I suppose that I can understand how chicken tikka masala became "the national dish" of Great Britain, but to be perfectly honest, I prefer plain chicken tikka; masala sauce just seems to be an impediment to enjoying a better dish. I am certainly pleased that the Persian origins of many an Indian dish are noted; those who have yet to enjoy the delights of Persian cuisine are missing out something fierce.
And yes, buy the book.
No, this has nothing to do with Jacques Chirac's rather bizarre policies. And it doesn't even have to do with dining in Chicago. It has instead to do with this article, which explains why French women are able to have their cake, eat it, and not suffer from obesity:
Bofinger, in the rue de la Bastille, is the oldest brasserie in Paris, the haunt of presidents and ministers, Chiracs and chevaliers. It is also my favourite place to dine in the whole world. Bofinger is a shrine to food, staffed by mustachioed waiters in black waistcoats and white aprons, waltzing around the various rooms bearing platters of fruits de mer, wobbling crème caramels, great tureens of bouillabaisse. Bofinger is noisy and vivid, thick with the stew of soupe à l'oignon, foie gras, steak frites, choucroute, butter sauces, andouillette, sticky confit de canard, towering coupes des glaces topped with turrets of crème Chantilly.
It is also one of the best places in the world to lose weight. According to established lore and several new books (the latest is French Women Don't Get Fat by Mirielle Guiliano), if you really want to kiss your ass goodbye, you should take a lesson from the French.
Despite a diet stuffed with cream, butter, cheese and meat, just 10 per cent of French adults are obese, compared with our 22 per cent, and America's colossal 33 per cent. The French live longer too, and have lower death rates from coronary heart disease - in spite of those artery-clogging feasts of cholesterol and saturated fat. This curious observation, dubbed 'the French paradox', has baffled scientists for more than a decade. And it leaves us diet-obsessed Brits smarting.
In Chic and Slim: How Those French Women Eat all that Rich Food and Still Stay Slim, Anne Barone seeks to unravel the puzzle. As it turns out, it's all about knickers. 'Never underestimate the power of a black lace garter belt,' she writes. 'Even French women's lingerie helps to keep them slim, [it's] a constant reminder to make choices that pay off in slimness. Their belief in this principle is demonstrated by the fact that there are almost as many lingerie shops in Paris as bakeries.' Vanity, it seems, is a very useful vice if you want to fight the flab.
'Forget diets,' continues Barone. 'They are no fun and don't work. What I learned from French women is that ultimately staying slim is not about counting calories or fat grams. It is not about exercise exhaustion. It is really about personal style.' True, the French women I know tend not to get too hung up on 'dieting'; I have never witnessed a Parisienne performing the calorie or carbo calculus that bedevils so many British meals. But they do enjoy a sensible, sensuous way of eating. Just watch them, dipping mussel shells into mariniere broth at any brasserie in Saint Germain. They savour their food. They are passionate about food. They have a national heritage devoted to and founded upon food. France is, after all, the home of the great chefs, from George Auguste Escoffier to Paul Bocuse - men whose creative juices still flow through the many kitchens and cooks of the land. For them, it seems, eating is life-enriching exploit, not a chore, and certainly not a guilt-trip. Ironically, the people most likely to be 'on a diet' (12.8 million of us in the UK) are the least likely to be slim.
A recent survey conducted by the French government's Committee for Health Education (CFES) found that eating is still very closely linked to a national heritage of consuming good food for pleasure. In France, 76 per cent eat meals they have prepared at home; the favourite place to eat both lunch and dinner is in the home, with 75 per cent eating at the family table. In the UK, by contrast, we like to eat our meals (a) standing up, (b) in front of Coronation Street , (c) at a desk while catching up on emails or (d) by the side of the M40.
Whereas the French typically spend two hours over lunch, we bolt down our food in the time it would take them to butter a petit pain. Nutritionist Dr Francoise L'Hermite believes that the French secret is to sit down with friends or family for a meal, and to eat three times a day at regular intervals. She points out that the French don't eat in front of the television, and they eat slowly, enjoying both the food and the company. How very civilised.
'For France, a meal is a very particular moment, in which you share pleasure, the food as well as the conversation,' says L'Hermite. 'From an Anglo-Saxon point of view, food is just fuel to give energy to your muscles. If you have no pleasure in it, you are breaking all the rules of eating.'
Dr Andrew Hill, senior lecturer in behavioural sciences at Leeds University, agrees. 'I suspect that the French paradox has something to do with our differing core attitudes to food and eating. French food is real food - prepared in the kitchen, with time taken to choose, buy and prepare meals. In other words, there's space for food in the daily routine.
Eating in France is a social activity. There are several but small courses, with plenty of time between courses for the physiological feedback to kick in. In England, we eat more pre-prepared foods and ready-meals; we eat fast food both in and outside the home. We have single, large meals, and family members will eat different foods at different times... Fast food is, by definition, eaten fast, so there's no time for that physiological feedback.'
Is this the secret to being able to eat what you want, while at the same time maintaining a healthy body weight? Perhaps. But I don't see the fast food culture departing from Britain--or America--anytime soon, so I can't help but wonder what good this knowledge may do us.
