Memory meals and communication

I have known my French Toulouse hostess for 29 years. We met through her then husband. My two housemates and I were in Paris where the couple lived at the time. One housemate was giving a paper at the Palais De Congress. People had told us the French never invite you into their home. We were invited to their home for dinner. We arrived nervous and afraid of making one or many faux pas. We spoke no French. She spoke no English. The husband was fluent in both.

The first thing she served was moules. I am allergic to shelfish, and the husband understood. The second course was rabbit. I exchanged glances with my friends and opted for politeness over reservations about consuming Peter or maybe Flopsy, Mopsy or Cottontail. It was fantastic.

Over the years and many visits, I’ve eaten her couscous, carrots with a seasoning that made me want to lick the pate, chicken with olives and bacon, and one meal she whipped up from an empty fridge when we arrived shortly before midnight. It was eggs, spinach in a cream sauce that was so good I could have cried when I finished it. Picnics would have put articles about picnics in Gourmet to shame.

For many visits our communications were limited by lack of a shared language, although I had a great deal of respect for her creativity, her mothering, her work with the deaf, and Lord knows, her cooking. We tried and it worked, but it never reached the level I had hoped for.

Now many years later when my French comprehension is fluent, my speech is understandable despite grammatical errors and strange pronunciations, and she has begun to learn to English we can go deep into subjects. Combined with many memories and not just of food, time with her is delight.