Reflections 6 months on - Bureaucracy

I have now been here for just over six months, and I think its time to reflect on those pieces of French culture that seem so peculiar to a lot of us outsiders, but to those living here it is simply a part of everyday life.

They are both good and bad aspects to the culture that are particularly ingenious, intriguing, and at times downright frustrating. But hey thats all part of the fun.

Bureaucracy - The word is French, and it is everywhere. 25% of the population of France work in the public service. Their job is to make sure that the other 75% of the population, keep in line, fill out their mountains of paperwork correctly, and file this paperwork away never to be seen again. If one letter is even out of place, it is also their job to make sure that you fill out the paperwork again. This also does not take into account the millions of people who fill administrative jobs within the private sector, in order to do all of the above jobs and ensure the running of their own personal fiefdom.

This lists of duties for an administrative Frenchman or Frenchwoman however discounts the most important job of an administrative worker in France. Which is, the collection of passport sized photographs. I wish I could find on the internet a statistic on how many passport sized photographs are collected in France each year. My guess is it would be somewhere in the order of several hundred million. Oh how I wish I had shares in the company that own all of the photo booths located at all of the supermarkets and railway stations. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people all over France, put their 5 euro note into one of these machines and sit down in front of the camera to pull a bland face, in order to satisfy the devilish photography requirement of some sort of menial administrative bureaucrat. I myself have been relatively lucky (i think) in that so far in my six months here, I have only had to hand over the relatively meager total of 7 passport sized photos for various purposes. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a fellow Australian who recently filled out some sort of complex application for something in France and required that she provide 14 passport sized photos. (Yes I said fourteen!)

But hey you would think that with so many people actually working in the public service that things get done really quickly with a minimum of fuss, right? I mean with all of that man power and a population of a mere 62 million, there should be no hold ups at all.

Oh how wrong you are my friend. You see in order to make sure that people actually have work to do, (or in reality have work to palm off onto colleagues or other department) meaningless paper work and rules have been created.

For instance, when I arrived here, I had to go to my local 'council chambers' to get the ball rolling to get my residency card. This involved rocking up, taking a number, waiting about an hour, and then showing a lady all of the paperwork I had while she told me exactly what I would need for my next appointment at the big main police centre slap bang in the middle of Paris. Then after about 5mins of this, she wrote my details, on a piece of paper.(which was the official booking sheet.) It already had about 20 people written on it who would be having meetings before me on the same date. Obviously the use of computers would make tasks just far too efficient. At the end of this little process I had been to a meeting, for the purpose of making an appointment for 7 weeks in the future.

After the 7 weeks, I arrived at the big police centre with all of my paperwork, unsure of the next step but hoping that this would be the end of my little process. I guess it was rather naive of me to think that everything would be done on this day and I would be walking out of there with a residency card. First of all a little geography lesson for the woman who made my appointment, Australia is in Oceania and not North Asia. This little geography problem cost me my spot at the head of queue for the day (my appointment was at 1st up at 8:30) and I had been given an appointment at the wrong office. So I had to go to another office, which I did, only problem was I had to go after the 20 or so people who already had appointments for the day.

After about two hours, my number was finally called and I went up to the little desk where the unfriendly bureaucrat processes person after person all day. After a few questions and an in depth eye over my paperwork, it was decided that my paperwork was inappropriate (as my bank statement was not written in French) so all of my copies of paperwork that passed muster were placed into a manilla folder, and I was given an appointment to come back in 4 weeks, (with the appropriate bank statement in French) and hopefully all would be well.

In the intervening time I arranged to open a bank account in France and thus everything was written in French and I was hoping that all would be well. So after 4 weeks, I went back and waited about an hour this time. (Already a little more positive) My number was once again called, and I nervously went to the desk and joined a gentleman this time. I sat there for about 20 minutes while he read some emails that were attached to the outside of my file. He then fingered through all of my paperwork again (even though it was already passed as ok last time) and barely spoke a word to me throughout the whole ordeal. (Which was not so bad, as I have a feeling my French would have been rather poor due to how hot and tired I was) Anyway, after about 20mins It appeared all was ok, however I would not be getting my card today, as I had one more step, which was to go to the mythical land of ANAEM, which is apparently where my 'Carte de Sejour' (residency card) will be living.

So I recieved another peice of paper, telling me that I would be having another appointment in about 4 weeks time at different place in Paris, and if all goes will I will get to leave with a couple of exciting presents.

So four weeks later (are you keeping track of time?) I was one of the 100 or so people who each day queue outside ANAEM in Paris waiting for them to open so they can go inside and argue with the French bureaucracy as to why their family should be allowed to join them in France after they have been denied. This office also serves as the place where strangers in white coats, get to measure your height and weight, ask you some questions about your health and you get to stand there with your shirt off while a strange Frenchman takes an x-ray of your chest.

Once they opened I got to sit in a little waiting room, just like at the doctors. My name was called after only 10 minutes! and I went inside and my height, weight (I had lost 11kg since I arrived here) and my eyes were checked. This was all passed easily, and then I was hearded into a room with a cold metal bench that somehow resembled solitary confinement. I was told to take off my shirt and shortly a man will open the door and ask me to step through so I could have an x-ray taken of my chest. (This is done to check for TB) After sitting on the cold bench with my shirt off I was called in, and an x-ray was taken. WOW, the most exciting thing was that afterwards, I was lucky enough to keep it. It hangs on my wall now as a reminder of how much fun this entire process had been. Well after the x-ray, I was told by another doctor, that I was fine, and I had no health problems (and no TB) and obviously I was a model French citizen, and that I would be allowed to stay.

So I then had the privilege of paying 300 euros, to finally be handed the much sort after "Carte de Sejour" after 15 weeks of fun, fun, fun. I walked out of ANAEM with a big smile on my face and a peice of plastic with my face on it (and a chest x-ray) The long complex and amusing process had finally come to an end and I was officially a resident of France. I celebrated with a crepe.

Some cheese I have eaten recently

I have headed out to the supermarket in the last week or so to pickup some different cheeses to try, the goal before our time is up here is to get through and try every single cheese from the book "French Cheeses" that I have recently acquired.

With this goal in mind, I came home from the supermarket with four different cheeses recently.

MUNSTER - First of all I came home with this very tasty looking Munster cheese. Munster cheese comes from the far east of France and apparently has a very high fat content. (45%, great for those arteries) It comes with a slightly reddish rind and a fairly strong odor. Munster is an AOC cheese and thus production is strictly controlled, according to the AOC, "a limited area of milk production, including major part of département of Vosges, a large part mountainous or in front of the range in Alsace, départements Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, a few communes in

département Haute-Saône and Belfort Territory, cantons of départements Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle."

Most importantly, the taste. Munster has a very strong odor, and this is the first thing to hit

your senses. It has quite a creamy texture although is a little firm, a little bit like a thickshake. The taste is not quite as strong as you would expect from the smell, but has quite a sweet milky taste, which is left lingering in your mouth after you have swallowed it.

SAINT-NECTAIRE - I also picked up a very interesting cheese called "Saint Nectaire". The first thing that struck me about this cheese was the colour of the rind, which was ashen, almost black. This cheese comes from central France, almost smack bang right in the middle of the hexagon. I am going to turn to my favourite wikipedia for a bit about the history of this cheese. "It is made in the Auvergne region of central France. The cheese has been made in Auvergne since at least the 17th century. Its name comes from the Marshal of Sennecterre (a linguistic corruption of "Saint-Nectaire"), who served it at the table of Louis XIV. The Marshal of Sennecterre is also responsible for the introduction of Cantal and Salers."

The smell of this cheese is a little bit like old mouldy socks that have been left out in the rain for a while. However lets face it, some cheeses aren't exactly rosy smelling to the nose, and I was hoping it would taste a little better than it smelled. This is one of the more firmer cheeses that I have purchased, it has a similar consistency to something like Colby that you might have back home, however slightly more silky. The taste is a little acidic and a bit spicy and certainly sticks in your mouth for a while after woods, (probably due to the acid)

PICODON - A goats cheese again from central France. It comes in a nice little round nugget, and has a very typical goats cheese type taste but a little more on the spicy side. The reason for this spice is apparently the goats that it comes from devour anything and everything on the mountains on which they live around central France. This diet of theirs is reflected in the taste of their milk.

The cheese book I have suggests that you suck on this cheese a little bit before eating in order to get all of the taste out, I didn't really try this, but it tasted good enough to me without doing so.

BRIE DE MEAUX- Brie is actually a speciality from a region not far to the east of Paris. There are so many varieties of Brie that you can buy at the supermarket or a fromagerie. The one that we picked up was an aged brie. It was a lot darker in colour than a regular Brie that you might find in Australia and was a lot firmer in texture. When I unwrapped it the smell was almost smokey and you could smell the mould (Probably because it was aged a little longer than normal Brie).

Once in the mouth, the taste was strong and rich and tasted quite sweet. There are still quite a few different varieties of Brie I am keen to try, but this one was a good place to start and whet my appetite for some other varieties of Brie.

French Cooking - Coq au Vin

The other night I thought I would have a crack at cooking something uniquely French. After all I have been here for many months, and I am not sure that buying some cheese and eating it with a baguette really counts as putting together traditional French cuisine.

After scouring some recipe sites on the internet, I came up with something that looked not overly difficult, and would hopefully be pretty tasty. I settled on 'Coq au Vin' (chicken in wine) a traditional French dish, the variation of which I made was Alsace (because I used Reisling) as the major wine.

So I ventured out to the supermarket (in the freezing cold, its like 5 degrees here at the moment) and bought my ingredients, chicken thighs, mushrooms, lardons (cubed bacon) thyme, reisling, onions, garlic, chicken stock, flour and a bay leaf (which I could not find).

After preparing all of the ingredients the first thing to do was to give the chicken a coating of flour mixed with some salt and pepper. Once the chicken was coated, I was to lightly fry both

sides of the chicken in some oil in a large pot, that was to be used for actually making the dish. I gave the chicken about 3 mins on both sides, so the peices were slightly yellowly/brown. (About the same colour of the pretty autumn leaves outside)

I then removed the chicken from the oil with some tongs, which I had to go all the way to IKEA to purchase. Apparently French people do not use tongs. I had looked in pretty much every shop in Paris that sells kitchen utensils for some tongs, with no luck. So I had to go and buy some from the Swedes. I have no idea how they go about cooking sausages here without tongs. I told my French friend, that a kitchen without tongs is like having a car without a steering wheel.

So i removed the chicken from the oil and put it aside on a plate. I turned the heat down a little, and added to the oil, the mushrooms, lardons, onions and garlic. I cooked this for about 5 minutes until the onions and mushrooms began to turn a little brown.

At this point I added my chicken stock and Riesling and mixed it all together throughly. I also added my thyme (and would have added a bay leaf at this point had I had one). It created a

wonderfully fragrant broth. I then turned the heat right up, in order to bring the broth to a boil. Once the broth came to a boil, it was time to pop the chicken back into pot with the broth, turn the heat down, pop the lid on, and leave it to simmer for about half and hour.

After the half an hour, the smell of the dish was wafting tastily throughout the house, making me very hungry.

I had prepared with the dish some mash potatos, couscous, and some green beans. I removed the chicken from the broth and placed it on the plate. I then spooned some generous portions of the broth to cover the chicken as well as all over the potatos and couscous.

We sat down at the table and then it was time for the all important first taste. Smelling the aroma whilst I was slaving over the stove for a half an hour or so, left my mouth keen to jump straight in. I put the first forkfull in my mouth and I was pleasantly suprised with the taste. It wasn't as terrible as I had feared. In fact if I do say so myself, it was pretty bloody good, and we began to eat away at the Coq au Vin. It had the sweetness of the Reisling as a dominating flavour but it was well balanced with the aromatic thyme, salty lardons and

the mushrooms providing a good balance to the sweet wine.

All in all it has left me keen to try something a little more difficult and hopefully even more tastier next time.