Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

We were fully prepared for it to feel warm and indeed hot down here in the Summer.

Seems like we spoke too soon about our success in getting James into the nursery school.

“We thought that English people couldn’t cook French food but this is fantastic”.That’s typical of the comments we received when we hosted a reveillon break for a French family. The interesting aspect of that is that the comment was first made as the family were eating a roast turkey dinner which we considered typically English! In fact, although they had chosen all the dishes that we served over the three days all but one were what you would think was an English dish rather than a French one. Even the “French” one (duck, of course) isn’t something that’s completely unknown in the UK. Whilst the French are known for undercooking food, we found that this group not only didn’t complain that we had “overcooked” (ie cooked to UK standards) but complimented us on how well the food was done. As in other things, it may be that the French don’t actually like the food as cooked but just take it because that’s how it’s given to them.The undercooking is pretty much across the board and food hygiene laws in the UK would result in a number of the caffeteria type restaurants being closed if those laws were applied in France. We all know about the virtual impossibility of getting a steak “well done” in France (which seems to mean “not quite raw” to them) but consider how dangerous it is to undercook the likes of poultry.

Visiting the local cash and carry is an eye-opener in terms of French cuisine. Almost all of the local restaurants only serve food that’s available in a pre-prepared form in the local cash and carry. Consequently, the “French food” that the English can’t prepare is 90% reheated meals from the cash and carry and, of course, the menus are just about identical. In fact, there seem to be only three exceptions to this approach to French restaurant “cooking” locally: one haute cuisine French restaurant (with, of course, prices to match) and two owned by foreigners.

The snag is that this approach to food preparation changes the expectations of people. We had one very bad review because it took 30 minutes to get the meal on the table when they were used to having the meals on the table within 5 to 10 minutes. Of course, that 5 to 10 minutes is taken up with lifting the meal out of the freezer, heating it up in the microwave and emptying the contents onto a plate whereas our 30 minutes is made up of preparing the food and cooking it. Related to this, it can be quite rare for a French person to know how to read a menu because they’re used to reading the standard dishes listed on the “cash & carry” menus used by the bulk of restaurants here.

This “cash & carry” approach to menus combined with the attitude that nobody but the French can reheat meals means that the French, on the whole, are very unadventurous with what they will eat. If it’s spicy, it’s always refused so it was no great surprise that the “Nigel & Nippy” Indian restaurant folded as the locals won’t even try meals that look like they might be spicy. Net effect of this is that Indian restaurants have to tone down their offerings considerably and offer a very bland selection compared to what you’d get in the UK. Not only that, but they need to adjust their spices to those that the French know about so seem to stick to the curry powder from the cash & carry. What are the “French” dishes though? Well, for the most part they are the same as you find in the freezer sections of supermarkets in the UK. There are other things, of course, such as the local cuisine in the various regions which, in our area, is cassollet which is effectively tinned stew although since it’s considered a regional dish the price is correspondingly inflated.

So, basically, French food is the same as reheated and undercooked English food, less any spices.

For a while now the action in the mutual society takeover stakes has begun to have the feeling that was around in the early 90s.

As in most things, the French assume that hotel reservations work the way that they worked in France 50 years ago.

Of course, they rarely use the internet to make their reservations (although, to be fair, that is changing) and generally phone. In fact, it’s not unknown to receive a letter asking for a reservation and expecting a reply by letter too. Out of the peak seasons, that’s not too bad but we just ignore any letters received like that during the peak season as we just can’t afford to hold a room on the off-chance that they may actually confirm the reservation a week or two later.

The use of debit/credit card numbers as a guarantee is virtually unknown to them and they almost always ask to pay a deposit by cheque. Their lack of experience of using their card to guarantee a room means that it’s quite common for them to think that they’ve paid for the room when they make a reservation online and have quoted their card number which often requires considerable explanation at checkout time.

One major cause of friction is that they assume that it’s fine to cancel a reservation at anytime without charge. Everywhere else in the world, you need to cancel a hotel reservation before the arrival time you quoted and often 24 hours or more before that. Here, they assume that if they’ve not stayed in the room, then it’s OK. After all, the room isn’t costing the hotel anything, is it? It might not be costing anything, but when we get cancellations well into the evening, we’ve often turned people away because with a card number guaranteeing the room we are obliged to hold the room. This year for instance we had two days when we were completely full and turning away numerous people yet had hardly anyone who actually stayed!

Abroad, it’s even worse for them though. By and large, the French only have debit cards and severely limited ones at that. Whereas in the UK the cash withdrawal limit on a debit or cash card is around £250 (EUR 500) per DAY, in France the standard limit is EUR 300 per WEEK. Not only that but whilst you could, in principle, buy a house on a debit card in the UK, there is a spending limit of, usually, EUR 3000 per month on French debit cards (which is why they continue to use so many cheques). For most purposes, that’s OK. However, consider someone booking into a hotel in the UK. The first think that is done is that the card is run through for an authorisation of, usually, £100 per day (ie about EUR 150), even if the hotel actually only costs about £50 a night. So, a French person can stay a maximum of 20 days in UK hotels and, of course, that’s before you consider spending elsewhere.

This is why France is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t pre-authorise payments.

So, no, the French don’t understand hotel reservations work unless they’re in France with a hotel that only operates in France.