VIVE L’AMRIQUE:
THE BEGINNING … I AM OVERWEIGHT
I love my adopted homeland. But first, as an exchange student in
Massachusetts, I learned to love chocolate-chip cookies and
brownies. And I gained twenty pounds.
My love affair with America had begun with my love of the English
language; we met at the lyce (junior high and high school) when I
turned eleven. English was my favorite class after French
literature, and I simply adored my English teacher. He had never
been abroad but spoke English without a French accent or even a
British one. He had learned it during World War II, when he found
himself in a POW camp with a high school teacher from Weston,
Massachusetts (I suspect they had long hours to practice). Without
knowing whether they’d make it out alive, they decided that if they
did, they would start an exchange program for high school seniors.
Each year, one student from the United States would come to our town
and one of us would go to Weston. The exchange continues to this
day, and the competition is keen.
During my last year at the lyce, I had good enough grades to apply,
but I wasn’t interested. With dreams of becoming an English teacher
or professor, I was eager to start undergraduate studies at the
local university. And at eighteen, naturally I had also convinced
myself I was madly in love with a boy in my town. He was the
handsomest though admittedly not the brightest boy around, the
coqueluche (the darling) of all the girls. I couldn’t dream of
parting from him, so I didn’t even think of applying for Weston. But
in the schoolyard, between classes, there was hardly another topic
of conversation. Among my friends, the odds-on favorite to go was
Monique; she wanted it so badly, and besides, she was the best in
our class, a fact not lost on the selection committee, which was
chaired by my English teacher and included among its distinguished
ranks PTA members, other teachers, the mayor, and the local Catholic
priest, balanced by the Protestant minister. But on the Monday
morning when the announcement was expected, the only thing announced
was that no decision had been made.
At home that Thursday morning (those days, there was no school on
Thursdays but half days on Saturday), my English teacher appeared at
the door. He had come to see my mother, which seemed rather strange,
considering my good grades. As soon as he left, with a big,
satisfied smile but not a word to me except hello, my mother called
me. Something was trs important.
The selection committee had not found a suitable candidate. When I
asked about Monique, my mother tried to explain something not easily
fathomed at my age: My friend had everything going for her, but her
parents were Communists, and that would not fly in America. The
committee had debated at great length (it was a small town, where
everybody was fully informed about everybody else), but they could
not escape concluding that a daughter of Communists could never
represent France!
My teacher had proposed me as an alternative, and the other members
had agreed. But since I had not even applied, he had to come and
persuade my parents to let me go. My overadoring father, who would
never have condoned my running away for a year, was not home.
Perhaps my teacher was counting on this fact; but in any event, he
managed to sell the idea to my mother. The real work then fell to
her, because she had to persuade not only my father, but me as well.
Not that she was without her own misgivings about seeing me go, but
Mamie was always wise and farsighted; and she usually got her way. I
was terribly anxious about what Monique would say, but once word got
out, she was first to declare what a fine ambassador I would make.
Apparently, Communist families were quite open and practical about
such matters, and she had already been given to understand that
family ideology had made her a dark horse from the start.
And so I went. It was a wonderful year-one of the best of my
adolescence-and it certainly changed the course of my entire life.
To a young French girl, Weston, a wealthy Boston suburb, seemed an
American dream-green, manicured, spread out, with huge gorgeous
homes and well-to-do, well-schooled families. There was tennis,
horseback riding, swimming pools, golf, and two or three cars per
family-a far, far cry from any town in eastern France, then or now.
The time was so full of new, unimagined things, but finally too
rich, and I don’t mean demographically. For all the priceless new
friends and experiences I was embracing, something else altogether,
something sinister, was slowly taking shape. Almost before I could
notice, it had turned into fifteen pounds, more or less … and
quite probably more. It was August, my last month before the return
voyage to France. I was in Nantucket with one of my adoptive
families when I suffered the first blow: I caught a reflection of
myself in a bathing suit. My American mother, who had perhaps been
through something like this before with another daughter,
instinctively registered my distress. A good seamstress, she bought
a bolt of the most lovely linen and made me a summer shift. It
seemed to solve the problem but really only bought me a little time.
In my final American weeks, I had become very sad at the thought of
leaving all my new pals and relations, but I was also quite
apprehensive of what my French friends and family would say at the
sight of the new me. I had never mentioned the weight gain in
letters and somehow managed to send photos showing me only from the
waist up.
The moment of truth was approaching.
Chapter Two
LA FILLE PRODIGUE:
RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER
My father brought my brother with him to Le Havre to collect me. I
was traveling on the SS Rotterdam. The ocean liner was still the
transatlantic standard preferred by many French people in the late
1960s. With me was the new American exchange student from Weston,
who would be spending the year in our town.
Since he had not seen me for a whole year, I expected my father, who
always wore his heart on his face, would embarrass me, bounding up
the gangway for the first hug and kiss. But when I spied the
diminutive French man in his familiar beret-yes, a beret-he looked
stunned. As I approached, now a little hesitantly, he just stared at
me, and as we came near, after a few seconds that seemed endless,
there in front of my brother and my American shipmate, all he could
manage to say to his cherished little girl come home was, “Tu
ressembles un sac de patates” (“You look like a sack of
potatoes”). Some things don’t sound any prettier in French. I knew
what he had in mind: not a market-size sack, but one of the big,
150-pound burlap affairs that are delivered to grocery stores and
restaurants! Fortunately the girl from Weston spoke little French,
else she would have had a troubling first impression of French
family life.
At age nineteen, I could not have imagined anything more hurtful,
and to this day the sting has not been topped. But my father was not
being mean. True, tact was never his strength; and the teenage
girl’s hypersensitivity about weight and looks wasn’t yet the
proverbial pothole every parent today knows to steer around. The
devastating welcome sprang more than anything from his having been
caught off guard. Still, it was more than I could take. I was at
once sad, furious, vexed, and helpless. At the time, I could not
even measure the impact.
On our way home to eastern France, we stopped in Paris for a few
days, just to show my friend from Weston the City of Light, but my
inexorable grumpiness made everyone eager to hit the road again. I
ruined Paris for all of us. I was a mess.
The coming months were bitter and awkward. I didn’t want anyone to
see me, but everyone wanted to greet l’Amricaine. My mother
understood right away not only how and why I had gained the weight,
but also how I felt. She treaded lightly, avoiding the unavoidable
topic, perhaps particularly because I had soon given her something
more dire to worry about.
Having seen a bit of the world, I had lost my taste for attending
the local university. I now wanted to study languages in a Grande
cole (like an Ivy League school) in Paris and, on top of that, to
take a literary track at the Sorbonne at the same time. It was
unusual and really an insane workload. My parents were not at all
keen on the idea of Paris: if I got in (hardly a given, as the
competition is legendary), it was going to be a big emotional and
financial sacrifice to have me three and a half hours from home. So
I had to campaign hard, but thanks in part to the obvious
persistence of my raw nerves, in the end they let me go back to
Paris for the famously grueling entrance exam. I passed, and in late
September I moved to Paris. My parents always wanted the best for
me.
By All Saints’ Day (November 1), I had gained another five pounds,
and by Christmas, five more still. At five feet three, I was now
overweight by any standard, and nothing I owned fit, not even my
American mother’s summer shift. I had two flannel ones-same design,
but roomier-made to cover up my lumpiness. I told the dressmaker to
hurry and hated myself every minute of the day. More and more, my
father’s faux pas at Le Havre seemed justified. Those were blurry
days of crying myself to sleep and zipping past all mirrors. It may
not seem so strange an experience for a nineteen-year-old, but none
of my French girlfriends was going through it.
Then something of a Yuletide miracle occurred. Or perhaps I should
say, Dr. Miracle, who showed up thanks to my mamie. Over the long
holiday break, she asked the family physician, Dr. Meyer, to pay a
call. She did this most discreetly, careful not to bruise me
further. Dr. Meyer had watched me grow up, and he was the kindest
gentleman on earth. He assured me that getting back in shape would
be really easy and just a matter of a few “old French tricks.” By
Easter, he promised, I’d be almost back to my old self, and
certainly by the end of the school year in June I’d be ready to wear
my old bathing suit, the one I’d packed for America. As in a fairy
tale, it was going to be our secret. (No use boring anyone else with
the particulars of our plan, he said.) And the weight would go away
much faster than it came. Sounded great to me. Of course, I wanted
to put my faith in Dr. Meyer, and fortunately, there didn’t seem to
be many options at the time.
DR. MIRACLE’S WEEKEND PRESCRIPTION
For the next three weeks, I was to keep a diary of everything I ate.
This is a strategy that will sound familiar from some American diet
programs, such as Weight Watchers. I was to record not only what and
how much, but also when and where. There was no calorie counting,
not that I could have done that. The stated purpose was simply for
him to gauge the nutritional value of what I was eating (it was the
first time I ever heard the word). Since nothing more was asked of
me, I was only too happy to comply. This is the first thing you
should do, too.
Dr. Meyer demanded no great precision in measurement. Just estimate,
he said, stipulating “a portion” as the only unit of quantity and
roughly equal to a medium-size apple. In America, where the greatest
enemy of balanced eating is ever bigger portions, I suggest a little
more precision. Here’s where the small kitchen scale comes in.
(Bread, which sometimes comes in huge slices here, might be more
easily weighed than compared with an apple, which seems bigger here,
too!)
Three weeks later, I was home again for the weekend. Just before
noon, Dr. Miracle, distingu, gray templed, made his second house
call. He also stayed for lunch. Afterward, reviewing my diary, he
immediately identified a pattern utterly obvious to him but hiding
somehow from me, as I blithely recorded every crumb I put in my
mouth. On the walk between school and the room I was renting in the
Seventh Arrondissement, there were no fewer than sixteen pastry
shops. Without my having much noticed, my meals were more and more
revolving around pastry. As I was living in Paris, my family could
not know this, so when I came home, my mother naturally prepared my
favorites, unaware I was eating extra desserts on the sly, even
under her roof.
My Parisian pastry gluttony was wonderfully diverse. In the morning
there was croissant or pain au chocolat or chouquette or tarte au
sucre. Lunch was preceded by a stop at Polane, the famous
breadmaker’s shop, where I could not resist the pain aux raisins or
tarte aux pommes (apple tart) or petits sabls. Next stop was at a
caf for the ubiquitous jambon-beurre (ham on a buttered baguette)
and what remained of the Polane pastry with coffee. Dinner always
included and sometimes simply was an clair, Paris Brest,
religieuse, or mille-feuille (curiously called a napoleon outside
France), always some form of creamy, buttery sweetness. Sometimes I
would even stop off for a palmier (a big puff pastry sugar-covered
cookie) for my goter (afternoon snack). As a student, I was living
off things I could eat on the go. Hardly any greens were passing my
lips, and my daily serving of fruit was coming from fruit tarts. I
was eating this strangely lopsided fare without the slightest
thought and with utter contentment-except, of course, for how I
looked.
Now this was obviously not a diet I had picked up in America, where
one could hardly say the streets are lined with irresistible
patisseries (though then, as now, there was no shortage of tempting
hot chocolate-chip cookie stands and sellers of rich ice cream, to
say nothing of a mind-boggling variety of supermarket sweets made
with things infinitely worse for you than cream and butter). But as
I was to learn, it was my adoptive American way of eating that had
gone to my head and opened me up to the dangers of this delicious
Parisian minefield. For in America, I had gotten into some habits:
eating standing up, not making my own food, living off whatever
(n’importe quoi, as the French say), as other kids were doing.
Brownies and bagels were particular hazards; we had nothing quite
like them at home, so who could tell how rich they were?
(Continues…)
Excerpted from French Women Don’t Get Fat
by Mireille Guiliano
Copyright © 2005 by Mireille Guiliano.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Knopf
Copyright © 2005
Mireille Guiliano
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-4000-4480-4
