Isn't it just wonderful - I have read how many a French single or couple will save all year to have one meal at a 4 star restaurant - for them it is like going to the theater is for us and seeing the photos of Le Grand Vefour it is easy to realize a diner is playing a part as well as, enjoying the performance and savoring the time that would be several hours plus, the prep before they left the house. Better than attending a concert where all you do is sit and listen where as, this experience involves all your senses; taste, touch, sound, sight, smell.
A couple of years ago I read one of these cute chic books and in it the author, a women, goes home to visit after a couple of years living a busy typical American style business life in Paris - her father is astounded, her mother almost outraged - she was chubby and not in a healthy way - she had been eating American - on the go, sandwiches, hamburgers, fries - dashing out, not savoring her food or in her mother's opinion, herself. She was promptly put back on a French diet of morning jam on croissants however, ruminating about the fruit that made the jam and detecting the flavors - no sandwiches on the run but a decent meal with time to de-stress - a light le quatre heures - and a dinner with several courses carefully and lovingly served, each course small as compared to our huge plates of food.
From this and several other books I read at the time it was apparent we eat more bread and starches later in the day - we eat at least two of our meals, if we even have breakfast, on the run, quick as if we were farm hands having to fill our body with calories. The other is in so many areas of the world they fix their own food, the food is less likely to be purchased prepared with all the additives in our store bought food, it is more likely to be daily purchased fresh, grown locally. Soon after, it is now a year and a half I decided no more prepared food, frozen dinners, nothing except what I prepare fresh. Grapes for snacks, all sorts of fruit deserts with sugar, but real sugar and even heavy cream and yes, cheese. I will purchase things like mayo and katsup. I only eat bread in the morning and within 4 months I lost 20 pounds not doing another thing.
It is difficult to make a ceremony during mealtime but that too I read how even street vendors in France, close down their cart and sit behind it eating a lovely meal spread out on a make shift table that for many of us we would consider as a dinner.
I think we still have a work ethic that drives us so that we do not smell the roses of living.
