|
|
|
Photograph by Jerry Bauer
|
Back to Anniversary home page
An Interview with Andrew Hussey
An astute observer of French culture and politics, Andrew Hussey is Dean of the University of London Institute in Paris. He contributes regularly to the Observer and Guardian newspapers, writes a monthly column for the New Statesman, and serves as a contributing editor to Granta. Here, in a July 2009 interview with Sara Ahmed, he ruminates on French cheese.
SA: Can you comment on the fear that traditional cheeses will die out due to standardized, bureaucratic EU regulations?
AH: Well, I'm not sure I totally understand all the regulations, but across Europe all the old artisanal producers are being squeezed out by the larger farms. In French supermarkets, it's actually quite hard to find any traditional cheese because it is all industrially processed! Still, it's quite interesting that these processed Dutch and English cheeses should be so widely available, when most French people still regard them with justifiable horror. So I don't think the production of cheese is actually dying, but it is certainly under threat.
SA: Charles de Gaulle famously remarked how difficult it is to govern a country that produces 300 varieties of cheeses. Does cheese carry any political significance?
AH: Cheese in France represents the French concept of la terre (the land), since cheese is produced from animals and land. It is about local identity. I don't just mean regional identities but very specific hamlets, villages, and farms. Because very few people left their birthplaces until the nineteenth century, cheese in France is an emblem and identifier of what it means to be local. In terms of politics, de Gaulle was referring to the big idea of France as a centralized republic. But below this superstructure there is a pluralistic, anarchistic country where the priorities of the centralizing force barely register.
SA: Are there any stereotypes that accrue to those who eat different kinds of cheeses?
AH: In France there have always been political divisions over cheese due to the relationship between the Center and the localities and between the Right and the Left. In some ways it is an economic question. Camembert is easy to produce and even the best quality is affordable, so through most of the twentieth century it was the democratic food of choice and the standard cheese for breakfast. In the 1930s it was the emblem of the everyday Frenchman, especially after 1936 when workers first had paid holidays. Camembert was celebrated as the ideal; everyday Frenchmen would bicycle out on their lunch breaks armed with it and Orangina, which was known as the workers' champagne. By contrast, cheeses like GruyËre and Emmenthal are seen as non-French and, as such, non-democratic. They exist in the domain of those who can afford expensive food and they are therefore categorized as elite. That said, I'd probably have a GruyËre sandwich for lunch!
SA: You have written that Sarkozy, a teetotaler and runner who seems indifferent to food, is the anti-Mitterand. The fact that he didn't--quelle horreur!--have an inaugural banquet was seen as deeply un-French! Could you tell us more about political figures' tastes in cheese and whether they fit with their ideologies?
AH: Well, the French president is always supposed to occupy the post of gourmand-in-chief of the nation. Both Chirac and Mitterand fulfilled this role. Many of the criticisms against Sarkozy center around the idea that he is a man without culture--that he has no literary or philosophical background and no knowledge of cheese! The fact that he has no interest in food is held against him by those who believe that gastronomy is a central interest of France.
SA: You have commented on the swift decline of French food as French cuisine becomes globalized in our multinational, corporate world. Do you think this will mark the end of the cheese course?
AH: No, not necessarily, as traditional producers are still working away, and the markets are reconfiguring themselves. The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, is doing some very good work with street markets. It is still possible to go to your local market, but you have to make an effort to do so. However, for all my criticisms of French food, the French people are conscious of the decline and are struggling against it.
SA: In your film France on a Plate you said that "it is possible to measure the advantages made in French democratic society by the consumption and production of food.' Can you expand on this idea?
AH: It is fundamentally a question of access to food. If people have equal access, France is doing well democratically. The fact that Sarkozy is not interested in food leaves people on the Left or Center-Left suspicious, as his behavior is viewed as somehow undemocratic and un-French. The fact that Sarkozy is more interested in jogging than food adds to the perception of him as a pro-American philistine with no interest in French culture. In fact, there was a banner declaring "Sarkozy--sans culture--les fÍtes sont contre vous." The rhetoric of the French Left leaves me quite optimistic about the future of French food. Cheese is such an important symbol of the country that it would be impossible to imagine France without it.
|
|
