To find people watching in Paris fascinating?

[delighteddreams]

It's my first time visiting France, and I found people watching completely fascinating in and around Paris. Everyone seemed to live life at a much slower pace, sitting at cafes with an espresso for ages either with friends or alone, just people watching. No rushed Starbucks coffee drunk on the go, or sitting at a cafe on their phones absent mindedly.

At my hotel there was a breakfast buffet and there were marked differences between the French families and the British families (including me/my family). The British ate pretty quickly, with an impatience and excitement to get on with their day of tourist activities, the French families were much slower. They got several plates of different foods and presented it all on the table, and would eat so slowly and methodically.

I spent a day at Disneyland, and again for me meals were a quick ends to a means, quickly fill up on something so we can get back to the rides, parades, etc. I watched a couple of young women in their 20s sitting at a table, in a busy restaurant among the frantic hustle and bustle of a restaurant, they were just sitting quietly, drinking their coffee and chatting. It was like time had paused for them.

Obviously this is a huge generalisation, but I came away feeling inspired and like it was something I wanted to adopt. It feels like I'm always rushing to the next thing, never just sitting and being.

Has anyone had any interesting observations of France and French culture?

He probably paid using a ticket resto.

Employers which aren't large enough to have their own staff canteen - as is common in Paris where real estate is at a premium - give their employees part of their salary in the form of restaurant vouchers. For each voucher, something like 4 euros is deducted from the employee's salary and they get a voucher worth 8 euros. It is done to preserve French food culture and boost restaurants by enabling ordinary workers to go to restaurants for lunch most days, rather than descending into Anglo-Saxon "malbouffe" anarchy with people eating sad sandwiches at their desks.

The English / British relationship with eating and meals is horrendous imo. Nothing new there.

This thread is really making me want a cigarette (it’s been 13 years!). Funnily enough I had planned to stop smoking at 25 but had a trip to Paris booked, so I waited until I got home. My dh still makes fun of me for wanting to smoke in Paris.

I really struggle with the way people do buffets as decscribed by the op ie getting plates of food to share rather than everyone going up individually and getting what they want. Reason being is the waste, so the woman will come back with six bread items, man will come back with ten pieces of fruit but, unlike at home, what is left cannot be put back in your cupboard/fridge, it just gets binned. The buffet is the buffet you don’t need to set up another one at your table!
In terms of a proper picnic, it’s not just the french who do them, beauty spot in lockdown we were in awe of a couple who had a table, table cloth etc for their picnic whilst everyone else sat on the grass. I kept walking past to see what other stuff they had in their picnic basket!

It's 11:58 and my colleagues have been discussing lunch for over 10 minutes now.

from Modern Family recently.

There are so many generalisations on this thread. I agree about the French and food but many of us do appreciate and emulate European ways over US ones (being European).

Yes to all of this

DH is French, we used to live in France (not Paris) and travelled all over

Central Paris is a very very rarefied version of France. One that many French people hate btw.

Yes meals and food are taken more seriously in general, but plenty of French people live on junk food and ready meals and takeaways (google French taco!), not everyone is sitting down for a three course dinner every day. Especially the younger generations.

I find threads like this hilarious! I used to live and work in Paris and yes, while there are obvious cultural differences, we weren’t all glamorously smoking cigarettes over long, lazy lunches while dressed in chic black with our pet chihuahuas 😂.
Many people who live and work in Paris have busy stressful jobs and long commutes, like London. Some Parisians dress well, some badly. I and my colleagues had as many rushed baguettes at our desks while trying to meet a deadline as we had long lunches in a cafe.

I used to live in Paris too, am also married to a French man, and meals with his family are very similar to those you describe, @babyjellyfish .

Mmm, I think there’s a few generalisation on this thread.
Yes I think the French and other continental Europeans do tend to take their time over eating, and really enjoy the whole process of sitting down to eat.
That’s a good thing IMO.
The culture here of a rushed sandwich at your desk is not good.

The last time I was in Paris about four years ago, it was full of all kinds of people. They were not all sylph like and stylish, and the Mc Donald’s was heaving😀
I think that the UK, and probably London has some of the best food in the world! The sheer variety of it is amazing. I love Asian food, Mexican good, vegan food. Find France doesn’t tend to embrace non French food, and it’s considered more niche, then here, where Indian Thai and Mexican have become part of mainstream cuisine.
This thread has made me want to book a trip to Paris though😮

I wouldn’t say this is a generalisation. My Dad is French and meal times are very important to French people. They don’t really eat on the go and they don’t tend to snack either. My Dad infuriated me as a child because I was desperate to go play or go do whatever activity we had planned but we always had to have a full blown 3 course meal first and even then he’d sit waiting for the food to settle with a glass of wine or coffee. Honestly, it happened every meal time.

Much lower obesity rate so they’re doing something right!

I personally think French people have got quality of life sussed.

My favourite memory of France is cycling through a particularly backwater place in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Bourges and Nevers. I stopped at a seemingly deserted bar tabac for a drink and sitting at the sole scruffy table and chairs were a young couple so beautifully dressed in a casual yet fitting way that they looked as if they had walked out of a magazine.

I'm not convinced that French women who are very slim eat much though. On a recent visit, a French friend tried to convince me that this was indeed the case and further, that French women were slim solely because they didn't drink much beer. She said this with an entirely straight face as she sat down to her evening meal consisting of lettuce, avocado, anchovies and not much else!

Meh I think it's more of a place/time than a culture thing. Go out to any city in the uk on a sunny weekend and you'll see people sitting and relaxing for hours outside pubs, in gardens, on balconies, outside in restaurants, chatting with friends over a coffee or cocktail.

I love sitting and having a coffee/drink and long chat with friends but disneyland would be the last place I'd do it! Surely the whole point given the insane cost of tickets is to try to go on as many rides as possible and make the most out of the day rather than chatting for hours in an overpriced, not particularly wonderful theme park restaurant!

Similarly I'm not a big breakfast fan so it would make sense to just go down, eat, and get ready to do something actually interesting. Then at the end of the day a long leisurely dinner, wine or a cocktail in the evening on a balcony or restaurant would be ideal.

@Hellsbe, the 'ethnic' food offerings of Paris tend to reflect France's colonial history, just as Britain's colonial history is seen in the types of 'ethnic' food you find in Britain. I've eaten lots of North African and Vietnamese food in Paris. I wouldn't expect to find much Indian food there.

I'm not convinced that French women who are very slim eat much though. On a recent visit, a French friend tried to convince me that this was indeed the case and further, that French women were slim solely because they didn't drink much beer. She said this with an entirely straight face as she sat down to her evening meal consisting of lettuce, avocado, anchovies and not much else!

When I was living there (Paris) there was a silent epidemic of eating disorders amongst 35+ upper middle class women (the sort who tend to live in central Paris!).

My MIL is constantly watching what she eats and 6 weeks after SIL (her DD) gave birth, she mentioned in passing to me that she needed to lose some weight. She was thinner than me, so that was awkward!

Levels of obesity are in the rise there, but rising much faster in the UK. If you look at magazines and ads targeting women there's a lot of perky bums on display advertising anti-cellulite creams and everything else! Someone above mentioned the internalised misogyny of French women and I think that's true to a large extent. Attached to that is a subtle form of body shaming regarding how you're supposed to be looking if you're a woman - certainly an urban one! So being thin is more important to women there than in the UK.

And plenty of Parisian women go out to dinner which consists of a glass of champagne with a tray of oysters, washed down with a coffee and cigarette.

However, when I'm there I bring my belly and enjoy all the patisserie. I mean, someone's got to eat it! 😅

Agree with this. The French are very bad at non-French food. They tend to completely massacre it.

London has way more variety.

Evening meals are often light though. What does your friend eat for lunch?

I would guess that very thin women eat as little in France as they do anywhere else.

But in my office, just outside of Paris, people are having very big lunches every day. People who are conscious of their weight tend to make healthy choices, but they're still having starter, main, dessert. Overweight people are very rare.

I think the main difference is no habitual snacking between meals although when I bring in cookies or brownies they don't say no and less alcohol. They drink wine regularly, but thimble-sized glasses. 250ml is a glass of wine in the UK and a carafe of wine in France.