It’s safe to say that France is a place known for cheese. If you’ve ever visited the country, you’ll know this by the very fact that entire shops are dedicated to solely selling that single stinky commodity – in about a hundred variations at a time. Cheese holds its place as its own course in the traditional French meal. Plain and simple, cheese is an indivisible part of French cuisine and life.

However, when it comes to discussing food in France, it’s not enough to say you like a cheese, you need to be able to comment on it. Is it fruity or smoky? Lactic or spicy? What about first nose versus second nose? How does the flavor evolve in your mouth? What about an aftertaste?  This all always sounded a little ridiculous, even pretentious (this is cheese I thought) until I started to learn that for the French, the cheese (and any other food) is seen as a greater reflection of French culture, and grander yet, the La Belle France herself.

That’s what I learned this summer in my food and culture class. Take a moment and consider how you think about food. As health conscious Americans, we’re taught to consider calories, fat grams, and portion sizes. We’re all about cold cut calculations and quantity. We need fuel for the body and as quick as you can please. The main difference between eating for Americans and eating for the French is the focus. And because meals hold many underlying meanings for the French, they treat meals as events, not simply fuel-ups.

The Jura is a French region far outside the grasp of Paris, dolluped on the French-Swiss border. There, you’ll find no skyscrapers, crowds or noisy traffic. Instead, there is rolling land, quiet and Comté – the product of the land. In the Jura, Comté is the center point of the community. The hands that care for the cows, the hands that curate the curds, the hands that age it and sell it – they are all working for a sole purpose: Comté.

Once you witness the care, the precision, the heart, and the thought put into the product, you begin to view it in a grander way and you begin to understand the French perspective on food. Surprisingly, my time in the Jura allowed me to link this love of land and what it produces to another place I know: Texas. Growing up in Texas, I have lived the grand romantification (excuse the invention of a word) that takes place between Texans and their land. The land defines much of who we are. Well, it turns out the same could be said for the French.

 

 

It turns out we’re more alike than we thought.

Who’d have thought?