"I Would Not Go There If I Did Not Know How to Pronounce It"

An insight into just how much the French hate making mistakes. And what to do when mistakes happen in France.

Thank you for subscribing to “On Food and France.” Twice a month, I take you on a quick journey into the heart of France and French culture. I’ll also share a seasonally inspired recipe, inviting you to add a touch of La Belle France to your table.

Would you rather live in a culture where mistakes are rare but never acknowledged, or one where carelessness is more common, but mistakes are always corrected?

Pont du Diable (Devil’s Bridge), near Theuyts, France. Photo via Wiki Commons.

One of the things I’ve always loved about France is a certain rigor to the way things are done (in the best cases, of course). Par exemple: years ago, I asked a French chef I knew if he thought he could find me a job waiting tables at a high-end restaurant in France.

“Bien-sûr,” he insisted.

For about five seconds, my ego soared. “Wow. You think my French is good enough for me to wait tables in France?”

He looked at me like I was a total imbecile.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “If you trained to be a server in a high-end restaurant in France, you wouldn’t even be allowed to talk to a customer for a year.”

That speaks volumes to a certain perfectionism the French can have towards many things. And it can be a great when you’re on the receiving end of such high standards.

But … it can cause trouble when things go wrong. Using the restaurant milieu as an example, I’d estimate that a mistake is made about 5% of the time in France, and about 20% of the time in the U.S. But here’s the difference: In the US, amends will generally be made for errors. Not so much in France.

In the 30-plus years I’ve been traveling to France most summers, I can think of only twice when I’ve been served something other than what I’ve ordered in a restaurant. However, when I’ve brought it to the attention of the server, they insisted that I had ordered exactly what I’d been served. No offer was ever made to replace the dish.

I can remember a few other times when a French person’s inability to cop to a mistake has caused problems, starting with a clerk at the train station in 1989. When she wrote in the dates de validité on our FranceRail passes, she inked in dates for eight days instead of nine, shorting us one day of travel.

“The pass is for nine days,” I said. “And you’ve set the expiration date on the eighth day instead of the ninth.”

“Non. C’est correct,” she insisted.

I started to count off the dates for her, and when I got to the point where it would be impossible for her deny she had made a mistake, she abruptly closed her window and walked way.

Years later, I was on a press trip to the Cognac region of France. A French PR pro and I were talking about how hard it is for non-native speakers to know how to pronounce so many geographical names in France. I told him of Theuyts*, a nice town I’d been in a few years before that I’d had a hard time pronouncing. I spelled it for him and asked him how he’d pronounce it.

“I do not know how to pronounce that,” he said with a shrug that meant the conversation was over. But I pressed on.

“What do you think it would be?” I asked. “Your guess would be better than mine.”

“No. I have no idea.”

“OK. So, if you were at a train station and you had to tell the ticket agent your destination was this town, how would you ask for the ticket?”

“I would not go there if I did not know how to pronounce it.”

We both laughed. But honestly, I’m not entirely sure he was kidding. When I mentioned this little anecdote to another French acquaintance of mine, he found the story neither funny nor surprising. In fact, it seemed to reveal a disconcerting facet of being French.

“We’re taught at an early age that precision and correctness are key,” Bertrand told me. “In school, mistakes are never OK. And so all our lives, we do what we can to avoid them.”

Which explains the French P.R. pro’s reluctance to speculate. Better not to guess than to make a mistake.

So, What’s the Takeaway?

In France, when dealing with someone’s mistake, I generally try to approach it with immense politeness and often using the passive voice; e.g., “a mistake has been made on my bill” versus “you made a mistake on my bill.” Any way you can deflect any blame for the error will help your case.

Proceeding thusly, I generally get satisfaction if it’s a question of a numerical error on the bill. However, if the mistake is less clearly proven, such as when receiving the wrong entrée, I’ve come to accept that there’s a good chance the mistake won’t be rectified. I try to chalk it up to a cultural difference, and simply be glad for the 95% of times when all goes as it should.

* It’s pronounced T’WEY-yuh, by the way. And it’s a gorgeous, off-the-beaten path place in the Ardeche.

A Recipe for Right Now

It’s been hot-hot-hot here in the Midwest (where I live when I’m not traveling). The upside is that our farmers markets have given us another another crop of homegrown tomatoes! I hope that’s the case where you are, too (well, the tomatoes, not the excessive heat). If it is, enjoy my recipe, “The Tomato Salad That Changed My Life.” (I first enjoyed it as a high-school student on a cultural exchange trip to France, and it was this dish that made me realize that French food was truly something remarkable.)

The Tomato Salad that Changed My Life. Shallots and fines herbes (with tarragon) make all the difference.

P.S.: If you enjoy my stories, I imagine you’d enjoy reading my book, “Love Is My Favorite Flavor,” which was published by the University of Iowa Press in July. In it, I write about the pleasures and pitfalls of being a food and wine writer and restaurant critic for the past 25 years. Chapters also cover how the French food scene informed my work and my life.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back to your inbox in a couple weeks!

Best to you—

Wini Moranville