The Chain Gang Diary Competition Feb 2008 - Winner
Andrea Skorenki - Canada
The Faux-Pas Tour of the Loire Valley
My father and I took the Chain Gang Loire Valley tour this past September. It was my father’s first visit overseas, and my first time exploring France outside of Paris. We had a wonderful time and truly enjoyed the experience of French food and customs.
Unfortunately, most of that learning was done the hard way. We committed our first faux-pas at dinner in Chinon, where a fantastic hors d’oeuvres buffet had been set up with shrimp, meat and salads. Right next to it was a table with several different kinds of cheese, so naturally we assumed the cheese was part of the appetizer buffet. Not so! I managed to take some without being reprimanded, but my father was caught red-handed trying to make off with some camembert. Unbeknownst to us, cheese is never eaten before dinner. It is only consumed afterwards, either before or instead of dessert.
We committed faux-pas number two during lunch in Usse, near Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It was cool and rainy so we ordered vegetable soup to warm us up. Bread seems to be served with every meal in France, but we received our soup alone.
Naturally, we assumed the waitress had forgotten our bread, so we asked for a basket. Instead of delicious baguette, we got a dirty look and were told that “En France, nous ne mangeons pas le pain avec la soupe!” In France, we do not eat bread with soup! How French onion soup is allowed to break this rule, I’ll never know. The waitress eventually brought bread to eat with our soup, but with a look of extreme disapproval.
Our third food crime also involved bread and soup. We ate lunch in the garden of a hotel restaurant in Chenonceau and ordered French onion soup, so we thought we were safe to combine le pain avec la soupe. It was brought to us in a large pot that was set onto the table for us to ladle out ourselves. After two bowls of soup each, there was still a large amount left in the pot. We also had some baguette left, so it seemed only natural to dunk some of the remaining baguette in the pot of soup before eating it.
We knew it was probably forbidden, but the combination was too delicious to pass up. The waiter saw our bad table manners and punished us severely. We ordered coffee after lunch and watched as he brought it out steaming hot, set it down on a nearby table and began taking dessert orders from the table behind us. After nearly ten minutes, he finally brought us our cold coffee.
After these misadventures, we started intentionally committing faux-pas to see what kind of reaction they would receive. We asked for butter to go with bread at every meal (butter is only eaten at breakfast, never at lunch or dinner), ketchup with French fries and we drank red wine with fish and white wine with meat. These earned a raised eyebrow or two, but no reprimands.
We never did have the guts to order ‘Freedom fries’ or a nice German riesling to wash them down. On the last night of the tour, we ate dinner in Amboise and though we tried our hardest, we could not commit a faux pas. The host, Stef, truly followed the rule that the customer is always right. He was so friendly and accommodating it was impossible to get ourselves into trouble. Butter with bread? Mais oui! Red wine with fish? How about something local?
That night the only faux pas was caused by Pete, the guide. In a misguided attempt to refill our glasses of white wine, he grabbed the water carafe by mistake and ruined several perfectly good half-glasses of sauvingnon!