Over Christmas, we visited Mr Mo's grandmother who now lives in a retirement home run by nuns, in Saintes. Some of you may know that Saintes is a Roman town in the southwest of france which sprouted in the 1st century. 'Saintes' somehow reminds me of the word 'saint' in english. Coupled with the fact that the town pivots about a magnificent Basilique, and that the retirement home overlooks a roman abbey, it is little surprise that this little town runs amok with some very traditional catholic families.
No, this post is not about religion, it is about tradition. The french tradition, to be precise. The four of us Mr Mo, his maman and Mamie Odette had lunch in Les Saveurs de l'Abbeye, a restaurant gastronomique which was situate right next door to the abbey. Food was simple, but exquisite. Soup served in coffee cups, tarte tartin served in what I can only believe was designed by a lopsided scandanavian glass blower. What intrigued me was that when we sat down, the table was set with plates, napkins, cutlery, and a very precariously balanced long stemmed vase. Very cute, but very dangerous when left in the likes of me or miss sotong.
After we'd ordered, the waiter sauntered round, and collected all the plates on the table. Unused! Mr Mo explained that the table needed to be 'dressed' and went on to explain table 'dressing' etiquette to me. At some point, Mr Mo recounted a story about getting his grandfather's pants up in a twist when he used to deliberately place his bread on the 'wrong' side of the table.
Later in the week, when I glanced down at my plate after lunch, bread on the wrong side, fork misplaced, no one noticed anything was amiss, but I thought to myself, even though I will probably never really be propre enough, that is all part and parcel, and indeed something special about our cross cultural relationship.
That said, chopsticks please.
Merci beaucoup.
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