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Country Watch: France
By Deborah Lehmann —
Here’s what students in one Paris school district ate for lunch last Tuesday: cucumbers with garlic and fine herbs; Basque chicken thigh with herbs, red and green bell peppers and olive oil; couscous; organic yogurt and an apple. For snack, they had organic bread, butter, hot chocolate and fruit.
Like the Japanese (see the last Country Watch post), the French take school lunch seriously. The mid-day meal is supposed to teach students good manners, good taste and the elements of good nutrition. Recommendations from the French government assert that eating habits are shaped from a young age and that schools should ensure children make good food choices despite media influence and personal tendencies.
In elementary schools, students are served a meal in the “restaurant scolaire,” where furniture, silverware and sound level are just as important as the food itself. High school students — who have presumably learned how to eat well from years of educational school meals — may serve themselves in larger cafeterias. All schools are supposed to give children at least 30 minutes to eat, though only about 10 percent of schools actually follow those guidelines, according to the French Food Safety Association.
The price of a meal is based on family income, and students typically pay less than half the cost of the lunch. For example, in one neighborhood district in Paris, a meal costs 6.17 euros ($8.23) to produce, and students in the highest income bracket pay only 3.80 euros ($5). The rest of the funding comes from the city.
I’m starting to see a trend here with school meals in other countries. In both France and Japan, school meals are important. Both countries spend more on school lunches than we do, and both use school meals as an educational tool to instill proper eating habits and good manners. The French government recommendations acknowledge that students only eat one meal each day at school. The purpose of that meal, then, is to “assure an elementary formation of taste” and provide nutrition education. Lunches should incorporate lessons on the vocabulary of taste, regional specialties, food preparation techniques and culinary heritage, the government suggests, adding that the midday meal “is much more than nutrients and calories.”
That is in stark contrast to America’s school lunch program, which focuses on feeding students so they’ll focus in the classroom, rather than teaching them how to eat. Perhaps part of the emphasis on education in France and Japan comes from the strong cultures and norms around eating in those countries. As Michael Pollan discusses in In Defense of Food, the United States doesn’t have that kind of food tradition. We don’t take pride in our cuisine like the French do. We don’t mind our manners like the Japanese do. Food just isn’t very high on our list of priorities.
That’s too bad, because those French meals sound pretty good. For more insight into school meals in France (and to whet your appetite), take a look at these menus from Lyon.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Wouldn’t it be great if “going to lunch” was like going to music class or going to gym? Add an educational component…awesome!!
May 30th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Having attending a private French school for a year, not every French cafeteria serves an enviable meal, although the meals I was served were much better than American cafeteria fare. The meal plan at my former school had different options. You could get 3, 4 or 5 items, depending on how much you paid. The key being that you had to select from different categories of food and one of them had to be a main dish. The sides and dessert options were healthy, like a yogurt or a piece of cheese or fruit. Well-rounded, but not perfect every day.
February 10th, 2010 at 6:53 am
[...] France, Italy, and Japan, and elsewhere around the globe, children do eat well at midday, notes Deborah [...]