French Phenomenon

French women are perfect- fact. Tanned and thin- even women with tiny babies that can’t be more than a week old have flat stomachs. Yet France is the country of food lovers, everywhere you go there are gastronomic delights. Once I overheard two couples arguing over the best bakery to buy their baguettes from, and they weren’t arguing about the price. No, they were discussing which boulangerie made the best quality baguettes (at least I am pretty sure that’s what they were talking about without the benefit of subtitles in real life situations).

Every day Jacques and I see French families arriving at the beach laden down with cool boxes, picnic baskets and paper bags filled with baguettes. In the morning at the bakery you can witness French women buying six loaves at a time on the bread run- such copious amounts of food, and yet still so svelte.

Utilising my newly found discreet skill of people-watching (facilitated by the huge black sunglasses the Jacques brought me from the market in Le Penon) I now spend approximately four to six hours a day happily engrosses in watching other people go about their lives. After all there’s only so much conversation that Jacques and I can fill the day with, given the fact that we’ve been together for nearly ten years now! Anyway, I digress, through the course of watching these slim French beauties I have discovered their secret. I have unlocked the key to the so-called ‘French Paradox’ when it comes to maintaining a stunning figure whilst simultaneously appearing to eat and drink as much bread, cheese and red wine as you want. The truth is that French women (and I don’t claim to be able to speak for all of them, only those that I have whiled away the hours observing) don’t eat....except for fruit.

It’s true! Now, I can’t tell you what a typical French woman will eat for breakfast or dinner in their own homes (Jacques wouldn’t let me follow a family home, apparently that escalates the harmless pass time of people watching to stalking and is generally frowned upon) but I can tell you that they don’t eat lunch on the beach. Those cool boxes filled with lovingly prepared homemade vegetable tartlets, baguettes oozing with delicious cheeses & meats, whole roast chickens and stunning gateaux that the French mothers dole out to their husbands, fathers, children, nieces and nephews never, ever pass their own lips.

There is a certain theatre involved in the whole process: the mother is the head of the show and each dish is revealed from the cool bag or picnic basket with much razzle and dazzle. The tin foil is peeled back to expose another exquisite culinary delight and every family member is served, everyone must have a bit. However the mother, as the server, omits her own plate and only when everyone else’s plates are heaving does she dig into the bottom of the hamper and produce a lone apple or nectarine, and this is all that she will eat.

So, how do French women maintain such envious figures? It’s simple; replace lunch with fruit and fatten up everyone else around you so that you look even more gorgeous on the beach- voila! A French figure envied by all.