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Show tv Elder Olsen Finds Frenchmen Still n Great Eaters Even If Food Is High 'i Editor's Note: The following report on French people and cus-'PS cus-'PS of toms, specifically those of LeMans, was written for the Pyramid by Elder John K. Olsen, a son of Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Olsen of Mt Pleasant. Elder Olsen departed for the French L. D. S. Mission 0r, last July following the completion of his freshman year at the ... University of Utah. Elder Olsen's report on France will be pub-u pub-u 11 ( lished in two installments. This is the first. C3!)r 36 rue Marengo it Le Mans, France e(j ' March 19, 1949 ii ' Le Mans is the capitol, you might say, of the department of ihjiSarthe, France. France is di-. di-. vided into 80 or 90 such depart -'r cements each one with its own ly,,i center. Sarthe is about half the size of Sanpete county. In traveling trav-eling around through the different differ-ent departments and regions of France, one can find as much difference in the habits, the ,i language, and customs of the "6; French people as could be found on the same kind of trip in the , States, particularly in the south-fl) south-fl) il ern sections of the two countries. 3j ,,Le Mans has a population of k about 100,000 and is located 'fill, about 100 miles southwest of Paris. It is one of the poorer cities of France and is a bit ;1 B; dirty, but I've grown to like it Tair because f my lve fr tne Gos- pel and my work which put me ntJUf; here. In passing through one of U.1. the quarters of the city one can ' see remnants of an old Roman Ocr, wall of the 4th century, rem-. rem-. ii nants of another from the 14th, " and enclosed in one corner of it 3 these fast disappearing boun-daries, boun-daries, a large Catholic cathed-. cathed-. ral which dates back to the 11th, isir.;12th and 13th centuries. Things i ii' here are so old as compared with s- most of the things back in the New World! It makes you feel a little strange at first, espec-" espec-" ially when no one speaks your ! language. It makes you feel 194? that you are living in another ho; world, which indeed you are. There are thongs here in the Old BU World which seem to jump at '-tresme from the pages of an old on, j musty book ot lairy tales with ' ' its castles, walls and so forth. ubfc There are only two of us here, and we live in a nice, comfort-able comfort-able room in a nice little home. We had heat all winter, which is something a lot of people did without. Lodging is quite cheap over here, but in general food, '; dry goods, etc., conform pretty SJ much to prices at home figuring vij in the rate of exchange. But j the income of the average man - here is only about half the in- come of the average man at J home, so you can see without j further explanations what a problem some people have here. We eat at a boarding house twice 3j day for 100 francs (35c) a meal. It Isn't a banquet, but 1 I'm not losing weight, either. Food conditions in France are "much better than I expected them to be when I first came over. There is a lot of good food, but it is quite expensive for the Franchman, but for us .who have good American dollars -fto change for francs, it is about Ithe same level as it was at jhome. Incidentally, the gastro-t gastro-t mical situation here in France -'is terrific. This French cooking is wonderful, and so is the pas- try' There is a little pastry shop about 35 feet from our door ;and they've been running for '-.'months on the husinpss we cive them. . The Frenchman makes an art' out of eating. He takes a full IVz or 2 hours to eat a meal jand enjoy every mouthful to the 'fullest. There are several cours- ies to each good French meal "'and each different dish is eater separately. After each big bite he sets his implements down and just sits there chewing -i The sheer ectasy of it all! At least that's the impression one J'-Smignt get while watching this operation. Of course once in a sjjwhile you find one that is in a rush, but not often. They drink-wine drink-wine with all their meals, anc! they find it a bit hard "to take when we just order water. They seldom eat breakfast, but reallv load up between noon and 2:00 and between 7;00 and 9:00. Yesterday was Friday, and as I've done every Friday since coming to France, I went up to the public bath house and got my weekly "scrubdown". Bath tubs and hot water are scarce in France and the majority of the people go to the public house on weekends to get clean. These are only open then because of the coal shortage. I find that one bath on Friday and one on Sunday keeps me contented, but only because there isn't much I can do about it. Thus the time for me passes not from day to day but from Sunday to , ) Friday! ' In every city in France there is 0 a big square which is inevitably called "Place de la Republique", :y and here in Le Mans every Fri- ,r day our square is turned into a big open market. The merch- ants set up their tents and sell anything and everything. People Peo-ple from the surrounding farms and villages come in and things ;vreally buzz. They come on bi- 'ycles, big two wheeled carts. s&swagons, and old cars. The men usually wear a white celluloid collar with a colored shirt, wood-hn wood-hn shoes and a cap. Always a Kap on market "day, Sundays, or la promenade, but when working 1 f he usually wears the little beret f that is typically French. The women around here dress quite f plain and simple except the few I who manage to keep up on the f latest styles coming from Paris. (to be continued next week) |