Vive La France et Le Difference! - why can't we be more like the French?

Contrary to what the media & lifestyle gurus have been force feeding us for years! fat is now good for us....

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-100371/Why-fat-good--choose-right-type.html

Yippee! I hear you shout from the rooftops, but then those us of 'in the know' always knew that anyway, especially the French! but that good news does not mean you can high tail it to the closest fried chicken or burger outlet.......like all good news there is also bad.

I have always admired the French attitude to fats and food in general. Their entire food culture is something to be esteemed and something we here in Ireland should aspire to, not that there is no one out there doing their damnedest to change general attitudes.

The food culture of Ireland has literally exploded over the last two decades and the country is now awash with restaurants, a lot 'meh', some good and a few fabulous!  Artisan producers are all the rage growing their own and making their own with specialist food shops, farmers markets and food festivals popping up all over the place.

As I sit writing I am in the lucky position to be doing so from the south of France where I am on my annual sabbatical. sounds posh but just means I'm on a wee holiday....food inspired of course!

To say I love coming to France would be an understatement......'J'adore' coming to France, I would even go as far to call it my second home and if I were able I would be here for 2 weeks instead of 9 days...if I were really able I would stay here for a month....and if in the future I am truly able (as in lottery wining style) I would retire here or at least spend the bulk of the year here.

Having had the pleasure and privilege of previously living and working in France I was able to witness first hand the French attitude to fats and oils. I have stood by in semi shock as whole shanks of lamb and halves of duck were stewed for hours in it,whole joints of meat were copiously bathed in it, salads were served drowned in it, and thick slices of day old bread were fried in it to make crisp croutons...the perfect 'raft' for that black gold 'tapenade'...... a purée of black olives and anchovies with even more fat! how could my arteries ever survive this type of assault I thought? but surprisingly they did! and in the healthiest of ways.

The French attitude to fats is less on the animal (saturated) fats side and more to the 'good fats' side!

Foods may be cooked slowly in it and then stored in it e.g confit of goose breast or duck legs or 'foie-gras', that fat!, fat!, fat! delicacy of fattened goose liver.

This treatment of duck/goose results in the most delicious and melting meat you will have ever tasted in your life, but in reality this onslaught of fat does not penetrate the actual food so when the duck/goose is removed from its storage bath of semi solid fat most of it is cleaned away.

When the duck/goose is reheated in a very hot oven to give us that perfectly crisp skin (the only way duck should be eaten in my opinion!) even more fat is melted out of it....et voila!.....not as 'unhealthy' as at first filled you with fear!

What I believe is a very important factor when it comes to the French and fats and health is the fact that you are hard pushed to find fast food outlets in this country. Yes there may be a well known american outlet in the city of Avignon 20 mins drive from where I sit but who in their right mind would drive 20 mins for 'plastic fantastic'. The closest we have come to the standard version of fast food that is prolific in Ireland, is a pizza outlet in the nearest town.....but all the pizzas are hand made in that rustic style.......the guy even makes his own tomato and herb sauce and dough!

'Fast food' in Grance is the Plat du Jour served at lunchtime in the local 'cafe du progres'  charged at the sumptuous sum of only 12 euros too I might add! and you get dessert! which today was a delectable mousse au chocolat.....yum! made with real chocolate and cream with a dusting of bitter cocoa.


The local supermarket that feeds the year round residents of this area is another indication of the attitude to food. In the local Interrmarche  store there was only one approximately 9 foot long, chest type freezer that had frozen pizza and chips with another for ice cream.

The acreage of the store devoted to fresh produce was a joy to behold, I know 'acreage' is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the drift! With so much choice available in the fresh produce sections why would you bother to go for anything processed? If it were here in Ireland I would be a devoted slave of that grocery store!

The cheap weekly markets here are another reason to stay away from the highly processed high 'unhealthy' fat foods.
Today Friday is market day in the village only 5 mins from where we stay (which is on an olive producing estate by the way) and the abundance of produce on offer would put any market I have been to in Ireland to shame.

'Oh but it's all right for them', I hear you shout in indignation, 'they have the weather for all
that'....Yes France may have wonderful weather in which to grow an amazing array of foods outdoors, some of which would I concede could never grow in this climate of ours, but Ireland has it's own advantages!

Our country has an abundance of seafood on its doorstep, some of the best grazing grass available anywhere in Europe giving us wonderful meats and dairy produce,  and with our sunny south and the advent of the poly-tunnel there should be no excuse for Ireland not to be punching its own weight in the market when it comes to producing healthy, fresh foods.

I think our producers on a large scale are not given the incentives or supports needed, or maybe is it that the locals do not have the 'food attitudes' required to support growers at grass roots level, pardon the pun!
Nor does our government who seem to want to do yet more and more business with foreign producers seem to encourage our growers to keep their produce in our own country as much as they could.

Much of what is produced in Ireland that is destined for markets in the UK or further afield should I believe stay in this country. Yes foreign sales bring 'a great and much needed boost to the Irish economy' or so we are led to believe, but from where I sit the advantage in this seems to be only to the few!

There must be some way to get the Irish eating 'Irish' and buying from local producers should be a matter of normality instead of the norm being to gorge oneself on those highly processed and unhealthy foods which need to be actually imported into our country.
There are a few supermarkets out there making efforts along these lines to give them their dues but they are stores that haven't even originated in this country.

Sadly I have neither control of this countries budget or its decision making when it comes to letting foreign conglomerates onto our territory, nor sadly in our education system where the importance of each countries and each persons food self sufficiency should be a compulsory subject!

You would imagine that it would be more cost effective for the Irish people to buy 'Irish' produce rather than consume something that may have been produced in Belgium, Brazil or even China, and is processed beyond the beyonds and filled with those fats that we now know for sure are no good for us.... but seemingly not!

How can a local beef producer for example who has the burden of high production costs etc. heaped onto them and may end up having to charge 18 euros or more per kilo for his grass fed beef, a kilo roast I might add that would only feed 6-8 people, how can this producer possibly hope to compete with an importer of frozen beef burgers who charges less than 5 euros for a dozen burgers containing meat which has been processed to death and riddled with unhealthy fats, additives and fillers where one burger equals a meal portion with a bun and some frozen chips added! and maybe tinned beans......this I hasten to add would be a meal typically within the budgets of many families!.....what is a local producer to do? but try and sell it abroad where food produced in Ireland garners a higher respect than it does in the country it originated in, and where he might make his costs and a minuscule profit.....can you blame him?

I dread to think of the future health implications if our country does not go some way to change its ways and attitudes very soon.....bring on the olive oil!