When you think of Paris, farm animals and tractors are probably two of the least likely images to pop into your head.
And yet each year in the first week of March, this most cosmopolitan of cities is transformed into a cow town as the extravagant blowout known as the Salon International de L'agriculture sets up shop.
Having had the honor of attending this event last weekend, I was initially confused as to why the French equivalent of an American stock show or rodeo was being held in a city whose citizens were probably the least likely to ever invest in a new milking cow or a fancy new hoe. But after observing the thousands of Parisians stumbling spellbound through the exposition halls, I realized that the Salon wasn't really about farming. It was about food - and that's something to which every Frenchmen intimately relates.
It's no secret that the French are obsessed with food. They are known to wax poetic about their all-time favorite meals for hours while eating a meal that lasts for hours. And I'm convinced that every French child over eight years old could be a professional dining critic. But the annual Salon takes the obsession to dizzying heights, and revels in the sheer cornucopia of France's national food obsession.
In one exhibition hall at least as big as the biggest Super Wal-Mart, there were several hundred stalls proffering the tastiest treats and delicacies from every major French region and even its overseas protectorates and former colonies: hard apple cider from Normandy, pungent herbs and lavender from Provence, sausages from Alsace, potent rums and tropical produce from the isle of Martinique, and a mind-boggling assortment of smelly cheeses from every corner of the country.
One cheese I sampled, called something like "Monk's Head Cheese" and served by an actual monk, tasted like nothing so much as a monk's B.O.-imbued armpit.
For a country that's only the size of Texas, France produces an amazingly diverse array of regional foods. Each region is fiercely proud of its products, and the government has lots of legislative power and oversight in making sure that only sparkling wine from Champagne is called "champagne" and that only cheese produced in Comte can be called "Comte." I know the United States has its own regional delicacies, but can you really imagine New Jerseyites being proud of "Hoboken cuisine"?
Venturing into the animals hall, I was immediately hit with a stiff whiff of cow dung, and sure enough I was face to face with Old McDonald's retinue. Besides countless chicken, pigs and sheep, there were rows upon rows of fattened, shiny bovines, happily munching away on hay and defecating like they had been slipped some ex-lax. Little children were petting all the Bessies and Berthas, and parents were busy snapping photos.
It was all quite bucolic and innocent until I noticed a banner overhead for one company's cows that read "MEAT PLANET" -and not 10 paces away from the living cows was a gleaming display case of bloody cuts of fresh beef. It hadn't registered before, but all these pretty cows were meant to be eaten.
But the French see no cruel irony in placing live animals right next to their dead meat counterparts. In fact, they insist upon it. Unlike Americans, who are for the most part content to buy shrink-wrapped, precut steaks in gleaming supermarkets, the French revel in seeing and knowing where their meals come from.
They like to know what region the cow is from, what his diet consists of, what he looks like and how he compares to other cows. The part where the cow gets slaughtered isn't distasteful to them, it's encouraging. After all, death is natural, and the closer you are to death, the fresher the meat is. Maybe that's why the French prefer their meat so damn rare.
Comically, amidst all the homegrown farmers and merchants, McDonald's had set up a huge pavilion. Even though McDonald's is already wildly popular in France, the corporation obviously felt the need to tap into the French obsession for fresh and local foods by producing displays on the origins of their potatoes, the merits of their frying oil, and an educational center which was teaching youngsters to eat burgers in moderation.
Despite the reality of an ever-shrinking agricultural population and the rise of big agribusiness (as in the United States), the French continue to exalt their agriculture sector and traditional French products above all else. Sure, it's a bit exaggerated these days, but the French definitely still maintain a deep affinity for the land and the ways of the peasant farmer that is stronger than any similar sentiments in the United States.
That's why even high-level politicians like President Jacques Chirac, and in this election year, all the new presidential candidates, must make the rounds at the Salon, posing for obligatory corny photo-ops by shearing a sheep or milking a cow. For the French eating well is almost a God-given right, and so even their busy leaders must pay lip service to those who produce the bounty.
Remarking on the absurdity of French bureaucrats milking cows to maintain their poll numbers as I left the fairgrounds, I quietly wondered why for all their farmer populist sentiments the French don't have a fonder appreciation for a certain Texas cattle rancher named George W. Bush.
Then again, maybe it is better they don't.
Adam Winograd is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at adam.winograd@tufts.edu.
