In a nearby calanque… I'm counting on our 17-year-old, Max, to bring home more "fruits of the sea"… because I sure don't trust some of the fruits they're selling us at the supermarket! Read on, in today's story column. (Photos in today's post are by Jean-Marc)
nourrir (noo-reer)
: to feed, to nourish
Audio File: Listen to Jean-Marc read this vocab list: Download MP3 or Wav file
Et ce n'est pas en mangeant trois feuilles de laitue que tu vas te nourrir!
And it's not by eating a few lettuce leaves that you're going to nourish yourself.
se nourrir = to feed oneself
nourrir des espérances = to cherish hopes
nourrir au sein = to breastfeed
une conversation nourrie = a lively conversation
mal nourri = ill-nourished
bien nourri = well-fed
nourrir une rancune = to nurse a grudge
A Day in a French Life… by Kristin Espinasse
Seated at the dining room table, a basket of nuts separating us, Jean-Marc and I were having one of those highly animated arguments that arise when one spouse's neurosis butts heads with the other spouse's neurosis.
Him: Tu ne veux pas entendre la verité.
Me: Ha! You mean the truth according to you!
Him: Hmph!
Me: Hmph!
When there seemed to be no resolution in sight—so red were our faces, so steaming were our ears—one of us did a remarkably sensible thing… by dipping his hand back into the hat of sujets à aborder, or "stuff we need to talk about", and drawing another ticket!
His defensive tone gone, my husband's voice remained firm:
Et ce n'est pas en mangeant trois feuilles de laitue que tu vas te nourrir!
I listened to my husband's French and, translating his words, I was hit by their deeper meaning:
"And it isn't by eating a few lettuce leaves that you're going to feed yourself!"
This remark wasn't some sort of idiomatic low-blow. Jean-Marc literally meant what he said, and his concerned tone sent a steel ball spiraling towards my mur de défense.
There was a tightening sensation in my throat, which felt as though someone were squeezing it. Tears pushed up from out of nowhere. The more the tightening, the more tears were extracted until my face was streaming with them.
***
"Do you ever cry openly?" A loved one once asked, while helping me with relationship issues. I considered her question. Capable of spontaneous tears when suprised by an image of vulnerability (a defenseless human or animal), I don't often have the same tear-ejecting response when confronted with my own helplessness. Maybe that's because I'm not always aware of it.
This time my husband's words hit the emotional release button. I sat facing him, silently dissolving into a puddle of larmes.
Jean-Marc was right. I haven't been eating lately—not after discovering that even the French have let genetically modified organisms into the marketplace! What had been a gradual awakening to the reality of the food industry… has rapidly become a full-out phobia in which every carrot is suspect and every grape sits taunting me from the produce aisle and every package of chèvre bleats, "You sure this goat hasn't grazed on pesticides?" And forget about meat when the cows are eating the animals that are eating the chemically altered corn!
Afraid even of endives, I've been madly sowing seeds in the potager, but the vegetables growing there aren't yet mature; this has me impatiently picking the beet's leaves and other leafy beginnings—when all the crickets don't beat me to them.
For the kids and Jean-Marc, I buy organic fruit, arsenic-free rice, and charcuterie labelled SANS OGM. I quit buying Chocopops and replaced Nutella with a biologique version.. All dishes are made from scratch but the more I research food news the more it becomes complicated to come up with "safe" meals and I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed.
***
Back at the confrontation table, Jean-Marc tries to be encouraging. "You can eat some of this baguette," he offers, pointing to the two loaves, just beyond the basket of nuts.
But there are pesticides in that fresh-baked baguette. Didn't he watch the film?!… And besides, the carbohydrates in bread break down into sugars… and sugar feeds cancer!
Mon dieu! What's got into me? Food safety is enough to drive you crazy. Looking down at that basket of noix that separates me and my husband, suddenly those nuts are looking more than organic… they are looking like a good warning of what can happen when you get carried away with fear.
***
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French vocabulary
Tu ne veux pas entendre la verité = you don't want to hear the truth
sujets à aborder = subjects to address
Et ce n'est pas en mangeant trois feuilles de laitue que tu vas te nourrir! = And it's not by eating a few lettuce leaves that you're going to nourish yourself
le mur de défense = wall of defence
une larme = a tear
la chèvre = goat
la charcuterie = processed meats
biologique = organic
la noix = walnut
At this rate it's going to take a while to nourrir our family. Come on, Max, get back in there and catch Mom a giant daurade!
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Moderation in all that we eat and minimizing stress are the best we can do to insure good health. we do have to eat and can no longer grow all our own food, but we can eat healthier, avoid too much sugar & fat, avoid preservatives and get lots of exercise.
You worrying about the wrong thing. GMO are not dangerous; many studies have been done, and none show any problem with GMO. You should worry about real problems, like pesticides, and not fake problems.
Hi Kristin,
I hear you, it is so complex, but if you try to take it on board all at once it will do your head in. I have been studying nutrition as part of my naturopathy degree and when I started realising all these things that you have mentioned I lost faith in our food suppliers. Having said that, I know I can get a little ‘fixated’ on things so I made a conscious decision to be gradual about the changes I made to where and how I obtained my food. It’s not simple and with a busy life sometimes I have to get it from the supermarket but that’s when the pragmatic part of me kicks in. You can only do the best you can, don’t turn yourself inside out, over time you will find that you will be able to satisfy yourself that most of what you buy you will be happy with. It is a shock when you first realise how pervasive the corporations are, but bit by bit you can source good food. It sounds like you are well on the way. Take care 🙂
Christine
Kristin – just a couple pennies’ worth: you’re right to be concerned over the food these days, but listen to your husband. Stress is the real killer and everything boils down to what you believe. Get that straight and you have a fighting chance. Be well.
I hope I never become one of those people that says just lie back and enjoy it because you can’t do anything about it! It is going to take outrage by all of us to change the industrial food industry.
Doesn’t anyone wonder about the explosion of gluten intolerance?! We have bought a well known “organic” breakfast cereal for years. We can no longer tolerate it; embarrassing, severe intestinal upset the day after! What happened to our cereal after the company was bought out by one of the largest cereal companies in the US? Are we intolerant to GMO grains, not gluten? Can grains engineered to tolerate vast amounts of pesticides be good for us?
We have become careful about what we eat. It can be done without making yourself crazy. We have a garden. We buy produce and meats from farms that we know and trust. We buy bio wines, France is on the forefront in this. This is important. We have to show these industrial food producers that we will not buy their crap!
I hope I never become one of those people that says just lie back and enjoy it because you can’t do anything about it! It is going to take outrage by all of us to change the industrial food industry.
Doesn’t anyone wonder about the explosion of gluten intolerance?! We have bought a well known “organic” breakfast cereal for years. We can no longer tolerate it; embarrassing, severe intestinal upset the day after! What happened to our cereal after the company was bought out by one of the largest cereal companies in the US? Are we intolerant to GMO grains, not gluten? Can grains engineered to tolerate vast amounts of pesticides be good for us?
We have become careful about what we eat. It can be done without making yourself crazy. We have a garden. We buy produce and meats from farms that we know and trust. We buy bio wines, France is on the forefront in this. This is important. We have to show these industrial food producers that we will not buy their crap!
I’m with you, Kristin, on the fight against pesticides. Along with that, I’m against farm raised fish and frozen fish from Vietnam (caught in one of the world’s most polluted rivers) and China.I spend a lot of time reading packaging when I shop and still miss the final line of actual origination. I bet Carol Drinkwater is a neighbor of you and she fought against spraying her olive trees quite a few years ago. You are not alone with public awareness, trust me. But, don’t let this overwhelm you. Just do what is right for you and yours and enjoy. If you have time leftover, do some more for others.
You’ve had a brush with skin cancer -too much sun exposure on your fair complexion, I would imagine. And your mom had cancer. It is quite understandable that you are concerned, and the full consequences of our modifications of the food system are really unknown. Do the best you can with getting wholesome product that has been produced organically, and with good sanitation practices too (you don’t want any kind of food poisoning). Do what you can, and certainly bring this awareness to others. But don’t let this make you unable to enjoy life and your beautiful family. Do what you can and know that what you are doing does make a difference to your family and to your readers. Take care. Too much stress is not good for you either.
Kristin–Jean-Marc needs to teach your son how to fly fish. He’ll have much better luck in the sea world. My husband’s license plate is: Fly-Fish—-he and our son are avid fly fishermen—-the only way to go!
Don’t worry so much—-there is a happy medium. The term “organic” is meaningless. When I was a child everything we grew/raised was organic, but we didn’t know it! Decapitated our own chickens, had our beef cut, etc. You can find the same sources. NRS
In my last post about Samantha Davies I said the accident was on the 10th. It was actually on the 16th.
Fred.
Kristen, I cook from scratch, eat lots of veggies and buy meat that is anti-biotic free, however, that does not mean myself and my family will not be exposed to something that is not natural. You do the best you can. Don’t worry about it so much. As long as you are doing the best you can, c’est tout! Enjoy the sit down meals with your family, (something that here in the states is becoming a rarity)unfortunately time flies buy so quickly with our children, we need to enjoy every minute we can.