If you’re in France and try to go shopping between 12.00pm and 2.00pm you may well find the shop you want is firmly shut. And if you happen to be in a shop that’s closing for lunch, don’t worry, they’ll let you know in no uncertain terms and turf you out into the street bang on the appointed time. This is the country where lunch is something of a religion, and many shops, except for the supermarkets which are ‘Ouvert sans interruption’, close their doors and pull down the shutters at midday. In the UK you might grab a sandwich, fizzy drink and bag of crisps and eat them back at your desk or out in a park (if you’re lucky to be close to one) with a book or your mobile to keep you company. In France things stop and people go for a nutritious, inexpensive lunch. Customers can come back later.
Lunch is part of the culture – stopping work at midday to socialise with friends and eat a good meal is a social norm. But is there a story to this?
Back in the 1940s and 50s, as France rebuilt its economy after the Second World War, the national trucking industry grew quickly. To meet the driver’s needs for meals, rural inns, cafés and small restaurants started offering fixed price menus. The meals were simple, filling, quick to prepare and affordable. The Relais Routier’s network was formed in 1952 to promote quality and consistent roadside dining for truck drivers. These restaurants became known for offering affordable, authentic, regional French cuisine, at first for the truckers and later for the whole population.
Fast forward to today, and small local restaurants (often nowhere near a main road) offer fixed price menus at lunchtime, where you can often have a starter, main, cheese, desert and coffee – and all for under €20. Perhaps a carafe of wine, if you’ve an afternoon of leisure ahead of you, adds a little to the price. The restaurant is empty at 12.00pm, heaving 15 minutes later with plumbers, electricians, hairdressers, bank staff and the public at large, and then silent again by 2.30pm.
There may be a limited menu to choose from or it may be fixed – but it’s always freshly cooked and delicious.
And that’s where many, many working French people (plus a few Brits in the know) go for their lunch.
