Of Baguettes and Bises

It’s been a while since we had a nice little cultural lesson, and since my week mostly consisted of work, I’ve decided to spare you the rundown on that in lieu of some cultural tidbits.

Our first subject of anthropological investigation is the baguette de tradition française. Slightly shorter and a tad bit stouter than the standard baguette (it also tends to run about 35 centimes more than your standard baguette), this variation of the baguette has a law dictating what can be put in it and what name it can be sold under. I’m not kidding. It can only be sold using the terms baguette, tradition, and français. Those can be in any combination, but if it uses those terms, it can contain nothing more than flour, yeast, salt, and water. On the side of the bag it comes in, it cites said law and informs you exactly where the flour comes from.

And it is delicious. This is the most important part. Don’t get me wrong, a standard 60 centime baguette over here is way better than any baguette you’ll get in the States (for the closest approximations in the Chicagoland area, see Devon Market on Devon and Granville or the French Nuns on the West Side who go from church to church selling baked deliciousness). But a baguette tradition…YUM. I could easily go through one on my own in a day, eating a some with salad, dipping a little in soup with dinner, having a bit with some goat cheese, and then having some with Nutella for dessert (not that I ever buy Nutella—nope, not me, I am far too health conscious for such things, right, Mom?).

Now, on to the bises, or kisses. Most people are well aware of the cheek kisses (one on each cheek) associated with the French. As I learned very quickly in Avignon, these greetings are not as straight forward as they seem—in Provence, you have to do three kisses (no matter how many, you ALWAYS start by bringing your right cheek to the other person’s right cheek—God help you if you start on the wrong side), and supposedly it’s four in areas of Northern France. Here in Bretagne, it’s only two, but I’ve also picked up many of the other similar social niceties.

First of all, les bises are not limited to adults, though they do depend on gender. Women will faire les bises when they meet other men or other women, but men only share them with women. When men meet other men, they shake hands and occasionally pat each other on the back. All of my lycée students do the exact thing that adults do, and I’m quite a fan. First of all, there is something adorable about boys who still look like they’re about twelve and who haven’t quite reached five feet tall when they shake hands to greet each other. So cute. Second, this is all SO much more refined than the way American teenagers greet each other. I was lucky if any guys I knew in high school grunted and slightly lifted their chin in my direction to indicate that they’d seen me. And even when I saw my close friends, we’d just smile and maybe wave if they were across the hall. Les bises are a very classy way to open and close interactions with people, and we need to find a way to introduce them in American high schools, stat.

Age does come into consideration for children. When children greet or say goodbye to an adult, they don’t do the full routine. Instead, they just give the adult one kiss on the cheek. Every time the grandchildren come over, they come find me and give me a kiss on the cheek. Again, highly adorable.

The only downside to all of this is that if I try to start using les bises when I’m back in the US I’m going to seem pretentious. Guess I’ll just have to stay here.

Before I end this, I’ll give you the entertaining student quotes of the past few weeks. First of all, one student informed me that, for Christmas, he’d given his sister red lips. My brain immediately started picturing a pair of red lips wrapped up with a bow on top until he gave me the French translation: rouge à levres. Lipstick. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That makes much more sense. We also had some fun geographical conversations—one student told me he wanted to live in the US when he was older. When I asked where in the US, he responded, “Canada.” “Canada’s not in the US,” I said, a bit perplexed. “Really?” He asked, quite taken aback. Today I had another student inform me that Chicago was in Michigan, which was news to me (I gently suggested that maybe he meant close to Lake Michigan, but he was pretty convinced it was in the state of Michigan). Geography classes clearly aren’t what they used to be.

I hope all is well wherever you are and that you’re making it through the winter without getting too cold. I’d tell you about the weather we’ve been having, but then all you people in the Midwest might try to kill me, so we’ll leave that little detail out. Bon courage!