Although I’m All-American, I have a soft spot for France. There are many things that it does well, just as there are many things America does well. Here are five things that we Yanks can learn from our French counterparts:
Les plaîsirs de la table (the pleasures of the table). The French do not wolf down their meals; rather, they savor each course. They don’t get itchy if the main course doesn’t arrive within five minutes of ordering it. We can all learn to slow down.
Eat sans gluttony. I wrote about this last year, the concept of “assez” (enough).
Drive less. Given the dearth of parking spaces on the Riviera and in French cities, this is a no-brainer. We left the Purple People-Eater in a free parking spot and walked or took the bus/train when we were in Villefranche-sur-Mer.
Invest in high-quality infrastructure. The Millau Viaduct, which we drove over last year, is a masterpiece of engineering, the 21st century equivalent of the Golden Gate Bridge. Americans used to do roads and bridges right. These days, road repair goes to the low bidder. The phrase “you get what you pay for” often applies to the results. If the same pothole has to be fixed year after year, the Highway Department needs to get a clue.
Value the old. Some of the buildings we’ve seen on our trips to France are hundreds of years old. Some retrofitting has to occur to bring them up to current code and modern conveniences, but it’s done. Meanwhile, the first option in the US when confronted with an old building is tear it down. How many architectural treasures have been destroyed as a result?
In the next post, I’ll turn the tables.
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