Read Online Food Fight by Anne Penketh - Free Book Online

fish restaurant in the old town of Rennes had an open air seafood counter where a young man in an apron and gloves was shucking oysters in the freezing cold.
    “I’ve booked a table for three in the name of Pairkeens.” She Frenchified her last name for the benefit of the maître d’ .
    “ Ah oui , Madame Pairkeens , suivez - moi ,” he said. He gathered together the menus and a wine list. Susan glanced back and saw Marie-Christine extinguishing her cigarette on the pavement, then heard the clicking of her stilettos.
    It was the first time they’d seen each other since the funeral. The ritual kissing greeting was perfunctory. Susan watched her frown deepen as she surreptitiously scanned her outfit while they took off their coats. As usual, she was made to feel that her fashion sense wasn’t up to scratch.
    Jean-Louis, his polo shirt collar turned up in the French way, was seated on Susan’s right, and his wife opposite them. They’d left the children, François-Xavier and Lucie-Anne, at home with a babysitter. She’d always thought there were too many hyphens in that family.
    Minutes later, the table was piled high with an imposing plateau de fruits de mer of crab, oysters, langoustines , prawn and whelks.
    “Well, bon appétit ,” she said. She picked up a mini-spear and wondered whether she had the stomach for a slimy grey-green whelk.
    “ Alors , Suzanne,” said Marie-Christine - Susan had long given up correcting to Soo - san - “tell us about America.”
    Her sister-in-law had made no secret of her lack of interest in her move to Washington. As a Frenchwoman who’d once said she had no need of a passport, she was convinced that her native land was paradise.
    “I bet you don’t have seafood restaurants like this in Washington DC,” stressing the dee see .
    She was obviously expected to reply in the negative.
    “It depends where you go,” she said in as neutral a voice as she could muster, determined not to be goaded. “The food’s okay, actually.”
    “But how can it be? Americans are so fat,” said Marie-Christine, pouting in disapproval. “Obese. Everybody knows the Americans eat nothing but fast food, genetically modified.” She added a dismissive pff !
    Susan felt targeted. “Well, would you believe that every bottle of tomato sauce in the world comes from genetically modified tomatoes? You can’t even escape it in Brittany.”
    Her sister-in-law raised a carefully plucked eyebrow and returned in silence to her dish. Jean-Louis didn’t say anything either. He knew when it was best to keep quiet. Susan noticed he wasn’t serving himself with the expensive Pouilly-Fuissé she’d ordered. He explained that he’d woken with a tummy upset, and kept on disappearing to the loo.
    But Marie-Christine had put Susan on the defensive. As she looked around the restaurant, she noticed that nobody was fat. How did the French do it? They simply had a different attitude towards food. She watched as the family at the table next to theirs was ordering. None of them was asking the waiter to ‘hold’ this or that, like they did in DC.
    Her sister-in-law was sounding off again. “All those GM crops in America, Frankenstein food,” she said. “At least we have Bové here to protect us from the malbouffe .”
    “I have colleagues at DeKripps Europe,” Susan said, reaching for her water, “who consider José Bové MEP to be the symbol of European over-regulation.”
    “ Notre héros ,” Jean-Louis said, gripping his stomach and heading again for the loo.
    “And who else is on our side? Who else is fighting GM food?”
    My daughter for one, Susan thought. But she said: “I think we’ve been through this before. You defend Bové, but why don’t you consider for a change what intensive farming brought to Brittany. It’s called progress.”
    She was struggling to find her words, it had been a while since she’d had to hold down a conversation in French.
    “Those Breton villages you love so much