How can I be more "French"?

[hangingoutattheendofmywick]

So this morning I did an Ocado shop and stumbled across the world foods department. There is a French section and I was immediately transported to my holidays when I was young at Keycamp in France. I basically ordered a shed load of French delights and as I'm currently really down in the dumps and life is a bit shite I've decided to BE more French.

Other than learning the language again (I've lost it since GCSE) and eating / drinking all my French delights I'm wondering what I can do to make my life a bit more French. Any ideas?

I'm looking for :
Music
Literature
Recipes
Drinks
General ways of living.

Ta!

Same thing with skcial events. My English sister-in-law living in France was really astonished when she found out kids French larents were taking their kids with them wherever they were invited. Well, not absolutely everywhere but usually families tend to invite other families and not only the couple.

They take ALL their pets camping, too - not just dogs, but budgies, hamsters. etc.

Claim not to exercise but have abs of steel and look amazing in a bikini.

Go to the doctors a lot and be outraged if you aren't given any medicine. Then head to the nearest beautiful pharmacy and throw yourself on the mercy of the pharmacist who will be delighted to sell you many medications.

Happily leave your 7 month old asleep in his cot and alone in the house while you do the school run.

Happily munch on apéricubes whilst lamenting the terrible food in England based on one two week exchange in Derby in 1984.

Force feed your children their pain au chocolat goûter as if it were the healthiest snack in the world. Never accept that a child knows if he is full.

Remain in a pokey apartment and take your children au square after school rather than consider moving to somewhere more spacious and green.

Prefer your home at 37 degrees C to opening a window and risking une angine or worse une rhino-pharingyte.

Never tip waiters but tip firemen at Christmas generously.

Drink Champagne, crémant, mousseux frequently, with and without cassis, en apéro and en dessert but feign bafflement when offered a glass of Cava.

Set off on holiday in your battered Renault Espace on the same day as 30 million other French families. The idea of delaying by a day or setting off a day earlier is unfathomable and possibly offensive.

Refuse to believe there is no carte d'identité in the UK and ask multiple questions about how the police confirm who you are when they fancy doing 'une contrôle'. Lose the plot totally when you discover the police in the UK in theory cannot do random stop and searches.

Is it only me that is sniggering at some of the denials on here? French people saying 'no that does not happen in France', when it has been witnessed?

It's very French

Is that Ali or is it that English people look at French through their own glasses a and therefore miss some important clues?

Eg French women might stop bfing at 3 months because of their DH. But they also have a 3 month maternity leave, will leave the baby with a CM/nursery who won't be as accommodating as they are here and will Expect the baby to take a bottle wo a fuss etc etc all of which can ALSO explain why French women stop bfing as early.

I personally think that a lot of the comments are sort of true. Some are lol. Some are actually not quite the truth.
Eg about the comment on French parents caring more about their partner rather than children. If you were saying that to my very French parents they would be horrified. It's just that emphasis on what is important as well as how to get on about it is different.
I could say for example that British people are very cold towards their dcs as they hardly hug them, display of affection isn't acceptable in public. I'm sure you won't agree with me. But that's how it looked from the outside with my French glasses on.

What, in the name of bof, is an apericube?

www.apericube.fr

Also available from Ocado here!

Another popular aperi-snack I've encountered en France is crisps that look like Wotsits but are peanut-flavoured. I actually love them but most Brits aren't keen.

"Go to the doctors a lot and be outraged if you aren't given any medicine. Then head to the nearest beautiful pharmacy and throw yourself on the mercy of the pharmacist who will be delighted to sell you many medications."

I'd like to know where this actually happens outside of your head because in my experience, no pharmacy in France will sell you anything more potent than the lowest dose paracetamol and ibuprofen without a prescription.

She probably means lotions and potions rather than prescription-only meds.

I was told I must look like 'one of those begging women with children on the metro' when I informed my employer I was still breastfeeding at 18 months.
Although elsewhere I was met with nonchalance.
Also informed that women should only put on 8-10kg max during pregnancy. Possibly right but still it wasn't something that worried me.

So apericubes are Laughing Cow-equivalent soft cheese triangles. Bon gout?

No, not potions and lotions. The whole quote is: "Go to the doctors a lot and be outraged if you aren't given any medicine. Then head to the nearest beautiful pharmacy and throw yourself on the mercy of the pharmacist who will be delighted to sell you many medications."

Music: Camille

Food: boeuf bourguignon

Film: une hirondelle a fait le printemps.

Capture and eat songbirds.
Hate the English (even though they helped save your asses in the war)
If you have a problem, become adept at passing it on to somebody/somewhere else.

Mais oui, Cote, you can even do that here! Our pharmacists are slightly less likely to lavish you with expensive empathy, then sell you herbs and water pills at extortionate prices. Also less likely to stock paracetamol suppositories

Fire your teenage aide-famille because your husband sat in the kitchen with her one evening, explaining French politics. Although you were in the next room the whole time, this evidently meant they were having an affair. Goodness, am I still not quite over that yet?!

Paracetamol suppositories are expensive.

Homeopathy nonsense isn't 'medicine', though, and the only reason why you can get it freely at any French pharmacy is that it's nothing but sugar pills.

Give your children much, much more independence. Continuously berate your ridiculous daughter-in-law because she will not let the 3 yr petit-fils play out unsupervised in the village, and insists on knowing where her 8 yr old son actually is since she left him in your bloody care, and is less than content with the aforementioned Gallic shrug as a response to her heated questions.

Maybe this is just Southern France, but insist on wrapping babies in shawls and hats and lots of clothing, even though it is 25C because they will catch a cold

As mentioned, eat and drink anything you want, but ruthlessly monitor portion control.

If you are a women (in the South of France, especially), never ever get drunk, ever. Faux pas doesn't even begin to cover it.

Believe that family is more important than anything in the world.

Cultivate grumpiness, but underneath that exterior, be quite the softy.

Shout, exclaim, wave your hands about and seem as though you are engaging in heated discourse, but actually be asking if someone could pass the salt.

I may or may not be drawing on years of dealing with DP's French family.

Just to qualify the rubbish thing, our bins are emptied everyday and our street is hosed down every morning and the cleaning operation after the market has to be seen to be believed but this municipal efficiency seems to make people more inclined chuck stuff on the pavement in the first place. Drives me mad - and don't get me started on the graffiti.

Also re the popularity of grated carrot, it is important that you don't grate it yourself but buy it ready-grated at a hugely inflated price from a traiteur.

crisps that look like Wotsits but are peanut-flavoured

Croustilles?