The national tasting week is a French institution with a pedagogic goal. Basil Howitt investigates this gastronomic week for the young, one school canteen at the time, in an effort to understand the French obsession with food.

At school we used to learn in our French lessons the adage that “The English eat to live whereas the French live to eat.” The longer one lives here, the more this truth is rammed home. The French obsession with food is a kind of progressive revelation.

Where but in this country, for example, would you find the press reporting at ecstatic length - as our local rag L’Indépendant (Catalan) did on 28 April 2007 - on the granting of AOC status (Appellation d’Origine Controllée) to a variety of the humble potato? Such has been the recent accolade granted to the pomme de terre Béa, a scrumptious early variety grown in the Tech and Têt valleys of the Roussillon.

After 12 years of knocking on the door of the INAO (Institut National des Appellations d’Origine, roughly translatable as the National Institute for Controlled Place Names) the “Defence Syndicate” for the pomme de terre Béa has finally been awarded this coveted AOC honour. And where but in France would you find in a newspaper such a lyrical, almost erotic description of a potato variety as this? “… this blonde potato, oblong in shape with a very delicate skin, intense aromas, slightly sweet flavour, and melting texture …”

Created in 1905, the INAO eventually assumed control of all aspects of wine production from vine plantings and their location to the processing and ageing of the finished product. On 2 July 1990 its remit was extended to all agricultural products and on 1st January 2007 it was renamed the Institut National d’Origine et de la Qualité. It also now guarantees organic and Red Label certifications.

AN EARLY INDOCTRINATION

The prime reason for the continuing French obsession with food and drink may well be because children are hooked at a very tender age: from their entry into the école maternelle (nursery school) at age 3 or even younger, and during their time at the école primaire (primary or elementary school) from the age of 6 to 11. This gastronomic indoctrination is almost as fanatical as the religious brainwashing of children by the Jesuits, whose success is legendary. (“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”)

We read in “legout.com” that each autumn during La Semaine du Goût “a devoted team of some 3500 chefs is sent to French schools to initiate children into delicious and healthy cooking. Meanwhile, some 400 restaurants offer reduced price menus for students and special children’s menus are served at selected restaurants in Paris and the French regions.”

Eat you heart out Jamie Oliver! You’ve worked your socks off trying to introduce good eating habits into British schools, with backing from the government. But alas, so far, although the horse has been led to the water, it has mainly refused to drink.

There was certainly plenty of proselytising activity last autumn in villages within striking distance of Perpignan, our nearest large city and capital of French Catalonia. Judging from these snippets I gleaned and paraphrased from L’Indépendant throughout last November and subsequently, it seems that induction into chocolate-based cooking techniques is particularly popular! The grilling of chestnuts comes a close second.

At MAUREILLAS-LAS-ILLAS (up in the Vallespir near the Spanish border), having in previous years learned the basics of pastry making, the children this year were shown how to make a mousse au chocolat. They witnessed the transformation of egg whites from their initial sticky, gooey state to “voluminous, snowy frothiness”. They also saw hard butter becoming soft and pliable, and crunchy chocolate chips becoming liquidized when heated. And they even learned such funny cookery terms as “cul de poule” (“chicken’s arse” or a cooking utensil shaped like a salad bowl) and “cornes” (“horns” – a flat flexible utensil used to scrape out the inner surfaces of whatever container). Well, the children learned a lot – and so have I, thanks to google.

Inevitably by the end of the tasting there were many chocolate moustaches. And let all parents be warned! Your children will inevitably want to repeat the lesson at home.

At TAUTAVEL – famous for its museum celebrating the existence of pre-historic man there 450,000 years ago - a class of 24 pupils was taught and served by the kitchen team from the restaurant Bellavista. Chef Denis Visellach inducted them into the secrets of making – then tasting - “mikado de chocolat” (chocolate biscuit sticks) with feuillantine and coconut (seemingly a multi-layered topping). Practice had followed theory in the classroom. One child, Robin, went home having taken to heart the fact that chocolate is “good for the health but only in small quantities.”

At CLAIRA, near the coast above Perpignan, “les petits boulangers” (the little bakers) of the primary school visited the bakeries of the giant supermarket Carrefour to study all aspects of bread-making from flour production to baking. Wearing their little bakers’ hats, they kneaded the dough and fashioned baguettes and pain au chocolat with their own hands. Naturally their efforts were crowned with samplings.

At ARGÈLES-SUR-MER, the olive farm Mas Boutet greeted a group of 55 nursery school children aged 2 to 5 and their 6 teachers from La Bressola in Perpignan. Mme Isabelle Girodeau welcomed them and extolled all the benefits of olive oil. The children spent the morning picking olives in the grove of 140 trees, with a lovely backdrop view of the Mediterranean down below. After Mme Isabelle had answered all the children’s questions there was a picnic in the shade of the pine trees. As well as the olives, the farm dog and donkey were also both very popular attractions.

Then off they all went in the bus (chance for a little siesta) to another mill at Corneilla-la-Rivière to watch the milling and pressing of the olives, Genaro explaining the whole process. Finally there was a tasting, and samples were handed round for the children to take home.

Not far away in SORÈDE, situated at the foot of the Albères mountain range, the primary school children took part in an olive oil project lasting several months. They helped to pick the drupe (olive fruit), observed the milling and pressing, and examined a model of the town’s ancient oil mill originally built by the local seigneur in the 15th century and of which vestiges still remain. The culmination of the project was the town’s first Olive Fair in April of this year. After the blessing of the new oil, a bottle was given to each child by the – take a deep breath! – “President of the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Olive Tree of the Languedoc-Roussillon.”

At ILLE-SUR-TÊT (south west of Perpignan) the Ecole maternelle Torcatis laid on a Castanyada (a chestnut fête) to which parents and grandparents were invited. The children and one of their teachers first gave a carefully prepared little performance of songs and dances both French and Catalan. The adults then busied themselves with selecting, cracking and grilling the nuts over wood fires. What better way could there be to unite both children, parents and the wider community than round a huge pan of grilling chestnuts? Finally, bags of chestnuts and drinks were distributed. The chestnuts were delicious. Merci à tout!

SCHOOL CANTEEN DINNERS TO DIE FOR

The passion for fostering good eating habits and high-quality cuisine is maintained all the year round. I recently asked two completely bi-lingual small daughters of friends of ours in nearby St Paul de Fenouillet what the canteen dinners were like in their primary school. “Very good,” they said immediately, “even though mummy’s cooking is better.”

You will find on the internet, published at least a month ahead, school canteen menus served all over France. Those for Perpignan schoolchildren are also published in L’Indépendant every Sunday. That way, parents can avoid repeating the same meals in the evening.

All these meals are surely models of good balanced dietary practice. Take these three actual lunch menus for the three Mondays in December 2006 served to the several thousand primary school “subscribers” in Perpignan. (Translation only where thought necessary):

   • salade reinette à la mimolette (Cox’s apple salad with an Edam-type cheese)
   • lapin aux pruneaux (rabbit with prunes)
   • pâtes au beurre (buttered pasta)
   • mirabelles au sirop (cherry plums in syrup)


   • tarte au gruyère
   • côtelette de mouton (mutton chops)
   • haricots verts au maïs (green beans with sweet corn)
   • mandarine (oranges)


   • mesclun mimosa (baby lettuces garnished with diced and crumbled hard-boiled eggs)
   • côte de porc (pork chops)
   • pommes boulangères (potatoes done in the oven)
   • fromage blanc aux pommes (fromage blanc with apples)
   • oranges

What a fantastic start in life for children to go to school and be presented with such nutritious and beautifully presented dishes. In some schools, there is even (according to Helena Frith Powell in her book on French fashion and mores Two Lipsticks and a Lover) “a self-service system with a range of colours for food: one colour for vegetables, another one for milk products, another for meat and so on. Pupils need to take one dish of each colour, to make sure they have a balanced diet. Although they don’t have this in my children’s school, they try to influence them to eat up or try at least everything that is on their plate.”

The French realise the vital importance of good eating to a morale-boosting lifestyle – to a sense of well being. And thank goodness that most French children still eat at the table with their parents every day, in contrast to English children where the default is now reportedly a microwaved meal in front of the television.