situated right beside the apartment of the first family I lived with. It was privately owned, like most of the restaurants you find in Paris--this is what gives it much of its charm. On your average street, there will be maybe five separate tiny restaurants like this; more where there's a metro or train station. This was one of those.
This restaurant, like most restaurants in Paris, was in the French style, meaning it had walls made entirely of glass that opened up to the streets in the summer, allowing fresh air in and the chairs and tables to spill out onto the street. The tables are normally about the size of a large dinner plate in the US, or a small wheel, and in order to save space, many times they are directly next to one another, forming an insurmountable wall of tables that must be individually pulled out like
Open Restaurant at the musée Rodin
Museum Restaurant tables are way larger than "regular" ones. chairs in order to gain access to the side-by-painstakingly-close-side chairs that line the street. France isn't very fat-person friendly...
One of the nice things about the idea of the restaurants without walls is that they allow you to people-watch, one of the favorite passtimes of French people after smoking, complaining, and going on strike. The funny thing is that these areas exist even in the winter, when many restaurants have these hanging fireplaces for every table or so that give out incredible amounts of warmth. Lots of places close their glass walls, but lots don't. It's very freeing to eat somewhere like this.
In any case, this place by my house was less expensive than lots of places to eat in France, meaning that the french version of a grilled cheese sandwich with ham was around 8 USD. Also, it was a pretty nice, clean-looking place compared to other restaurants nearby. Needless to say, my friend Carrie and I would go there from time to time to eat when we were tired of eating baguette sandwiches... that is, until one fateful day when Carrie dared to order a sandwich with a bit of salad on the side.
The first time it came out, it looked leafy green and delicious, and Carrie picked up some of the lettuce to put it in the sandwich. I was biting into my own when suddenly, Carrie exclamed "Oh my God!!!" and told me to look closely at the lettuce. And there, sitting happily among the leafy greens, was a whole. Live. Caterpillar. In all it's juicy, green, fat glory.
At least it looked relatively clean!!
Of course, after I laughed and took pictures which I have henceforth lost, Carrie asked for another salad. When her new plate came out, she searched first for other insects, but when she found none, she bit into her sandwich, only to pull from her mouth a long, clear piece of krinkly plastic of the genre from which premade salad bags are made. She refused to pay for her meal and we never ate there again.
Because of the open nature of the restaurants, the vermin are hard to keep out. My boyfriend saw more than one mouse crawling around the floors of a nicer restaurant he used to frequent.
Not only that, but another difference between France and US is that
there is a ton of calcium in the water. A TON. When you order water in a restaurant, it comes in this nifty thing called a carafe, and you pour it from that. However, lots of Americans come here and see this seemingly filthy glass pitcher and turn their noses up in disgust. In fact, it may or may not be riddled with bacteria (and there's a good possibility that it is), but what you're seeing is just water spots of calcium. Electric teapots (widely used here for instant coffee and tea) have calcium deposits inside that are so thick they resemble cracked and broken winter ice. When I come here, my face almost immediately becomes simultaneously dry and broken out, and my hair feels like hay. UGH I HATE the water here, which pales in comparison to the softer fluorinated water in the U.S., and pales even further in comparison to the sweet nectar that flows from Canadian sinks.
Even their way of carrying their ever-sacred baguettes makes me squeamish. A "baguette normal" comes with only a flimsy piece of wax paper the size of your hand twisted around the center, and a "baguette traditionale" with naught but
a half-sleeve of paper, leaving the end precariously exposed to the city air, cigarette smoke, and a wealth of germs and bacteria. It's also not at all uncommon for owners of these establishments to touch your food with their bare hands. Don't bother complaining about it, either--after all, what do you think they do in the kitchen? They will just get angry at you and make your life more difficult. What's more: your feeble American Complaints will feel to them like gentle, lukewarm whisps of wind compared to the tempestual assault of the French Complaint. You must remember that they teach their children how to complain in the most agressive way possible at an early age in the French schoolsystem. While Americans are learning the Pledge of Allegiance, Frenchmen are learning to say "Je ne peux pas supporter ça! Qu'es ce que vous pensez?! Vous me soulez! J'en ai marre!!!!!!!"
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