One of the prickliest issues between my
French husband and Maxime and I is … lunch.
What do YOU have
for lunch? Perhaps it’s leftovers from home heated up in the company microwave?
A souvlaki from the takeaway round the corner? A sandwich? As a student at uni,
before I left for Europe, I used to have a Vegemite sandwich for lunch each
day. (Vegemite, for those who don’t know, is a black lunch spread made from the
leftovers of beer-making). I thought my sandwiches were quite acceptable and
savoured every salty morsel.
But …
Maxime grew up in France, where kids have
a cooked three course meal, starring such ingredients as foie gras and duck confit, served to them at school each day. At home, lunch is
cooked as well. At work as an adult in France, Maxime enjoyed three course lunches at the
work canteen, or a restaurant outing perhaps. A bottle of wine might also be
consumed, to celebrate the special occasion of it being lunchtime.
When I first took Maxime on a visit to
Australia, we stayed with my parents, and ate with them. We had roast lamb on
Saturday nights - all good. Barbeques in the Dandenongs were fine too (well,
except that Maxime insisted in peeling the slightly singed skin off his
sausages). But Maxime’s eyes popped in disbelief when at 12 each day, my
parents would begin assembling pre-sliced bread, Vegemite, peanut butter and
margarine. And it didn’t help that he believes margarine is poisonous. ‘But
where’s the lunch?’ he’d say.
'Maxime's used to a cooked lunch,' I would explain. I guess I could have offered him toast.
Now that we live
in Australia, people become very anxious whenever they are put in a position of
needing to provide Maxime with anything to eat. So you can imagine that the cat
was really set among the pigeons when I announced that instead of just coming alone as planned, I'd be bringing Maxime along for lunch at my parents' house. My parents had already ensured they had something in stock for me to eat - these days, I have a salad for lunch.
‘We have a pile of leaves for you,' said Mum when I phoned her with the alarming news, 'but what on earth will Maxime eat? We're just having sandwiches.'
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘he’s in Australia
now – he has to adapt!’
Then I remembered that so far, Maxime 'adapting' to lunch in Australia had involved either me cooking or (preferably) a restaurant. Nary a sandwich had passed his lips.
At 11 o’clock on the day of the lunch visit, I took Maxime aside.
‘Lunch will powerfully affect your
sensibilities,’ I said. ‘You will be asked to make sandwiches for yourself for
lunch using brown and black pastes, which are unlikely to be presented as
sculpted pyramids and or garnished with truffles.’
I told him I would take to his private
parts with a cheesegrater if he breathed so much as a syllable.
And so we arrived
at 12 to find Dad setting out the spreads and breads. He’d anticipated Maxime’s
reaction.
‘You need adulterated food to keep your immune
system in shape,’ he smiled.
‘Hmm,’ said
Maxime, surveying the table doubtfully.
He opted for things that bore some resemblance to what he calls food – ham and cheese, even though
the ham was suspiciously uniform in colour and texture and the cheese was hard
and didn’t smell of sock like his preferred French fromages.
I winced and
waited for Maxime to trot out his usual lines about the cheese ‘not being
cheese’. But in the end I was proud of him, because he was good enough to wait
until we were in the car on the way home to ask if I thought there may have
been asbestos filaments in his cheese.
'It had this stringy texture,' he explained.
Of all the things
he could have said about supermarket cheese, a resemblance to asbestos is not
one I saw coming.
'But was it good?' I asked.
'No.'
'Oh.'
But in the end, Maxime still got a cooked lunch. In a moment of inspired genius, Dad boiled him an egg!
