aw, gouter. I stayed at my grandmother's house in Limousin a lot during my childhood and gouter was always a bit of baguette with a square of dark chocolate and then whipped cream. Or clafouti with lots of sugar, or homemade cassis and groseille sorbet, or sometimes there'd be a box from the bakery with religieuses, figues, alcohol soaked pêches patissières in little plastic tubs, paris brests....
When I went to my great-grandmother's near Argenton, she always got her cook to make me a galette for gouter and breakfast, really greasy and perfectly golden.
And a canard (sugar cube in coffee) when the adults were having coffee after lunch.
And we were always allowed to dip our fingers into the adults' wine and champagne glasses during apéro starting from toddlerhood, several times (and since I was a bit of a chouchou of my grandmother, I could keep on doing it the whole time and she'd just chuckle fondly).....while my grandfather fretted when my cousin asked for rhum raisin ice cream once
ahem. anyway. Those are not usable quotes are they
school....I have contact with French kids & still can't get the hang of all the CM1, CM2, maternelle, terminale stuff. Less complicated than Germany tho!
Erm. When I give them gouter it's usually a Yop, a compote in a little pouch (like you give to babies), 'gateaux' which is biscuits and a petit filou, fromage blanc. And French kids are wonderfully adventurous with all types of cheese but don't be fooled into thinking they love all veg and are little angels with food, and yes they do throw it, course they do :)
However the school menus are works of art. For e.g. my charge will eat 'quinoa rouge, saint-nectaire, pont l'évèque, filet de saumon sauce oseille, escalope de volaille avec sauce champignons, betteraves, choux rouge vinaigrette, beignets de salsifis, sauté de porc caramel...' next week, and she's 2 and this is a state maternelle. (I took a menu home with me last week cos I was so impressed - far cry from my turkey twizzler and arctic roll primary school days)
And well, Picard is god in supermarket form, it sustains me. It's like upmarket Farmfoods and all of the stuff is own brand, like M&S. Except that they don't know how to handle aubergines in France it seems.
Oh and the French are mad for M&S, there's a few shops here in Paris. I pop in every week to get red leicester and proper bread and it's just packed with people buying crumpets and English desserts. It's the same price as other supermarkets here as well even though all imported.
It's not done for a French person to go to Ladurée but buying macarons from M&S is chic apparently.
I'm supposed to be finishing an essay about 'le pacifisme occidental de l'entre-deux-guerres' right now, and the only proverb that's coming to mind in view of Frenchness is 'si vis pacem, para bellum' which isn't even French.