English, French and Cooking

Happy Birthday To Me
It was my birthday last week and, apart from receiving cards and presents as usual (but gratefully) from old friends and family, I received similar this year from relatively newly acquired French friends. A key was a round-table session of the week before discovering what star sign everyone was born under, through which my birthday date had to be revealed. I was very touched by the good wishes I received and felt that some kind of response, other than thanking the individuals concerned personally, was required of me.

The weather having been suddenly colder recently, thanks primarily to a light but persistent Mistral, I have tended to stay indoors and embarked on a cooking jag. So, I took my reputation if not actually my life in my hands and decided to cook something for everyone at the next “pizza” evening, which was tonight. To say that the English haven't the best reputation for their cooking ability in France is an understatement: many have not been to England for a long time and remember English cooking as it was before cooking programmes took over prime time television. Anyway, I decided to cook a cherry tart from the cherries that had been taking up too much room in my freezer and and an apple tart as well, apples being plentiful and cheap at the moment. As it turned out, Roberto had decided to offer mussels and chips as well as pizzas tonight and there was something of a record turnout, around 30-40 of us. So it was as well I had decided to cook two tarts and both were well received, and at least the English cooking reputation was not harmed. Everyone seemed genuinely appreciative of the tarts, as well as of the effort and the gesture.

House Sizes
There has been a spate of renovation of old houses in Mollans recently which reminded me again of the disparity between the size of French houses, at least in rural areas, and those in England. I have friends in England who have recently undertaken extensions to add a room or two to their houses. Here, even when renovated, houses tend to have fallow space, unconsidered and to be used as cellars or whatever. The reason seems to be that, in rural areas, the French have built houses not only for themselves and their family (often extensive) but also to accommodate farm equipment and/or livestock. The result is that even a small house locally tends to have as much space (at the very least) as a modern 4-5 bedroom detached house in England.

Accentuating this trend is a French insistence on selling houses according to the amount of living space it has. The square metres of living space is multiplied by a magic number, according to the area, and thereby the state agent comes up with a valuation of the house. This value may be modified by the internal condition of the house, the modernity of the facilities, but factors such as open beams, beautiful views, facing south or north, etc, seem to have no impact whatever on the valuation. The perception is quite different to that I have been used to in the UK. My own house would suffer, if it were to be sold, quite considerably in the matter of square metres, although it is more than sufficient for my needs, and all the things I love about it would not be taken into account. The result is that my house would attract a much higher price from an English buyer than a French one. The effect is also that an English buyer can still find a bargain in France, even despite the currently awful exchange rate, if buying by typically English rather than French criteria.

Hon(ni) Soit Qui Mal Y Pense
At the recent village vide grenier, equivalent to a car boot sale in England, I bought a book with the above title which is a history of the influence of French on the English language and vice-versa. It turns out to be a very interesting book. I had always assumed that the French influence on English dated from the arrival of William the Conqueror (1066 and all that). Not so, it seems. For around three centuries there were effectively two separate societies in England (not surprising in feudal times) and one – the nobles – spoke French and the other – the peasants – spoke English; and the two didn't communicate much and so didn't need a common language. Moreover, the French, in the form of William and the Conqueror and his acolytes, didn't speak French; they spoke Normand. It wasn't until Chaucer came along and decided to write in English that the English language became, as it were, legitimate in its own right. Then Chaucer found that the then current version of English was inadequate for any vocabulary that wasn't in the peasant idiom and so borrowed lots of words from the nearest alternative, which was Normand becoming French. You can tell some of the earlier versus later influences because the Normand "ca" beginning to a word tends to become "cha" as Normand developed into French. Subsequently, other writers, notably Shakespeare (who, did you know, never wrote his own name with that spelling?), added more than 100 words to the language and other writers, more concerned with legal and ecclesiastical matters, went back directly to Latin rather than to the then current French equivalents; which accounts for many English words of Latin derivation being much closer to their Latin origins than French equivalents, which had already been bastardised into French.

Isn't that interesting..........?

The brackets around Honni are because the older version lacked the extra “n” and “i”. And do you know how that phrase became the motto not only for the Order of the Garter but for England? I didn't. Apparently, Edward/Henry the 2/3, (I've lent the book to Daniel and Patrique is also waiting to borrow it, so can't check) had a mistress who dropped a garter when dancing at some palace function and the king promptly picked it up and uttered those now famous words. I find it very amusing that our national motto should derive from an incident with a king's mistress. Good for us!

September Summary

This And That
September has been a glorious month: temperatures down to a respectable low to mid 20s, lots of sunshine and warmth that has continued until late in the evening. The mornings have been noticeably cooler as the sun struggles to get above Mt Bluye, in front of my house, until around 9.30. Usually, the evenings cool rapidly at this time of the year but this has not happened yet and I can leave my balcony door open or even sit on the balcony until late in the evening without the need for a sweater.

Pizza man Roberto took a week off last week but Dominique and Chantal, two of the usual crowd, stepped bravely into the breach and offered everyone a spaghetti bolognaise at their home. It was a generous gesture and appreciated by all the usual attendees. Their house is magnificent with a steeply stepped garden on one side and a lawn and swimming pool on the other. Sometimes I wish I had a place like that and then I think how much work it is to maintain such a place and what all the running costs are, let alone the purchase price: what would you pay in England for a 4-bedroom house with large living rooms, an acre of garden and a swimming pool in an area with a good climate? Still, it's great to visit.

My “bulbing” in the front of my house is now complete, with bulbs in the pots that have had plants that have finished in them as well as groups of bulbs in new holes in the road outside the front and under the honeysuckle to the side. I'm also getting seriously to grips with the back garden, which has unfortunately but necessarily meant ripping up the Valerianne that is still blooming but was covering up patches of ground that I needed to see to. I think I'm now getting a feel for how the garden should look next year.

Friend Steve came over to help me fit some lights that I'd brought back from England (sale bargains) that needed 3-4 hands rather than the two I'm limited to. So the terrace room and terrace itself are now properly lit. Daniel has been back in La Réunion for just over a fortnight so I've been feeding his dog, Crevette, in the evenings; Jean-Marie does the honours in the morning. Daniel is often my boules partner and my form over the last week or so has been terrible; so I'm blaming that on him!