Few fat French folks

Lawrence Toppman: 

I hope you celebrated Bastille Day Thursday. I forgot to take the baguette I'd bought out of the freezer, but I had French fries that afternoon. (That's a joke -- I say, that's a joke, son. I realize the Belgians lay claim to pommes frites.)

But I did recall how few overweight French people my wife and I saw on two trips to Paris and surrounding towns. We met little old ladies scurrying up the hills of Montmartre with freshly bought sacks of vegetables and bread, and we always wondered why so few were stout. After all, the French do not skimp on butter, cheese and chocolate in their recipes.

Part of the calorie containment may be related to exercise. I saw residents of Paris walking everywhere, especially up those steep hills. But the main reason is that the French consume rich food and know when to stop consuming it.

At Berthillion, the greatest ice cream shop in the world, American tourists ate three or four boules (as the golf ball-sized scoops are called); the French stopped at two. Americans ate a crepe and a small green salad for lunch and wondered what came next; the French knew that what came next were a glass of wine and a long chat. They don't take food home from restaurants, because restaurants serve smaller portions, and people don't stuff themselves.

Eat well, eat slowly, eat in moderation. Taste the food, savor the beauty, keep the waistline down. How seldom we think about that over here.