Fast Food - Slow Building

Yup – we’ve got McDonalds here. I think I’ve even seen a few Subways. Don’t think we’ve got any Prèt a Manger though – something with an obviously false French name would never make it. McDonalds even serves beer and so becomes a bit more adult friendly. It’s main attraction though is as a place where kids are handed over from one parent to another after divorce. Quite sad really that probably more than  half the kids there on Friday nights and Sunday evenings are from ‘broken’ homes but hey, they’ve got to meet somewhere neutral.

But back to the point. Wander through the streets of Nice and it is quite different to say London where in one street you’ll have several sandwich shops and a few fast-food chains. The French, you see, don’t really like sandwiches for lunch. Despite the almost religious zeal with which the French buy their baguettes, sometimes visiting the boulangerie three times a day, they much prefer a sit down lunch. That’s why a 2 hour lunch break is still quite common over here. At lunch time in the Midi and the Sport (local bars/restaurants) you’ll see many working men, some in overalls and others in suits, just sitting on their own having lunch. It’s a national way of life. The two hour thing even in southern France isn’t to have a siesta and get away from the midday heat. Oh no – it’s so they can stuff themselves in the middle of the day.  

When our builders started constructing our new house, the first thing they did was to make a shelter. Quite a substantial place it was too, to the point where J actually thought it was the start of our new abode! A corrugated tiled roof, room enough for the three or four guys who were doing the building, a few benches and electricity cables run in so they could listen to their radio………over their two hour lunches. Antonio, the main man would go home every day for lunch. A drive of some 20 minutes each way. Not a long drive in UK terms but it would be maybe 10 miles. It would have been much more efficient in every way you could think for Antonio to stay around the place and have a sandwich but off he went every single day, back home to his missus where, no doubt a three-course lunch awaited him.

The other thing the builders did was to make a ring of large stones which I thought was some sort of religious ceremony until I saw the grill being placed on top. This was to be their barbeque. And then, on the first day on site, Phillipe, the youngest of the three guys was spotted up in the terraces, rummaging around the undergrowth. He came back down with a handful of green stuff and then started cutting branches off one of our hedges. It turned out that he was up in the terraces looking for wild thyme and wanted the branches off our hedge because it was rosemary. Further inspection a few minutes later, after the bbq had been fired up, literally, saw some prime cut lamb chops being carefully tended and smothered in herbs. The smell was delicious, particularly as J served me up a cheese sandwich that day – I remember it well!

And so for the next four years, the bbq would be lit, the meat would be brought out and carefully cooked and the salad would be prepared with oils and a variety of nuts and other accompaniments and they’d sit down and just eat their lunch. Never talking, just eating and listening to the radio. Occasionally I would take them over a beer or a bottle of wine and salivate at what was cooking. Shadow also made a bee-line for the builder’s hut on a daily basis, just about 11.56 as he knew that in about 30 minutes time there would be some tasty tit-bits from his friends, the builders.

My abiding thought though, and one which shows my complete disregard for French culture, was that if these guys had had a Subway or a McDonalds close by, then my house would have been finished about 9 months quicker. C’est la vie….as I keep saying.