France is the gastronomic capital of Europe. Well, considering the turgid root vegetable concoctions of Eastern Europe, the glistening suspicious sausages of Deutchland and the stodgy plates of grease beloved of the British – the country in which ‘hearty’ means ‘weighs the same as a new born child,’ – it really doesn’t have much to fear competition-wise, does it?
And so, I ask myself, how is it that I can live here and yet always end up eating meals more depressing than being given a copy of the Daily mail with a parking ticket inside it by a funeral director?
Because I live like a chuffing student, that’s why. We have already established that the lifestyle parallels are miserably profuse: I sleep in a bunk bed, wear clothes that Pete Docherty would sniffily dismiss as too scruffy, pay for coffee in money I’ve found in the washing machine seal and regularly sport hair that resembles a frantic hedgerow.
To this wretched list I now append my eating habits. As well as freelance journalising, I work in a café, and an airport transfer office. And when I am not doing these things I am waiting for a French person to finish their fag and do something for me or I am up the mountain with a board strapped to my feet pretending that I’m not too old for this shit and careering towards solid objects that weren’t there a minute ago.
This sadly, leaves limited time for the buying and preparation of foodstuffs and therefore generally meals are, at best, imaginative and at worst, unidentifiably brown.
(On a side note, whoever invented toast should receive some sort of design award. My boyfriend bought me a toaster for my last birthday and after a short, animated exchange as to the questionable romanticism of this gesture, I realised that it was probably the best thing I could ever have been given, ever. Anything is good if served on heated bread and it is ready almost immediately. An associated anecdote: a mutual friend was recently married. As a joke, all his school friends decided to buy him a toaster. He recieved fourteen of them. This is my idea of heaven.)
After a few weeks of bad eating and not going to the supermarket (my record is 17 days), I start getting masochistic and actively see how low I stoop. I see if can survive on dried goods and nasty coffee for days – as if this will win me some sort of endurance award. Which will of course be bestowed upon me by a smiling and slightly awe-struck Bear Grylls who will coyly ask me for my tips on easing constipation caused by consuming excess rehydrated packet foods.
Yesterday, I got home ravenous after a session of throwing myself bodily at the piste and really wished I hadn’t been so stoic about vetoing the supermarket.
Yesterday, for my lunch I ended up eating the only thing I could find in the cupboard: popcorn, which I had to pop and which I then coated with dried herbs.
It wouldn’t be the worst meal I’ve had (I’m English after all) – I have had a Yorkshire pudding with grated onion in it. I have had a rice cake smeared with Thai curry paste. There is a Pot Noodle floating about somewhere, but I haven’t quite devolved enough yet to go near it. Yet.
However, my flatmate came home to find me eating the aforementioned satanic popcorn and immediately put me in the car and dumped me outside the local supermarket.
Inside which I joyfully stocked up on sliced bread, Thai curry paste and more popcorn.
