France, Day 3: Toulouse, Conference alla France

Christien kindly escorted me to the conference so that I wouldn’t get lost on my way there, trying to decipher signs in the metro. Toulouse is a big city and has several universities—the conference was at the Universite Toulouse-Mirail, south-east of the river.

Thanks to a map from the conference organizers we found the building, just past the library (no architectural prizes here … the campus was brick, concrete, crumbling asphalt, weedy grass). After safely depositing me inside, Christien took off to enjoy the day exploring Toulouse.

I have to admit, I am not very good at the conference thing. Parties, conferences, meetings, social events … I am one of those people who inevitably edge myself into a corner and sip a drink nervously, pretending I don’t mind that no one is talking to me—unless I consciously push myself to make an effort. There was nothing clearly marking where the conference was, and no registration that I could find. I ended up in front of a table of tea and coffee, chatting to a couple of Americans about how we weren’t sure what the program was to be. Turned out that it wasn’t our coffee (oops) and that we were chatting on the wrong side of the foyer … the convocation started without us. The small group of us slipped inside the door in the middle of Scott Slovic’s welcoming speech.

I have pages of notes from the conference which I am obviously not going to replay here. The conference was titled: Marking the Land of North America. It was an interdisciplinary eco-crit conference with papers on topics from Emerson and Twain, Thoreau and Whitman to Yucca Mountain and suburban sprawl in Florida, Mountaintop Removal and the Yosemite National Park. There were several Americans, quite a number of French, and a couple of Spanish scholars. I was rather frightened to discover that I was the only student … everyone else were long graduated, professors at universities from Washington state to Paris.

It was a busy program—running from 9 to 5:30 on Friday and Saturday (though with two coffee breaks and a nice long lunch). Before coming to the conference I had thought I might try and figure out a way to sneak out on one or both of the afternoons, so that I could get a chance to explore Toulouse a bit. However, during lunch the first day I sat with a group where the topic of skipping out at conferences came up. Bad, bad. Wrong, wrong. (And I suppose my own internal sense of fair-play had to agree). So I was definitely there for the whole!

Set apart on the university as we were, the conference was kind enough to feed us all, but I’m afraid that I posed quite a challenge for them. The caterers could barely conceive of the idea of a vegetarian, let alone a vegan … and then when I added my wheat allergy into the mix, I think they threw up their hands in despair. The first day there were a few things I could eat … some dolmas, and some tomatoes and cucumber (after I carefully made sure to pick off the chunks of feta cheese) and a fruit cup. There were also numerous bottles of red wine (no, I didn't join in). One of the Americans at our table remarked that here was a fundamental difference with American conferences, where there was definitely no drinking encouraged mid-day! (The next day, lunch, we (C stayed for my presentation and lunch) went a bit hungrier … there was a tiny cup of salad (good salad—-avocados and walnuts and mustard dressing, yum!) and then eggplant mush (allergic, again, sigh) and couscous (apparently the caterers just weren’t really clear on the whole wheat thing).

Which might as well lead into a transition about dinner that night (and our experience with food in France, in general). That night the conference offered us all a meal at a nice local restaurant. I didn’t have much faith that Christien and I would eat heartily, but I thought they might be able to figure something out for us. (By the way, we ate some crackers and apples beforehand ... smart us). The restaurant was very impressive, most of the tables were down in a brick cellar with arched ceilings and huge gilded mirrors, flickering in candle-light. There were reproductions of classical statuary set up in all the nooks and niches, large white roses in elaborate vases. (And a bit later some live 'jazz'.)

There must have been two dozen or more of us, so we were around at least 3 tables. C & I ended up at the end of one, seated next a professor from Toulouse-Mirail (who had presented that day on the writing of Annie Dillard … very interesting) and another from Madrid (presentation yet to come, she spoke about Linda Hogan’s work and a new ecologically based way of seeing the world, quite fascinating). At first I thought we might spend the whole evening talking only to each other, grimacing together across the table … but when the waiter came to take orders Nathalie was kind enough to help us explain our food-situation to him (her commentary, later on, "Oh my goodness, but what do you eat? I could live without meat, but how can you live without cakes?). I couldn’t understand a word the waiter said but found it hysterical that I could absolutely read his perplexity and obvious distain over us. He found us truly ridiculous, and had no problem making exaggerated faces at Nathalie and sighing in that perfectly expressive, very French way. Obviously our gastronomic situation made no sense to him at all. We had to explain ourselves a few times, and finally the chef came out and though the salad course seemed clear enough (well, all the other salads were meaty or cheesey, but they managed to make ours simply green) he couldn’t think what to do for us except pasta, which was of course not going to work. We finally convinced him that we could eat rice (he seemed to doubt it ... I mean if we didn't eat bread or meat or cheese, clearly we probably couldn't eat something as obvious as rice) but he nodded, unconvinced, and assured us he could make us a rice and vegetable dish. He looked at us as if to say, "But then why bother to eat at all?"

Meanwhile the aperitif wine had come, and that certainly made it all much more enjoyable. It was a local specialty, a golden mixture of a sparkling wine and liquor. It was a tiny bit sweet, fizzy, a little citrusy, sunshiney, and absolutely delicious. It is pretty much the kind of elixir that, as a child, I always imagined wine must be. We asked Nathalie about the concoction and she told us it was called Pousse Rapière … but we didn’t understand if that was the name of the cocktail or of the liquor. Turns out it is both. The liquor is made of Gascony Armagnac grapes, as is the special local sparkling wine used in the cocktail (though you could use any sparkling white or champagne). The recipe for the liquor is apparently a well-guarded secret passed down from generation to generation and today it is still made on the same Chateau. I can only hope that one can find Pousse Rapiere in the U.S. ...

Salads came (with duck, or puff-pastry wrapped camembert or salmon … except ours, of course, vegetalien) and we had a lovely conversation with our neighbor about literature and traveling in the desert of the southwest U.S. And then the main course … for us a ring of rice, surrounded by some stewed tomatoes and carrots. I had no desire for the hunk of beef on Nathalie’s plate, but looking at the rest of the table's quite substantial plates of food I did wonder if perhaps the idea of being vegan somehow suggests someone who lives on water and oxygen alone. Sometimes I forget, because cooking vegan and gluten free really is so easy, so tasty, and so satisfying, that for people unused to it, it can be a stumper. France, we discovered, has not had quite so many of those world-influences (like Indian) which make vegetarian and veganism more recognizable to the main stream. (Unlike in the U.S., where even in Kaycee, Wyoming there is a Chinese restaurant with veggie options, in France, Chinese seemed to be an all-meat affair.)

At which point I might as well say here, if you are vegan and allergic to wheat, I recommend going to France as a great way to lose weight. It’s a bit ironic to be in a country renowned and fiercely proud of its gastronomy, and not be able to eat a bite of it. But so it goes and honestly there are a million other reasons to go to France, anyway. We pretty quickly realized we would need to figure something out or starve, but it turned out just fine. Thankfully the French love lentils and pre-packaged marinated veggies. We bought containers of cooked lentils, cabbage, beets, etc. at the Mono Prix and mixed them with lettuce and carrots and tomatoes we chopped ourselves. We ate fruit and crackers for breakfast and salad for lunch and dinner, with some hummus. (We did get falafel twice … and fries a couple times, which, by the way, are called ‘American Potatoes’ because, god damn it, those fried potatoes are definitely NOT French. That was something to miss about the UK, the home of very cheap fried potatoes). I have to admit that after my initial disappointment over not fulfilling that age-old fantasy of eating bread and cheese with red wine on a bridge overlooking the Seine … I felt quite healthy! In fact I’d like to eat salad a bit more often here at home!

Back to the restaurant: There was, after all, a lovely lime sorbet for desert!

That night we walked back to the hotel and the town was much quieter than the night before. We managed not to get lost in the strange tangled narrow streets around the Capitole. I went to bed without re-reading my essay … hoping that I wasn’t going to embarrass myself the next day. And we watched an American movie on TV, in French, for a half hour or so before falling asleep. Amazing how little words matter in an action film.

We made up our own.
“Robert, you schmuck, I’m on to you.”
“Come on Al, everyone knows you’re a poser. Try this bread, it's quite good.”
“Don’t change the subject. You’ve got a bomb in the van outside. I’m going to shoot your kneecaps off.”
I don’t think Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were even on set at the same time.



Very ironic photo Christien took on Saturday of one of the conference posters, trashed and trodden on campus.