She lives with an older French couple, and this was the first time I asked a French person what their typical food was. After quietly staring at each other with a confused look on their face, they told me they eat a lot of pizza. That being the first answer made me laugh a little bit internally. Their answer also confirmed what I had discovered a week before, that enjoying French food is not all about what one eats specifically, but how one does it. Indeed, that evening we had an upscale dining experience with pizza and drinks!
On that trip to Lille, I made an uncharacteristic decision to copy what people on the streets were eating: a whole bowl of mussels. My cousin told me people manage to eat all the mussels, and I thought I would too. The taste of it was great; thankfully, my palate is used to that type of flavor. It is something that might not be too tasty at the beginning, but it is the kind of food you learn to eat and enjoy. However, the amount they served was criminal; I could only finish half of it. This again confirms what I’ve discovered: one may not normally sit down and eat a whole bowl of mussels, but once you see people in almost every restaurant doing it while talking, drinking, and having a good time, it makes you decide to eat it as well, and enjoy it as they do. Food is not the experience itself, but it is an intentional passage of time for Parisians.
