Getting to the heart of the culture onion
[Music]
in the early 1990s
i remember reading in my high school
french textbook that only 50
of french people had phones my first
thought was
that can’t be true and at that time i
had no way
to find out there was no google nor
really much of an internet at that point
i just had to make do
with little bits of secondhand
information and hold on to my curiosity
for a bit fast forward to 1999 when
three things happened one
an american commercial was advertising a
new version of a popular meal in a box
this meal in a box is known for its
fluorescent orange cheese powder
and only takes 10 to 12 minutes to make
but the
ad was now promoting a microwavable four
minute version two jose bouvet
a french farmer destroyed a mcdonald’s
restaurant in the south of france
and three i was a fresh-faced university
graduate
leaving the u.s for a language assistant
job in france
i was anxious to leave the land of
fluorescent orange cheese and
four-minute meals
and impatient to get to the promised
land of long lunches
and wine and before we go
any further let’s get one thing straight
i wanted to do much more than scratch
the surface
i had a seat at the table and i was
ready
to dig in i had a million questions
how do french people maneuver to tuamo
vuvuamo and
la bis why are coffees cars in
refrigerators so
teeny tiny why is there so much dog poop
on the sidewalks
is it true that only 50 percent of
french people have phones
do they really say zu d’aler and
why don’t they pasteurize their cheese
does the rude
waiter really exist are there
universities really free
is their food really so good and
what is an aperitif so there i was
a language assistant working for the
education national
i had french colleagues in french
schools and i was going to teach
french children in one of my first
lessons
i wrote the date on the board underlined
it and told my elementary class to copy
it
in their workbooks a keen seven-year-old
girl
raised her hand and said what color
should i underline the date miss
i was a bit surprised at the question so
i said
it doesn’t matter any color you wish all
of a sudden there was a flurry of pencil
cases and markers appearing
i had inadvertently started a coloring
frenzy
and had completely lost control
what happened eventually i found out
you see there is a very specific color
coding system that french children use
to help them learn parts of speech and
grammar
they just weren’t used to having the
choice but it wasn’t
in the classroom where i had one of my
most memorable moments that started to
pull back the curtain on french culture
it was in the school cafeteria
at lunch imagine a long row of tables
with
20 30 people it was the moment of the
meal when the cheese
gets passed around you see i live in
normandy where kemonberg
is king no mercy i say to my table
neighbor as my
tastebuds remind me of my previous
tentatives
said my table neighbor with genuine
surprise
then i heard of course she doesn’t like
it
that camombe has no taste referring
to the factory produced pasteurized
version going around
if she ever tried real chemo beer from a
farm
that would be another story and here is
where the fun starts
the discussion was now table wide and i
got an earful some had heartfelt
declarations of love
for chemo some commented about how
only the good cheeses were unpasteurized
cheeses someone else mentioned where to
get the best
chemo someone else mentioned their
favorite cheese
and then pretty much everyone else
chimed in
offering suggestions advice love stories
and soliloquies about cheese
and this scenario kept repeating itself
all this
fuss about cheese and i thought
wine was the real french hero it took me
a few years lots of meals patience
and curiosity to be able to start
figuring out
what was going on
and here it is symbols heroes
rituals values and practices
this culture onion created by gert
hofstede shows how
culture is manifested for clarification
culture can be succinctly defined as
what is accepted
and familiar for a group of people to
really get to know a culture
you have to dig deeper and work your way
through the culture onion so armed with
this onion
i’m going to try and explain one aspect
of french culture
food and eating
so pull up a chair and join me at my
table
eating it’s all good right it’s
togetherness
taste time well spent a good meal
is as fulfilling to the soul and social
fabric
as it is to the stomach and in france
eating is a serious affair let’s start
by
scratching the surface symbols are the
outermost
layer they are what we see so when josie
bouvet
remember him wanted to make a statement
against
la malbouf junk food he attacked the
golden arches
words and the ways we use them are also
symbols take for example the word gomo
and gomodis if you look in a dictionary
you will see gluttony and greed
nothing less than one of the seven
deadly sins
although in france agormo is someone who
appreciates
high quality food and ago maldives
is that little bit more you are having
because it’s just
so good due to their superficial nature
symbols are where stereotypes can come
from
which on the one hand can be dangerous
and counterproductive
but on the other hand can also be a
source of wholehearted fun
and the window into the lower layers
for example if you google search french
stereotypes or
french symbols you will see lots of
images of cheese
and baguettes
the french are so serious about their
baguettes
they are trying to have it
internationally recognized as
cultural heritage for humanity next
heroes heroes are people real or
fictional that serve as models
in the u.s the cowboy symbolizes rugged
individualism and freedom of action
under the lens of our french food
illustration
well-known french heroes are celebrity
chefs
and food critics but even
more importantly are the family heroes
that perpetuate the culinary history of
the family
and the region thanks to them traditions
are kept alive
and passed along and let’s not forget
the expertise and dedication of the
neighborhood
and if a humble baker wants to become a
hero
well every four years there is a
competition
called de france
it is a prestigious title that honors
excellence and saw
fair there are quite a few categories
but the most
publicized one is cuisine gastronomy
digging deeper we get to rituals and
practices
this is the how part of the onion
this is how people make culture live and
breathe
by participating collectively in rituals
and practices these acts are
heavy with symbolism think weddings
funerals and how we express our devotion
to the divine
for example so let’s get back to eating
what is accepted and familiar in france
in its simplest everyday form practices
people eat in two or three courses
in its most elaborate version rituals
it is saved for special ritual moments
and here’s how it goes to start there is
an aperitif a drink or two
alcoholic or not and some small nibbles
to wake up the appetite
after or as an interlude to the apiero
there can be a mi zombus this is a
well-crafted more sophisticated nibble
signaling that the meal is going to
start soon
the meal now begins with a small
savory dish aptly named the entree
because you are entering into the meal
sometimes there are two entree if it is
a really
really special occasion then there is
the main dish
or two main dishes if it is a really
really special occasion
after the main meal there is a plateau
de fromage
a large variety of cheeses to choose
from
the more variety is better with bread
and salad
and then there is dessert and then there
is a teeny tiny coffee and then there is
a small glass of a strong alcohol
called the digestive to finish this
version is called the rupa gastronomic
it can be seven or eight steps but can
even include one or two more
depending on the region and last quite a
few hours
depending on the occasion unesco
explains the gastronomic meal emphasizes
togetherness
the pleasure of taste and the balance
between human beings and the products of
nature
in 2010 they classified it as intangible
cultural heritage for humanity so
clearly there is more going on here than
simply
satisfying our hunger which brings us to
the heart
of the onion values here you have the
most
invisible aspects of culture here is
where people
tacitly agree on notions such as
beautiful or ugly
clean or dirty logical or illogical
and the biggest of them all right and
wrong
so let’s step away from our dinner table
just an instant while we consider an
example
freedom and let’s take the two countries
that i know best
france and the us in france the concepts
of
liberte egalite are enshrined in the
french
constitution and in the u.s there is
liberty
freedom and justice for all as promised
in the pledge of allegiance
a word is indeed a simple symbol
but a country’s institutions and people
make the word
and its concepts live and breathe and
both these countries have governments
and institutions that are
built on the value of freedom
i started to understand the french
notion of freedom when i started
understanding their health care system
subsidized housing
their education system and why they
demonstrate and strike
french people are always quick to
criticize the imperfections in these
systems
but i was impressed
and then intrigued the us
and france used this same word
freedom but are using it to justify
completely opposite
phenomenon from my perspective i
understood
a deepening of meaning a deepening of
perspective
not a contradiction we need to
understand
that values and value concepts live
and breathe underneath the layers
of symbols heroes rituals values and
practices
so back to 1999 and that fresh-faced
graduate a few
hours after my arrival in france i was
drawing an impromptu champagne aperitif
at the school where i was a language
assistant with the teacher who was my
tutor
and the principal of the school once my
french ran out
which didn’t take very long they started
to have a very intense discussion
that as far as i was concerned was going
to get my tutor fired
there was serious disagreement between
them
later i asked her aren’t you worried
about the principal firing you
she said he can’t fire me
and she stated it as if it were a simple
fact my american brain thought
how is that possible in the states
you can get fired for almost anything
and in any
manner of ways you see in the
educational
they run a very complex nationwide
administration
that places people in schools based on
very complex
ranking systems and everyone is at the
mercy of that system
teachers and principals alike so no
he could not fire her she was free
from the worry of being fired for
speaking her mind about the changes the
new education minister was making
a few weeks later there was a nationwide
strike
against these new measures and i got to
see an entire country of teachers
exercise their freedom to strike and be
heard
because they were also free from the
fear
of being fired let’s come back
to our meal as i look around my table
i think about my experiences over the
years and the guests
i have gathered i look over and i see
france
a country that has twelve hundred
varieties of cheese
and loves fast food and there they are
chit chatting and congratulating america
a country of
four minute meals and who has recently
won
the world cheese award and i
sat them next to each other because for
me juxtaposing opposites
is not always a contradiction but a
welcoming
of diversity the spice of life so to
speak
and at my table there is always room for
others
and when they come i’ll switch their
seats around so
everyone can have a new perspective
because the more
people that are at the table the richer
the meal becomes
so like preparing a good meal
experiencing culture is like simmering
this culture onion until it’s all fallen
apart
and the layers have disappeared then you
add some more ingredients and turn it
into say
french onion soup you can’t see the
layers
or taste the individual ingredients but
if you have the patience to let it
simmer
the opportunity to have a seat at the
table
the curiosity to taste the soup and the
presence of mind
to be humble when faced with confusion
or a very stinky cheese this is the
recipe for discovery
because that stinky cheese you just ate
might be
an entire culture onion in just
one bite
[Applause]
[Music]