Cultural Diversity and Mainstream Society:
Elementary School Lunch Menus in France
Rahsaan Maxwell
Department of Political Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Previous versions were presented at the American Political Science Association conference, the
University of Neuchâtel, the University of Pittsburgh and the Association for the Study of
Nationalities conference. Financial support was provided by the Center for European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the US Department of Education and the Berlin
Social Science Research Center (WZB). Research assistance was provided by Katherine Aha,
Eroll Kuhn and Pascale Planeilles. I would like to thank Keith Banting, Irene Bloemraad,
Rafaela Dancygier, Michaela DeSoucey, Felix Germain, Elie Michel, Anna Skarpelis, Florian
Stoeckel and Tania Zittoun for helpful comments on previous drafts.
ABSTRACT
One of the biggest questions facing contemporary European nation-states is how to
integrate cultural diversity into the national community. Immigration, Europeanization and globalization are changing the demographic and cultural landscape of Europe, forcing a re- evaluation of mainstream culture. I examine the interaction between cultural diversity and mainstream culture by analyzing which influences are present in French elementary school lunches. Food is a good lens for charting broader cultural trends because it is central to national identity. In addition, French school lunches are a good measure of mainstream culture because they are a self-conscious way in which society reproduces French-ness. I analyze data from school lunch menus and in-depth interviews in case studies of eight municipalities across two regions of France. My results indicate that while French culture is the dominant influence on elementary school lunches, foreign influences are present and part of the regular menu rotation.
Yet, the main foreign influences are a limited set of countries and for the most part, a limited set of specific dishes. This suggests that French mainstream culture has opened to cultural diversity in a narrow way, which has implications for our understanding of gastronomy, multiculturalism, and the maintenance of national culture.
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INTRODUCTION
One of the biggest questions facing contemporary Europe is how to handle cultural
diversity. Maintaining unity amidst diversity has always been a central challenge for nation-
states (Hobsbawm 2012), but the situation is particularly acute today as cultural diversity from
immigration, Europeanization and globalization forces Europeans to re-evaluate the foundations and boundaries of national communities (Bail 2008). This may lead to a cosmopolitan era in which Europeans embrace universal human commonalities and live in harmony with diverse cultures (Beck and Grande 2007). However, there is also a strong backlash against cultural
diversity, fueling a resurgence of Far-Right populist political parties across Europe (Berezin
2009). In one of the most dramatic examples of backlash, British citizens voted in the 2016
‘Brexit’ referendum to leave the European Union, largely because of concerns over immigration
and a desire to exercise greater control over borders and their national culture (Clarke, Goodwin
and Whiteley 2017).
In this article I focus on how cultural diversity functions in mainstream French culture.
France is a good case because it is one of the most politically, socially and economically
globalized countries in the world and has a long history of welcoming diverse immigrants
(Noiriel 1988).1 France is also strongly attached to historical national traditions and is resistant
to rapid cultural change (Gordon and Meunier 2001). For example, France has the largest
Muslim community in Western Europe but public displays of Islam are taboo and highly
politicized (Bowen 2008; Laurence 2012). In addition, France stands out among European
countries of immigration as being one of the most insistent that immigrants adopt host country
cultural norms as a prerequisite for participation in mainstream society (Favell 1998). Moreover,
foreign chains like McDonalds and Starbucks are popular with the French masses but France is
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also a European center of social movements against examples of globalization that threaten
traditions.2 In short, the struggle to manage cultural diversity is particularly salient in France.
My specific research question is which cultural influences are present in French
elementary school lunches. Food is a good lens for charting broader cultural trends because it is
central to national identity (DeSoucey 2016; Ichijo and Ranta 2016). The relationship between
food, identity and mainstream culture is especially strong in France, where gastronomy is a key
source of national pride (DeSoucey 2010; Ferguson 2004), and a crucial tool for drawing cultural
boundaries (Rao, Monin and Durand 2005). Analyzing gastronomy is therefore a hard test of
how France is accepting cultural diversity, because it is so important for identity and pride.
My results indicate that French culture is the dominant influence on elementary school
lunches, accounting for between 65 and 100 percent of the menu items across courses and across
the municipalities in my sample. Foreign cultural influences are also present and are part of the
standard menu rotation. Yet, the main foreign influences are a limited set of countries (Italy,
North Africa, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the US) and for the most part, a limited set of
specific dishes. This suggests that French mainstream culture – as measured by elementary
school lunches – has opened to cultural diversity in a narrow way.
This article makes several contributions. First, my analysis of school lunches offers a
new way of analyzing gastronomy that is particularly useful for understanding French
mainstream culture. In most countries, school lunches are designed to provide students with
enough calories to support classroom learning. In France, school lunches have the broader
mission of teaching children how to eat and, more generally, how to be French. French school
lunches are a good measure of mainstream culture because they are a self-conscious way in which society reproduces French-ness.
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My focus on school lunches complements existing research on the relationship between food and identity in French restaurants and supermarkets (Fantasia 1995; Maxwell and
DeSoucey 2016; Rao, Monin and Durand 2003; Wright and Annes 2013). Restaurants often receive attention as sites for new multicultural French identities to develop, as there is evidence that cultural diversity is increasingly accepted in niche, cutting-edge, high-end French restaurants
(Gollner 2016). However, those types of restaurants are a narrow slice of French culture while school lunches offer a broader view of how diversity functions in mainstream French culture.
A second contribution is to anchor debates about multiculturalism in a specific cultural field. Most research on how multiculturalism is challenging European nation-state unity focuses on how European laws and policies deal with cultural diversity (Koopmans et al. 2005; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010), but does not explore how cultural diversity operates in daily life. This is an unfortunate omission because legal and policy debates may engage important principles while being out of touch with cultural trends in the population. Therefore, I offer insight on what diversity means for daily life in France by exploring which cultural influences are present in school lunches. In doing so, I build on recent calls to examine cultural diversity and cosmopolitanism as an everyday life practice (Beck 2014).3 Moreover, I situate the everyday practice of school lunch in a broader cultural field, by analyzing how the institution of French public schools produces mainstream culture in its efforts to teach students how to be French.
Finally, I bring insight from the production of culture literature to ongoing debates about whether and how modern nation-states will retain coherence in the midst of cultural diversity
(Bloemraad, Korteweg and Yurdakul 2008; Bonikowski 2016; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010).
Research on the production of culture highlights several facets of how culture is created and distributed, including technology and the market (Peterson 1976; Peterson and Anand 2004).
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Technology is relevant for understanding the narrow range of foreign influences because
elementary schools must provide low-cost meals under significant logistical constraints, which limits the amount of pantry items (and therefore the range of possible flavors and cultural influences). Market-place dynamics also provide insight on the limited foreign influences because school lunches must appeal to the consumer (students). Therefore, menu designers tend to limit themselves to influences they believe are already part of mainstream culture for the
students.
Yet, the content of school lunches is not purely determined by structural conditions.
Menu designers also act as cultural entrepreneurs (DiMaggio 1982). In fact, a primary goal for
school lunch menu designers is to modify existing mainstream culture and teach the next
generation of French people a better way of eating than what is commonly practiced outside of
school. The combination of structural limitations on diversity and a desire to expose students to
new things creates a school lunch culture in which diversity is judiciously incorporated in small
doses but the dominant culture retains its central position. Overall, my analysis shows how
nation-state culture retains coherence by relying on cultural hierarchies that limit access to
mainstream society for foreign influences (Bourdieu 1994).
CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND IDENTITY IN FRANCE AND ACROSS EUROPE
The challenge of incorporating diversity into mainstream culture is not unique to
contemporary France and has been one of the central projects of the nation-state since its
development in the 18th and 19th centuries (Hobsbawm 2012; Weber 1976). However, the
6 challenge is particularly acute now because of three recent trends: immigration from outside of
Europe, Europeanization, and globalization.
Prior to WWII, cultural diversity in Europe was primarily from people with origins in neighboring European countries. The mixing of populations across neighboring borders was not always peaceful, but the cultural distance was relatively minor as most groups shared similar religions, languages and phenotypes. After WWII, large numbers of immigrants arrived from all over the world, which has dramatically changed the demographic and cultural composition of
European societies (Alba and Foner 2015). Non-European-origin minorities are an increasingly important part of European demography (Carr 2006), and are increasingly influencing European popular culture, including music, sports, fashion, fast food, and school lunches (Chrisafis 2015).
Yet, non-European-origin minorities are often marginalized in Europe (Maxwell 2016), and it remains to be seen how European nation-states will integrate cultural influences from these immigrant groups.
Europeanization (most notably via the European Union) is another way in which nation- state cultures are being challenged. The European Union was designed to facilitate demographic, economic, political and cultural exchanges across Europe and build a more robust pan-European society (Beck and Grande 2007; Risse 2010). Companies are increasingly organized across multiple countries so careers (and life trajectories) are more likely to develop on a European scale (Favell 2008; Recchi 2008). Consumer products are less likely to be customized for a specific national market and more likely to take influences from multiple
European countries as a way of appealing to a pan-European market (Delanty and Rumford
2005). In addition, economic integration means that people can now buy the same products on every main street and in every shopping mall across Europe (Fligstein 2008). In many respects,
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Europeanization is forcing a re-conceptualization of what it means to have a mainstream nation-
state culture.
The third challenge is globalization, which involves many of the same dynamics as
Europeanization, but on a global scale. Increased global travel, global communication, and
global consumer markets circulate cultural influences around the world at an unprecedented
speed (Featherstone 1990; Miller 2008). These dynamics also create a new globalized culture
that combines elements from nation-states across the globe (Pieterse 2015). Therefore, global
cultural influences are yet another challenge to the mainstream national culture.
HOW DOES CULTURAL DIVERSITY RELATE TO MAINSTREAM NATIONAL
CULTURE?
Existing literature suggests three ways in which cultural diversity may relate to the
mainstream national culture. One possibility is that mainstream national cultures will
marginalize and minimize the new forms of cultural diversity. This argument assumes that
challenges to the integrity and coherence of the nation-state are overstated (Holton 2011; Sassen
1996). Europeans may be increasingly likely to have origins outside their country of residence
(or outside of Europe) but if they want to be accepted they usually need to conform to pre- existing national cultural norms (Brouard and Tiberj 2005). Even highly-educated Europeans face significant cultural barriers in other European countries when they are not familiar with the subtleties of the local national culture (Favell 2008). Moreover, research suggests that globalization and diverse cultural influences are always filtered through local cultural
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understandings (Eade 1997). These arguments generate the first hypothesis (H1): mainstream
French culture has minimal foreign influences.
A second possibility is that the new sources of cultural diversity are taking over
mainstream European society. This could be because immigrant-origin communities – from
Europe and across the globe – are a growing percentage of the population, especially in the large
urban cities and capitals where popular culture is formed (Alba and Foner 2015; Carr 2006). In
addition, a wide array of cultural influences is now the norm in European societies and people
are increasingly accustomed to living in a state of ‘super-diversity’ (Vertovec 2007). Therefore, even if native-origin individuals are still the majority of the population, European societies may have reached a tipping point where mainstream culture is no longer defined by the historical majority. Instead, European nation-states may become new explicitly-multicultural societies with an infinite number of new cultural fusions in the public sphere (Beck and Grande 2007;
Faist 2009, Meissner and Vertovec 2015; Risse 2010). These arguments lead to the second hypothesis (H2): diverse foreign influences are a standard part of mainstream French culture.
A final possibility is that cultural diversity is splintering European societies and there is no longer one mainstream national culture. This is based on the notion that cultural diversity in
Europe has developed to the point where people may adhere to localized cultural norms and practices and there is no more national unity (Pieterse 2015). Heterogeneity has always been a feature of European nation-states, but the current fragmentation may be different (and more divisive) because it involves so many foreign cultures from around the world. Therefore, many wonder if immigrants have created permanently-segregated parallel societies within Europe
(Joppke 2004; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010). In addition, the nation-state may be a weaker source of identity than sub-national regions or cities, where specific demographic patterns and
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economic activities create distinctive cultural traditions (Holmes 2010). These trends suggest the
third hypothesis (H3): mainstream French culture varies according to local demographics.
To get more specific about which local demographics should matter most, evidence
suggests that cultural diversity is most valued in the cosmopolitan cities with large shares of
highly-educated and immigrant-origin residents (Favell 2008; Rössel 2015). Education is
important because existing literature finds that individuals with higher levels of education are
more receptive to a range of cultural influences beyond their national borders. This is because
education teaches people to be open-minded but also because highly-educated elites are more likely to travel internationally and have professional and social contacts from diverse national cultures (Bennett et al. 2009). Immigrant origins are important because those people are more
likely to live international lives and existing research finds that people with international
experiences are more likely to embrace cultural diversity (Beck 2006; Favell 2008; Rössel 2015).
This suggests the following two sub-hypotheses. (H3a): mainstream French culture has more foreign influences in places where there are more foreign residents. (H3b): mainstream French culture has more foreign influences in places there are more highly-educated residents.
CASE SELECTION: FRENCH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LUNCHES
French school lunches are a particularly useful way of examining the relationship between cultural diversity and mainstream culture because the lunches are designed to teach children how to be French. French school lunch programs have their origins in the late 19th
century when elementary school education became obligatory and free for all children. Prior to
the late 19th century, school attendance was irregular and uneven across the country so there was
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little systematic organization of lunch during the school day. However, once elementary school
became mandatory, there were more children in school for more hours, and it was necessary to
construct cafeterias with purpose-built kitchens and dining rooms (Gunderson 2003; Weber
1976). At first the new school lunch programs developed unevenly across the country because
they were organized locally. Even in the mid-20th century, most elementary schools in France
still did not have facilities to serve lunch, and even in schools that served lunch, children were
often malnourished because of limited resources to buy and prepare food and inadequate
knowledge of nutrition among school administrators (Chachignon 1993).
Improving French school lunches became a significant social and political issue in the
years after World War II and by the 1970s a national school lunch program emerged, due to three
main factors. A series of regulations provided national standards for nutrition, sanitary
conditions, and financial accessibility to all students (although the organization and administration of school lunches remained under the control of municipal governments).
Technological developments made it easier to prepare meals on a scale large enough to serve all the children in every municipality.4 Finally, advancements in the science of nutrition increased
awareness of what types of food to serve (Chachignon 1993).
At a basic level, the educational mission of French school lunches teaches children to eat
a nutritionally-balanced meal. Relatively-strict government regulations outline the nutritional
components that should be present in each school lunch, as well as how to balance various meal
components over the course of several weeks.5 French schools do occasionally offer indulgent treats (e.g. French fries, ice cream or chicken nuggets), but only once every few weeks, and snack foods like sodas and potato chips are never allowed in French cafeterias (Conrad 2016; Le
Billon 2012).6
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School lunches teach children how to be French by serving menu items from the
traditional French gastronomical canon. French school children regularly eat beef bourguignon,
ratatouille, veal ragout, endive salad, or fish in butter sauce with vegetables, all of which are also
served at upscale bistros or restaurants across the country.7 Serving these dishes connects
French children to the broader national culture and in a way that is designed to avoid (or
minimize) influences from global fast food culture that children may be exposed to outside of
school (Stengel 2012). The French government explicitly states that a central goal of school
lunches is to fight against the deleterious effects of contemporary media influences on the
historical traditions and values of French cuisine.8 Therefore, school lunches are served in the
traditional French format of several courses: a starter, then a main course with side dishes,
followed by a cheese course and then dessert.9 French schools also give students ample time (60
to 90 minutes for the lunch break, with a legally required minimum of 30 minutes eating time) to
consume lunch at a relaxed pace.10 This broadens the concept of lunch to include socializing
with friends and taking part in the general French culture of ‘the table’ (Druckerman 2012).
French elementary school lunches are also a good indicator of mainstream culture
because they are the result of compromises and negotiations among a broad range of actors. The
elementary school menu design process begins with dietitians and/or the food service providers.
Depending on the locality, some schools work with large food service companies (e.g. Sodexo or
Siresco) who provide the meals ready-made, have dietitians on staff, and design menus entirely
in-house. Other municipalities hire independent dietitians to consult with whoever is cooking the lunches (whether food service companies or kitchen staff in the schools). Yet other localities have chefs in the school who design the lunch menus by themselves.
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Once the lunch menus are designed (usually in one, two or three-month blocks), there is a
consultation process that involves the dietitian, the food service provider, the chef, the people
who serve food to the students, the local politicians in charge of educational affairs, school
administrators and parents. The goal from these consultations is to get input from a wide range
of actors who might have insight into what the kids are likely to eat and to voice any concerns.
Major changes do not often come from these consultation processes, as the people who design
the menus are the professionals with the most expertise and the people who are the most invested
in the process. However, the consultation process is an opportunity to raise issues (e.g. needing
more local food or more organic food) that can be taken into account for future menu design. In
addition, approval from the municipal government is an important symbol because the municipal
government funds elementary school lunch programs and is in charge of ensuring that the school
lunch program fits with the broader government goal of teaching children how to be French. All of this collaboration by multiple actors (with the intention of teaching students how to be French) makes elementary school lunches an excellent indicator of mainstream French culture.
RESEARCH DESIGN
I limit my focus to elementary school lunches in public schools. I focus on public (as opposed to private) schools because they are part of the French state and therefore a better indicator of mainstream French culture. I focus on elementary schools (as opposed to middle schools or high schools) because elementary school lunch programs are organized at the municipal level and all elementary schools in the same municipality have the same lunch menu.
In comparison, middle and high school lunch programs are organized by individual schools. The
13 municipal-level organization of elementary school lunches has two practical advantages. First, I can use publically-available data to track how the composition of school lunches may vary according to the demographic characteristics of a municipality, which is essential for evaluating whether cultural diversity operates differently in municipalities with different demographics. For middle schools and high schools I would need data (not publically available) on the demographic composition of each school. Second, data availability is generally much better for elementary school menus because municipalities have updated websites and archival services who tend to keep (relatively) good records. Middle school and high school lunches are organized separately by each school and archiving menus is not a priority for most schools.
At the time of writing there were 47,473 public elementary schools in France. Analyzing menus from each of these schools was not feasible, in part because it is necessary to analyze several months of menus to get a meaningful sense of the cultural range of menu offerings in any one school.11 Therefore, I select a sample of schools based on the demographic characteristics of the municipality (identified by H3a and H3b) that should correlate with openness to cultural diversity: levels of education and foreign origins. I measure education by the percentage of residents with a post-secondary education and I measure foreign origins by the percentage of the population under age 15 without French citizenship.12
I use these two criteria to select eight municipalities in a two-stage process. At a minimum, I need four municipalities: one with a high percentage of residents with post- secondary education and a high percentage without French citizenship, one with a low percentage of residents with post-secondary education and a low percentage without French citizenship, one with a high percentage of post-secondary education but low percentage without
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French citizenship, and one with a low percentage of post-secondary education but high
percentage without French citizenship.
However, municipalities are embedded in regional cultures. For example, a municipality
with high levels of French citizenship and low levels of education could nonetheless have
significant foreign cultural influences if it is in a very cosmopolitan region. Conversely, a
municipality with more foreign residents and high levels of education might have limited foreign
cultural influences if it is in a region that is not very cosmopolitan. To address the possibility
that local demographics may be relevant at the municipal and/or the regional level, I first select
two regions based on regional levels of education and percent foreign residents.
‘Figure 1 about here’
Figure 1 plots French regions according to the two demographic dimensions and indicates
that the Île-de-France by far and away has the largest percentage of educated residents and also
has the largest percentage of residents without French citizenship. Île-de-France is the region
surrounding Paris and is the most international and cosmopolitan of all French regions. There
are several regions in the lower left quadrant of figure 1, with lower than average percentages of
foreign residents and lower than average percentages of residents with post-secondary education.
I select Lower Normandy because it is slightly lower than the other regions on both dimensions.
Lower Normandy is a rural agricultural region on the northwest coast of France; it does not attract many immigrants and does not have the dynamic knowledge-economy industries of the
Paris region.
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Within Île-de-France and Lower Normandy I select specific municipalities according to
the level of education and percent foreign residents in their population. Île-de-France has 1,301 municipalities but I limit my focus to those with at least 10,000 inhabitants as a practical way of simplifying the selection process and because these ‘larger’ municipalities are more likely to have regularly-updated websites with lunch menus. In addition, smaller municipalities often do not have their own elementary schools and are in school districts that combine several small municipalities. Lower Normandy has 1,812 municipalities but most of them are extremely small.13 With a threshold of at least 10,000 inhabitants there are not enough municipalities in
Lower Normandy to fill the four required cells of different levels of education and percent
foreign residents. Therefore, in Lower Normandy I use a threshold of at least 5,000 inhabitants.
Table 1 presents descriptive information on the eight municipalities selected for my study.14
‘Table 1 about here’
In the Île-de-France, Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry is the case with a low percentage of
educated residents and a low percentage of foreign residents. Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry is a small municipality roughly 30 miles south of Paris, on the Seine river. It includes a small central village (Saint-Fargeau) surrounded by smaller outlying hamlets. In contrast, the 10th
arrondissement of Paris is the largest of the four municipalities with over 94,000 residents. In
recent years the 10th arrondissement has become a very lively, fashionable, and multicultural
arrondissement, and has relatively high percentage of educated residents as well as a high
percentage of foreign residents.
The mixed cases are Clichy-sous-Bois and Voisins-le-Bretonneux. Clichy-sous-Bois is a poor suburb (with a low percentage of educated residents) roughly 10 miles northeast of Paris.
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Clichy-sous-Bois became famous around the world as the location where violent riots began in
2005, before spreading across the country and lasting for almost two months. With its large
foreign-origin population and ongoing structural challenges (it does not have a railway station or
a major automobile route) Clichy-sous-Bois is often considered a classic example of a
disadvantaged Parisian suburb (Crumley 2012). Voisins-le-Bretonneux is a small municipality
roughly 15 miles southwest of Paris with a small urban center surrounded by forests. Voisins-le-
Bretonneux has a high percentage of educated residents and a low percentage of foreign
residents.
In Lower Normandy, Dives-sur-Mer is the case with a low percentage of educated
residents and a low percentage of foreign residents. Dives-sur-Mer is a small coastal town on the
English Channel, with a port and an important leisure and tourist economy connected to the
beach. In contrast, Caen was the capital of Lower Normandy (and is currently the capital of the
new-combined Normandy region) and is the case with a high percentage of educated residents and a high percentage of foreign residents.
The two mixed cases in Lower Normandy are L’Aigle and Douvres-la-Délivrande.
L’Aigle is a small municipality in the middle of Lower Normandy, 60 miles from the coast near the regional natural park of Perche. L’Aigle has a low percentage of educated residents and a relatively-high percentage of foreign residents. Finally, Douvres-la-Délivrande is a small municipality between Caen and the coast. It has a relatively-high percentage of educated residents and very few foreign residents.
Note that the percentage of educated residents and the percentage of foreign residents are generally higher in the Île-de-France as opposed to Lower Normandy, as one would expect given
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the logic for selecting these two regions. Nonetheless, within each region there is considerable
variation across the specific municipal case studies.
DATA
I use two main sources of data. The first is a database of school lunch menus collected
by the author. This provides an overview of what types of foods are present in French
elementary schools. The second source of data is interviews with 25 dietitians, food service
providers, politicians, local government bureaucrats, school administrators and parents who
approve the lunch menus. The interviews provide insight on why the various menu items were
chosen and how they fit into contemporary French culture.15
I collect lunch menus primarily from the website of each city government, where they are posted as public information.16 I began a trial run of data collection for Île-de-France in spring
2016, and collected all available menus for the first half of 2016 (from January through summer recess in the first week of July). In fall 2016, I added Lower Normandy and collected all available menus from both regions for the 2016-2017 school year.17 Table 2 lists the months for
which I obtained menus from each municipality.18
‘Table 2 about here’
CODING STRATEGY
I begin by coding the main national reference for each menu item. My definition of a menu item follows the lead of the lunch menus, which itemizes the distinct courses (starter, main
18 course, side, cheese, dessert). However, at times there are two options for a single course (e.g. two salad options for the starter, or a pork and a fish option for the main course), and in those cases I code each option as a distinct item. Sometimes the main course will have the side dish incorporated into it (e.g. hachis parmentier, where the meat and potato are baked together). In those cases the menus will not list a distinct side dish and I code the main dish as one item. In addition, the snack (goûter) course often involves multiple items (e.g. fruit, bread with jam, juice, or chocolate). I code bread with jam as one menu item because the two ingredients are connected, but otherwise I code the multiple items separately.
To code the main national reference, I follow the same methodology used in
(REFERENCE OMITTED) and focus on the central element in each item. For example, items like quiche, omelets, crêpes, and vegetables with vinaigrette are always coded as French, regardless of their specific ingredients or spices. Similarly, pasta and pizza are always coded as
Italian, and couscous and tabbouleh are always coded as North African. Spices or additional ingredients are treated differently from the central element, and if there is a prominent disjuncture between the central and the secondary elements, I capture that by coding a separate category for secondary influences. Under this system, cucumber salad with vinaigrette and curry is coded as a French item, with a secondary influence from India. The vinaigrette salad is a clear historical French tradition, so it would be misleading to code it as an Indian item. However, there is also a clear Indian influence, best expressed as a secondary influence. In contrast, main dishes such as fish, beef or pork ‘with curry sauce’ are coded as Indian because those main proteins in and of themselves do not denote clear historical French traditions.
I use a combination of country and broader regional categories because not all products can be clearly associated with one specific country. Most prominently, couscous and tabbouleh
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are historically identified with multiple North African countries. Dishes like créole rice,
colombo and giromonade are coded as Caribbean because they are associated with multiple
Caribbean islands or countries.19 Admittedly, one could claim that dishes from French Guiana,
Guadeloupe and Martinique (all French departments) are just as French as dishes from Brittany
or Provence. However, I code ‘Caribbean’ as a foreign influences because of the distinction
between metropolitan France and overseas departments, which are not always treated in practice
as fully French. There are also several items described as having ‘asian’ or ‘oriental’ sauces that
I code as East Asian, because it is not possible to be more precise.
This coding system attempts to be as clean and simple as possible by relying on the
central element in each item, but inevitably there are ambiguities as many items contain multiple
cultural influences.20 This is most often an issue for pizza and pasta dishes, because these Italian
staples have entered the global food lexicon with local variants that blend influences from
multiple countries and cultural traditions (Capatti et al. 2003). For example, in the French school
lunches, pizza or pasta may be topped with chèvre (French goat cheese), which is a fusion of
foreign (Italian) and local (French) traditions and tastes. There are also creative international
pasta dishes with influences beyond Italy or France, such as pasta salad with cocktail sauce and
pasta with curry (both served as starters in Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry). Yet, I code all pizza and pasta as Italian to avoid inconsistencies about which preparations are authentically Italian and which are not.21
My coding attempts to be clean and simple, but inevitably there are subjective decisions
because of the complexities of how cuisine develops. On one level, French cuisine has always
prided itself on an ability to assimilate foreign influences, which raises the question of whether
one can pinpoint the moment that something has passed from being foreign to French. However,
20 part of this process involves changing (and presumably improving) the foreign dishes through assimilation into French techniques and repertoires (Ferguson 2004). Therefore, I code dishes as
French if they are currently understood as being in the French tradition.
In addition, many dishes develop simultaneously in multiple regions. For example, cabbage salad has origins in several countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, the US, the
UK and various Northern and Eastern European countries. Yet I code ‘coleslaw’ as a US influence because the English word coleslaw is used, as opposed to the French salade de chou, or the German krautsalat. I do not code it as a UK influence because research suggests that the dish (and the word) entered the UK via American influence (Davidson 2014: 207). The fact of multiple culinary origins suggests that different chefs, servers, and students may attach different cultural associations to any given menu item, and I cannot account for those multiple possible subjective perceptions. Instead, I attempt to identify the dominant cultural origins, with as much consistency in the process as possible.
One could argue that some items coded as French are actually universal or culturally generic, such as rice, fruit, fruit juice, or yogurt. Therefore, another option would have been to create a separate ‘generic’ category for these items. However, that would require more subjective (and inevitably idiosyncratic) judgments about which items have been traditionally eaten in France but also elsewhere and which items have been traditionally eaten only in France.
Therefore, I opt for the simpler and cleaner strategy of coding explicitly foreign influences as foreign, and the rest as French.
Finally, relying on menus may cause me to miss various subtle ways in which foreign cultural influences appear in school lunches. Chefs may use various cooking styles that are inspired by foreign cultural traditions (e.g. using a Chinese wok to cook French ingredients) but
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not noted on the menus. In addition, chefs may add spices, oils, vinegars, herbs or other flavoring
agents that reflect foreign cultures but do not appear on the menus. These dynamics are all
possible but the extent of these subtle influences is likely to be minimal. The strong sense of
pride about French historical gastronomical traditions means that even small examples of foreign
influence are likely to be highlighted and noted as distinct on the menus. In addition, during my
interviews, subjects noted the logistical challenges of managing ingredient stocks. Whether the
lunches are prepared on-site in a small school kitchen or off-site in a large industrial kitchen and then delivered pre-prepared to the school, there is the same challenge of purchasing materials that are going to be used regularly. There is no room in the budget for an endless array of cooking equipment, spices, oils or vinegars that are only used sporadically.
Therefore, while I cannot claim to measure the precise cultural origins of every inspiration that goes into the school lunches, the menus provide a roadmap of how French elementary schools present their cuisine. As such, my coding of menus offers an overview of which cultural influences are present in French elementary school lunches.
RESULTS: THE EXTENT OF FOREIGN CULTURAL INFLUENCES
Table 3 provides an overview of the extent to which foreign influences are present across
the eight municipalities. French influences are the overwhelming majority in each of the
municipalities, ranging from 82 to 90 percent of the menu items. This is initial evidence in
support of H1 as it suggests that foreign cultural influences are marginal and French influences
dominate the elementary school lunches.
22
H3 suggests that French influences should be higher in Lower Normandy as opposed to
the Île-de-France, and within each region French influences should be higher in municipalities with low educated and small foreign populations. The percentages of French influences are slightly higher in Lower Normandy (an average of 87.2 percent compared to 85.0 percent in Île-
de-France). Yet, that is a very small difference, especially given the fact that these two regions
are polar opposites in terms of demographic composition. Therefore, the regional differences are
not strong support for H3. Moreover, within each region there is also limited support for H3.
The smallest French influence (according to H3) should be in the municipalities with highly-
educated and large foreign populations. This is (barely) true in Lower Normandy but not the
case in the Île-de-France. The largest French influence should be in the municipalities with low- educated and small foreign populations, but that is not the case in either region. In the Île-de-
France, the largest French influence is in the municipality (Paris 10th arrondissement) with the
highest-educated and largest-foreign population, the demographic composition that should lead to the smallest French influence. In short, table 3 does not provide support for H3.
‘Table 3 about here’
An alternate possibility is that local demographics matter for the cultural influences on school lunches, but in ways other than the percentage of highly-educated and foreign residents.
For example, one might imagine that the political affiliation of the municipal government matters, because cities with left-wing governments might be more open to cultural diversity
(Garbaye 2005). However, the data do not support this alternate hypothesis. The municipality with the lowest percentage of French influences (Clichy sous Bois) is governed by Socialists but
23
Caen has the next lowest percentage and is governed by the center-right. The highest percentage
of French influences is in L’Aigle, which is governed by the center right, but immediately
following that is Dives-sur-Mer which is governed by the Communists. Moreover, my
interviews suggest a technocratic approach to menu design, with food service providers and
dietitians exercising the most control. Local government involvement is primarily promoting
general principles (e.g. more organic food) and not selecting specific dishes.
Another possibility is that Île-de-France and Lower Normandy have similar percentages
of French-influenced dishes, but serve different ‘French’ cuisine. Lower Normandy may serve
more regionally-specific dishes and be more connected to Norman as opposed to French nation-
state culture. Yet, there is no evidence that the two regions serve different types of French dishes
and the menus are largely the same. None of my interview subjects in Normandy expressed any interest in promoting a local or regional identity to the students through the lunch program. If anything, the goal of the lunch program (for all municipalities in both regions) was to teach students about the richness of gastronomy, across and beyond France. The one notable difference
across regions is that schools in Normandy are more likely to serve cheeses from Normandy (e.g.
Camembert, Pavé d’Auge, Livarot, or Pont l’Evêque). However, according to two of my
interview subjects in Normandy, even using local cheese is more about supporting local suppliers
than about promoting Norman culture to the students.22
Nonetheless, while there is no evidence of systematic geographic variation in the
percentage of foreign influences, one should not infer that lunches are identical across
municipalities. One notable difference is between schools who can prepare all the meals from
scratch on-site (Dives-sur-Mer) and those that must use delivered meals. Schools with delivered meals have more limits on what they can serve because of necessary health precautions (e.g.
24
many egg dishes are impossible because of the potential for salmonella). Schools with delivered
meals also face limitations in the textures they can present to students (e.g. many dishes do not
retain crispness during the delivery process).23 In comparison, chefs in Dives-sur-Mer have more
freedom. They can take the time to prepare spaghetti Bolognese from scratch with organic meat
and a long-cooked sauce, while the food prep workers who deliver meals to other schools use
frozen meat, cheaper cuts, and a shorter cooking time for their Bolognese.24 However, these
differences (in quality or style) do not challenge my analysis of cultural origins, because each
municipality serves spaghetti Bolognese.
A LIMITED RANGE OF GASTRONOMIC CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Results in table 3 suggest that France is the dominant cultural influence on elementary
school lunches, but foreign cultures are a notable minority influence as they account for 10-20
percent of the dishes. Moreover, appendix tables A through H present detailed data on cultural influences for each of the six courses and indicate greater foreign influence on certain stages of the meal. French influences are most dominant for the goûter (ranging from 97 to 100 percent of items across the municipalities), dessert (from 96 to 99 percent) and the cheese course (from 88 to 100 percent). French influences are less prevalent among starters (ranging from 77 to 94 percent of items across the municipalities), main courses (from 67 to 83 percent), and sides (from
78 to 91 percent). France is the top cultural influence for each course, which is consistent with
H1, yet there is an opening to foreign cultures that reaches as much as one third of certain menu categories. This suggests that some aspect of foreign gastronomical culture has become an accepted part of French elementary school lunches, which is consistent with H2.
25
For more detail on the specific foreign cultures represented in French elementary school
lunch menus, tables 4 and 5 indicate each foreign influence and its percentage of the non-French
dishes, across municipalities. There is a wide range of foreign influences, but (with very few
exceptions) the same five are at the top of the list for each municipality: Italy, North Africa, US,
the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Together, these five influences account for 62 to 80 percent of
the foreign-influenced items across municipalities (an average of 69 percent). These are the only
foreign cultures to become part of the consistent monthly menu rotation in each municipality.25
This suggests that mainstream French school lunch culture can integrate foreign influences, but
only a limited set.
‘Table 4 about here’
‘Table 5 about here’
Moreover, even these five influences that are part of mainstream lunch culture across the eight municipalities are represented by a limited range of dishes. Italian influences are the most common foreign culture in each of the municipalities (sometimes reaching close to 50 percent of
foreign items) but 88 percent of Italian dishes are either pasta or pizza. For the North African
dishes, 92 percent are couscous, tajine or tabbouleh.26 The Netherlands and Switzerland are
primarily included in the cheese course. For the Netherlands, 98 percent of dishes are either
Edam or Gouda cheese. For Switzerland, 70 percent of dishes are Emmental cheese.27 In the US
there is a wider range of specific dishes, but most of them (roughly 60 percent) could be
considered junk-food (e.g. burgers, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and desserts).
26
I also coded secondary influences to account for dishes where the primary influence was
one culture but there was another prominent element in the dish from a second culture (e.g.
Italian pasta with Swiss cheese). One main difference between primary and secondary
influences is that there are very few dishes with secondary French influences.28 As seen above,
most dishes are already connected to French culture through the primary influence. Yet, the
limited range of foreign primary influences is consistent with data on secondary influences, as almost 70 percent of the secondary influences come from Italy, the US, the Netherlands or
Switzerland.29 Expanding my analytical range to include secondary influences does not reveal a
significantly broader range of foreign influences on school lunches.
The limited range of foreign influences on school lunches is partially explained by the
structural limitations of producing school lunches. As mentioned earlier, elementary school lunches are prepared in facilities with limited space for storing ingredients that will not be used regularly. Moreover, school lunches have modest budgets of a few euros per child per meal.
Therefore, it is more practical to have a limited range of spices, condiments and pantry items, which in turn limits the range of cultural influences that can be presented. In addition – no
matter how creative the cooks might be with diversifying their ingredient stocks – my interview
subjects claimed that another reason for presenting a limited range of dishes is that students are
more likely to eat dishes that are already a familiar part of mainstream culture. The issue of
familiarity is not just related to foreign influences, because most elementary school students
would also be unlikely to eat the type of experimental modern ‘French’ dishes that are served in
cutting-edge high-end restaurants. Nonetheless, the bias towards familiarity does limit the extent
to which schools can include menu items not already part of mainstream French culture.30
27
Yet, while my interview subjects all admitted a bias towards familiar foods, they also expressed the importance of exposing students to new things, whether vegetables, fruits, or foreign cultural influences that the students might not eat at home. The importance of exposing students to new things was partially to counteract the bad dietary habits (e.g. too much processed, frozen or fast food) that my interview subjects all believed are becoming too common in France.31 In addition, another main goal of the school lunch program is to teach students the joy of eating, which includes appreciating the range of textures and flavors that are present in gastronomical cultures from around the world.32 However, it is striking that the mandate to expose students to the wide range of gastronomy gets reduced to the same narrow set of foreign cultures (and foreign dishes) in each municipality. The similarities are not the result of industry- wide conferences or networks which disseminate best practices and trends for school lunches, because those do not exist.33 Instead, this narrow set of cultural references reflects widespread agreement about what children like to eat,34 which foreign dishes are part of mainstream French culture, and the ongoing dominance of traditional French gastronomic references.
In the following sections, I examine how the five main foreign influences (Italy, North
Africa, US, the Netherlands, and Switzerland) reflect pressures on mainstream French culture that arise from non-European immigration, Europeanization and globalization. I also go into more detail on how the limited inclusion of these influences reflects the maintenance of French mainstream culture amidst increasing cultural diversity.
NORTH AFRICA = COUSCOUS AND TABBOULEH
28
North African items are the main evidence of influence from non-European immigrants.
North Africans are the largest non-European-origin community in France (accounting for
roughly 6 percent of the French population) and have been at the center of debates about
immigrant integration in recent decades (Brouard and Tiberj 2005; Maxwell 2012).35 North
African influences have become part of various aspects of mainstream French culture, including
school lunches where they are on the standard menu rotation and served at least once per month
in each municipality.
In every interview with the people who design school lunch menus, I consistently heard
that couscous and tabbouleh had been served in school lunches for as long as they could
remember (sometimes for more than 20 years) because both dishes are part of the canon of
contemporary French cuisine. This was true across all eight municipalities, including the ones in
Lower Normandy where the local population of North Africans ranges from negligible to non-
existent. Couscous is so popular it has been ranked the country’s favorite dish in opinion polls
(Randall 2006).36 Moreover, according to interviews with food service providers and
government officials in charge of administering school lunch programs, couscous and tabbouleh
are particularly well-suited to the needs of school lunch. Couscous and tabbouleh are popular
with students, filling, easily compatible with a range of meats and vegetables, low-cost, and easy to transport from an off-site kitchen to the schools, all of which make them attractive as a regular school lunch menu item.37
Despite the regular appearance of North African-origin dishes on school lunch menus, they are mostly limited to couscous, tabbouleh and tajine. There are slightly different versions of each dish (e.g. chicken couscous, beef couscous or lamb couscous), but the fact that the main representation from North Africa is three dishes suggests that this non-European immigrant
29
influence is typecast into a very limited frame. Moreover, influences from other non-European
immigrant groups are even rarer. Caribbean influences (mostly créole rice) are 1 percent or less
of the items across the eight municipalities (and are not present at all in Dives-sur-Mer and
L’Aigle). Turkish and Sub-Saharan African influences are always less than 1 percent of the overall menu items, and are limited to one or two dishes that are not part of a regular rotation.38
Vietnamese and other East Asian immigrants are less than 1 percent of the French population
and are almost never represented among foreign influences on school lunches.39
The limited opening to non-European immigrant cultures is especially remarkable given
my research design, which includes Clichy-sous-Bois (where most school children have
immigrant origins and are either black or Arab). Yet even in Clichy-sous-Bois, the percentage of
French, North African, Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African-influenced menu items is the same as in municipalities with very few immigrant-origin children. The fact that menus are not customized to reflect student demographics is part of the broader imperative for French school lunches to teach all children how to be French. During my interviews, employees of the food service provider SIRESCO (which serves 16 Parisian suburbs, most of which are poor and have large immigrant-origin populations) explained that they were conscious of the need to expose students to traditional French dishes they may not eat at home.40 For these SIRESCO employees
it would have been a failure of their job description if they customized school lunches to the
students’ cultures of origin.
NON-EUROPEAN INFLUENCE VIA PORK-FREE HALAL MENUS?
30
The previous section suggests that non-European immigrant cultures have limited
influence on French elementary school menus. Another possibility is that non-European Muslim
immigrants may influence school lunches by mobilizing for pork-free or halal menu options,
even if the dishes are French in cultural origin. However, evidence suggests that halal menu
items are very rare and pork-free menu options are not just about Muslim mobilization.
The issue of whether public school lunches are sufficiently sensitive to Muslim religious needs has become controversial across Europe in recent years (Chrisafis 2015). Some Muslim parents feel their children are discriminated against by being served pork and non-halal meat that their religion forbids them to eat. In response, they have mobilized for pork-free and halal menu options that are consistent with their religious practices. However, very few schools have adopted halal foods.41 Instead, most municipalities (including the eight in my sample) opt for the
compromise of more extensive vegetarian options (Bélier et al. 2015; Le Bars 2012). Vegetarian
options are attractive because they are not targeted at a specific religious community.
My interview subjects consistently acknowledged that they wanted to be sensitive to their
Muslim students but that they could not provide halal food because then they would be obliged
to provide kosher food for Jewish students, and then potentially a customized meal for each
religion. Instead, vegetarian options are a solution that meets demands from a wide range of
students, including people who prefer not to eat meat for reasons un-related to religion (e.g.
health, the environment, or idiosyncratic family traditions). In fact, interview subjects in
Voisins-le-Bretonneux and across Normandy, where there are hardly any Muslim students,
confirm that they too serve vegetarian options because there is demand for such meals from
many kinds of students and parents. In short, there is no evidence of significant non-European
immigrant influence on school lunch in the form of extensive halal or pork-free menu options.
31
EUROPEANIZATION = PASTA, PIZZA AND CHEESE
Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland are the biggest examples of European influence on
French elementary school lunches. The three countries are large countries in close geographic
proximity to France, reflecting a connection to nearby cultures that does not exist for more
distant European countries like Ireland, Norway, Portugal or Greece.
Italy is the largest of all foreign influences (ranging from 2 to 4 percent of all menu items
across municipalities), but is overwhelmingly limited to pasta and pizza dishes.42 These are attractive options for school lunches because they are low-cost and popular among children. In addition, much like with couscous, my interview subjects across municipalities agreed that pasta has become so common in France that children now grow up eating it and do not necessarily view it as a foreign food. In fact, the mainstreaming of pasta and pizza is not just a French trend, it has happened across Europe and even around the world (Capatti et al. 2003). Nonetheless, while the broad appeal of pasta and pizza is evidence that Italian influences have deeply penetrated mainstream French gastronomy, the limited types of influences suggest that mainstream French gastronomy has not deeply explored Italian cuisine.
Influences from the Netherlands and Switzerland appear almost exclusively in the cheese
course.43 The cheese course is a distinctively French way of structuring a meal, but the inclusion
of cheeses from neighboring countries is evidence of being open to other European cultures.
However, given the wide array of high-quality cheeses from countries across Europe, the fact
that only three non-French cheeses (Edam and Gouda from the Netherlands and Emmental from
Switzerland) are on the menus suggests a limited opening. In addition, the fact that these three
32
cheeses are the foreign cheeses in each of the municipalities suggests a consistent logic to this
specific limited opening. According to several of my interview subjects, Edam, Gouda and
Emmental are useful because their mild flavor is popular with the children and they are easy to
cut and deliver ready-to-eat to the schools.44 Edam, Gouda and Emmental are also low-priced
cheeses, which makes them attractive for school lunches on a limited budget.45 However, every
European country produces mild and low-cost cheeses that could fit these criteria. Edam, Gouda and Emmental are standard because they have a long history in France and are already part of mainstream culture, so they are the main foreign cheeses stocked by the large food suppliers who provide raw materials to schools across the country.46 Even in the rare case like Dives-sur-Mer
where lunches are coordinated by chefs in the school and cheeses are mostly obtained through
contracts with local dairy producers, they still buy Swiss Emmental. Edam, Gouda and
Emmental are therefore commonly accepted as foreign cheeses that are part of the French diet,
but that short list is indicative of a very limited perspective on foreign cheese.
GLOBALIZATION = AMERICAN FAST FOOD
The best example of globalization is the US-influenced items. Unlike North African,
Italian, Dutch and Swiss menu items, there is a fairly broad range of US items, including fish and
chicken nuggets, chicken wings, burgers, brownies, donuts, milkshakes, smoothies, coleslaw,
Waldorf salads, and various Southern and Southwest-inspired variations on chili or foods with
barbeque sauce. Therefore, while US-influenced items appear regularly in each of the municipalities, there is no one US-influenced item that consistently appears every few weeks, as was the case with North African couscous or Italian pasta.
33
Although the US-influenced items are numerous, they are also somewhat homogeneous
because they are mostly fast food dishes. This reflects the fact that US culture has become the
dominant force behind global fast food and casual convenience food culture (Inglis and Gimlin
2009).47 This cultural centrality of the US also reflects a limitation of the globalized influences
on French school lunches, because the US is the only country that is consistently represented. In
each municipality there is a smattering of influences from countries around the globe, but these
mostly indicate one or two items that are not part of the consistent menu rotation.
In summary, data in tables 4 and 5 indicate that a range of foreign cultures are present in
French elementary school lunches, with influences from non-European immigration,
Europeanization and globalization. Yet, in each case, this diversity is limited to a narrow set of
countries and dishes.
HAS CULTURAL DIVERSITY INCREASED OVER TIME?
One of the assumptions in this article is that pressures from non-European immigration,
Europeanization, and globalization have intensified in recent years and pushed mainstream
French society to be more inclusive of cultural diversity. To test this assumption, I turn to data
on Clichy-sous-Bois elementary school lunch menus from the 1970s, 80s and 90s.48 Full results
are in appendix table I, but the main result is that French cultural influences were more dominant
in the 1970s, 80s and 90s than they are on contemporary menus. France accounted for over 90
percent of all menu items in Clichy-sous-Bois in the 1970s, 80s and 90s compared to 83 percent
in the 2016-17 data. This suggests that French gastronomy has become more open to foreign
influences over time.
34
The data in appendix table I are also evidence for the growing influence of non-European immigrants and globalization on mainstream French culture. Foreign influences in the 1970s, 80s and 90s were almost entirely from other European countries (primarily Italy and the UK). In comparison, in 2016-17, North Africa and the US are two of the most prominent influences on school lunches in Clichy-sous-Bois (and elsewhere). This is consistent with the broader trend in recent decades of more non-European influence on many aspects of mainstream French society
(Alba and Foner 2015).
DISCUSSION: MAKING SENSE OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN CONTEMPORARY
FRANCE
One of my main findings is that French elementary school lunch menus are primarily based on French culture (H1). There is also evidence that influences from foreign cultures have become a standard part of French elementary school lunches, which is consistent with H2 and suggests that cultural diversity is part of mainstream French society. However, the opening to diversity is a limited set of foreign cultures and dishes.
My results do not support the notion that mainstream French gastronomical culture – as viewed through school lunches – varies according to local demographics (H3). The data in this article are from case studies in eight (out of more than 36,000) municipalities in France, so I cannot claim to capture all possible dimensions of local variation. However, these case studies were carefully selected based on the percentage of their residents that are highly-educated and that have French citizenship, two demographic factors that existing research suggests should be related to the likelihood of embracing cultural diversity. Therefore, consistency of school lunches
35 across these municipalities is especially noteworthy given the fact that school lunches are organized at the municipal level, so there is room for customization of menu items. The similarities across the municipalities suggests there may be a broad national consensus on what dishes are in the contemporary French canon, even in regions with such different demographics as the Île de France and Lower Normandy.
Elementary schools (including lunches) are a key way in which French-ness is transmitted to the next generation. However, they are only one aspect of gastronomical culture.
The perspective on contemporary French cuisine would likely be different if I analyzed menus at restaurants or ethnic or other specialty grocery stores. In particular, recent trends in cutting-edge high-end restaurants (especially in Paris) increasingly engage foreign influences and may be forging a new conception of multicultural French cuisine (Gollner 2016). However, while those elite niche segments of the French population may be very cosmopolitan and accepting of cultural diversity, they do not necessarily represent the broader society. Elementary school lunches are a more useful measure of the trends that have filtered up to mainstream gastronomical culture. Moreover, the main results in this paper (dominant influence from French culture, but a real yet limited presence of cultural diversity) are consistent with those of recent research on mainstream French supermarket products (Maxwell and DeSoucey 2016).
My findings also have implications for debates about how cultural diversity and multiculturalism are challenging the coherence of European nation-states. My analysis suggests that mainstream French culture may remain coherent by judiciously incorporating new influences in ways that are recognizable and compatible with the historical culture. This highlights the durability and the flexibility of mainstream culture, which retains its power by evolving to suit changing circumstances. French elementary school lunches are designed to
36 reflect a mainstream French culture that is rooted in preserving tradition amidst a rapidly- changing world. Yet, the market logic of production for elementary school lunches requires appealing to the students. If French elementary schools did not serve pasta, couscous, hamburgers or chicken nuggets, they would not be doing their job because the students would be dissatisfied and might become uninterested in lunch. To preserve elementary school lunches as an effective tool for teaching French-ness, there is a limited opening to the broader gastronomic world in ways that are also compatible with French traditions. This explains why French elementary school lunches always serve a cheese course, even during special Peruvian or Turkish menus, or on days when couscous is the main course.
My results also raise questions about the future of cultural diversity in mainstream French society. If dishes like pasta and couscous are no longer seen as foreign or exotic by many French people, does that mean they are seen as truly French, or are they something in-between? Is there a difference in the cultural salience of old and new traditions? Comparing menu selections from the 1970s, 80s and 90s with menus from 2016-17 indicates a clear growth in the depth and breadth of cultural diversity over time, but how should we expect that trend to continue? Will elementary school menus expand and include more countries from across Europe and around the world as part of their regular menu rotation. Or will the trend be towards deeper and more detailed exploration of the foreign cultures that are already prominent. In many respects food is a hard case for the integration of cultural diversity in France, given the extreme national pride in traditional French cuisine. It may be easier for foreign cultures to influence music, cinema or television. However, for this reason, it is illuminating to see how the gastronomical boundaries are currently being drawn, and the direction of these developments will shape the future of cultural diversity in the French nation-state.
37
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47
FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1: Selection of regions based on education and citizenship
25 Île-de-France 20 15 10
Lower Normandy Percent post-secondary degree 5 0
0 3 6 9 12 15 Percent foreign
Sources: INSEE, Population Census 2012
Figure 1 plots data from 22 regions according to the 2012 census. As of January 1, 2016, France changed the
administrative borders and reduced the number of regions to 13. Red lines indicate the level of education and
French citizenship among the metropolitan French population: 13.8 percent of the population has a post-secondary
degree and 5.4 percent of the population under the age of 15 does not have French citizenship.
48
Table 1: Sample characteristics
Region Municipality % Post- % Foreign. 2012 Number of
Second. (<15 years Population elementary
Degree old) schools
Île-de- Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry 13.5 (Low) 4.0 (Low) 13,170 5
France Clichy-sous-Bois 5.0 (Low) 32.8 (High) 30,720 13
Voisins-le-Bretonneux 40.2 (High) 1.3 (Low) 11,470 6
Paris – 10th arrond. 43.8 (High) 18.4 (High) 94,474 16
Lower Dives-sur-Mer 4.0 (Low) 0.4 (Low) 5,867 1
Normandy L’Aigle 5.8 (Low) 6.6 (High) 7,940 2
Douvres-la-Délivrande 15.9 (High) 0.3 (Low) 5,072 1
Caen 20.2 (High) 5.5 (High) 108,365 27
Sources: INSEE, Population Census 2012
In metropolitan France as a whole, 13.8 percent of the population has a post-secondary degree and 5.4 percent of the
population under the age of 15 does not have French citizenship.
49
Table 2: Menu coverage
Region Municipality Menu coverage Île-de- Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry Jan-June 2016, Sept-Dec 2016, Feb-June 2017 France Clichy-sous-Bois Jan, Feb, April, May, June, Sept, Oct, Nov 2016 March, April, June 2017 Voisins-le-Bretonneux March–June 2016, Sept-Dec 2016, Jan-June 2017 Paris – 10th arrond. Jan–June 2016, Sept-Dec 2016, Jan-June 2017
Lower Dives-sur-Mer Sept-Dec 2016, Jan-June 2017 Normandy L’Aigle Sept-Dec 2016, Jan-June 2017 Douvres-la-Délivrande Sept-Dec 2016, Jan-June 2017 Caen Sept-Dec 2016, Jan-June 2017
50
Table 3: Percent of menu items with French influence, across municipalities
Île-de-France Small foreign population Large foreign population
High educated population 85.8% 86.5%
Voisins-le-Bretonneux (n=1,128) Paris 10th (n=1,328)
Low educated population 85.7% 81.8%
Saint-Fargeau-P. (n=1,702) Clichy-sous-Bois (n=1,379)
Lower Normandy
High educated population 85.3% 83.2%
Douvres-la-Délivrande (n=511) Caen (n=540)
Low educated population 90.2% 90.3%
Dives-sur-Mer (n=604) L’Aigle (n=559)
Note: Data in table 3 exclude cheese and goûter courses. Goûter menu data is only available for Saint-
Fargeau-Ponthierry, Voisins-le-Bretonneux, and Paris 10th arrondissement. Cheese menu data is only listed as
‘cheese’ (‘fromage’) with no further specification of type or national origins for all cheese courses in L’Aigle and for most cheese courses in Dives-sur-Mer. Nonetheless, including cheese courses for the other six municipalities does not change the results. For those municipalities, the percentage of menu items with French influences including cheese courses are within two percentage points of the figures presented in table 3: Caen 84.4, Clichy-sous-Bois
83.3, Douvres-la-Délivrande 86.8, Paris 87.2, Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry 87.1, Voisins-le-Bretonneux 87.0.
51
Table 4: Foreign cultural influences (as percent of non-French dishes) in Île-de-France
Saint-Fargeau Clichy-sous-Bois Voisins-le-Bretonneux Paris 10th Ponthierry arrondissement Origin Percent Origin Percent Origin Percent Origin Percent Italy 21.3 Italy 23.6 Italy 29.0 Italy 29.7 US 17.9 Netherlands 12.0 North Africa 15.6 North Africa 12.7 Netherlands 16.1 US 11.3 USA 11.3 India 7.1 Caribbean 9.0 Switzerland 9.4 Switzerland 8.6 Switzerland 7.1 Switzerland 7.7 North Africa 7.4 Netherlands 7.0 Netherlands 6.1 North Africa 6.2 India 5.5 UK 4.8 US 5.2 Asia 2.5 Réunion 5.2 India 3.2 UK 4.3 Spain 2.5 Spain 4.5 Réunion 3.2 Belgium 3.8 Mexico 2.2 UK 3.2 Spain 2.7 Greece 3.8 Peru 1.2 Caribbean 2.9 Brazil 2.2 Caribbean 3.3 China 0.9 Belgium 1.9 East Asia 2.2 Hungary 3.3 Greece 0.9 Brazil 1.9 Asia 1.6 Spain 2.4 Hungary 0.9 Bulgaria 1.6 Caribbean 1.6 Brazil 1.4 Middle East 0.9 Greece 1.6 Germany 1.6 China 1.4 Portugal 0.9 Middle East 1.6 Middle East 1.6 Denmark 1.4 UK 0.9 China 1.3 Belgium 1.1 Turkey 1.4 Africa 0.6 Senegal 1.3 Hungary 1.1 East Asia 0.9 Brazil 0.6 Asia 1.0 China 0.5 Vietnam 0.9 Bulgaria 0.6 Australia 0.7 Thailand 0.5 Asia 0.5 Senegal 0.6 Germany 0.7 Turkey 0.5 Czech 0.5 Iran 0.3 Mexico 0.3 Mexico 0.5 South Africa 0.3 Portugal 0.3 Portugal 0.5 Sri Lanka 0.3 Thailand 0.3 Russia 0.5 Tropical 0.3 Senegal 0.5 S. America 0.5 Tropical 0.5
N 324 N 309 N 186 N 212
52
Table 5: Foreign cultural influences (as percent of non-French dishes) in Lower Normandy
Dives-sur-Mer L’Aigle Douvres-la-Délivrande Caen Origin Percent Origin Percent Origin Percent Origin Percent Italy 30.8 Italy 46.3 Italy 23.3 Italy 38.1 India 15.4 North Africa 14.8 US 15.1 North Africa 13.3 North Africa 12.3 US 11.1 Switzerland 12.8 Netherlands 7.1 Switzerland 9.2 Switzerland 7.4 North Africa 10.5 UK 7.1 US 9.2 China 5.6 Netherlands 8.1 US 6.1 Middle East 7.7 Greece 5.6 UK 5.8 Switzerland 5.1 Spain 6.2 India 5.6 Caribbean 4.7 Spain 4.1 UK 6.2 Exotic 1.9 Argentina 2.3 Caribbean 3.1 Greece 1.5 Middle East 1.9 Brazil 2.3 India 3.1 Hungary 1.5 Mexico 2.3 China 2.0 Spain 2.3 Middle East 2.0 Asia 1.2 Réunion 2.0 Belgium 1.2 Russia 2.0 Canada 1.2 Bulgaria 1.0 Ecuador 1.2 Greece 1.0 Greece 1.2 Hungary 1.0 India 1.2 Vietnam 1.0 Middle East 1.2 Peru 1.2 Réunion 1.2
N 65 N 54 N 86 N 97
53
APPENDIX: INTERVIEWS
For each municipality, I contacted the municipal government office in charge of school lunches
as well as the food service provider for that respective municipality. I attempted to schedule
interviews with as many people involved in the school lunch menu formulation and approval
process as possible. In each case, the interviews were semi-structured and I asked a range of
questions about how the menus were developed and what considerations were relevant when
designing the menus. Most interviews lasted 45-60 minutes.
The names, dates and formats for the interviews are as follows:
Héloïse Fonnard, Dietitian for Scolarest (responsible for Clichy sous Bois, Montfermeil, Sevran,
Bailly-Romainvilliers), telephone interview April 15, 2016.
Céline Teluk, Operations Manager for Yvelines Restauration (providing meals to Saint-Fargeau-
Ponthierry), telephone interview April 26, 2016.
Eva Carlos, Dietitian for NormaprO (providing meals to Marly-le-Roi), email interview May 26,
2016.
10th arrondissement of Paris: Beatrice Lilienfeld-Magry (Director of the Caisse des Écoles),
Carine Lericheux and Manuela Rebelo (kitchen managers), Marc Montlouis (Parent, member of the Menu Commission), Odile Bonnaire (manager of food purchasing), Sandra Delvalleu
54
(assistant for food purchasing), Marieline Huc (dietitian), Jean-Pierre Lereux (former municipal
councilor in charge of education, currently member of the Advisory Council for the Caisse des
Écoles), face-to-face group interview May 11, 2016.
Joëlle Vuillet, Clichy-sous-Bois municipal councilor and Mayor’s assistant in charge of education, face-to-face interview May 9, 2016.
Patrick Berichel (Client relations) and Vanessa Dissake (Communications director) with
SIRESCO (provides meals for 16 cities in the Paris suburbs, including La Courneueve), face-to-
face interview May 9, 2016.
Nathalie Buisson (Manager for School Affairs) and Florence Maysounabe (Manager of Leisure
Centers) in Voisins-le-Bretonneux City Hall, face-to-face interview May 11, 2016.
Nelly Mauduit (Director of Education Services), Benoît Pohu (Public Relations), Dominique
Chauvois (Dietitian), Sebastien Legeay (in-school cook), Alain de Tavernier (manager of central
kitchen), Guy Bouillault (in-school cook), face-to-face interview in L’Aigle, June 20, 2017.
Stanislas Satis and Sebastien Jouen (in-school cooks), face-to-face interview in Dives-sur-Mer,
June 22, 2017.
Richard Grougi, Dietitian and Hygienist for Convivio (providing meals to Douvres-la-
Délivrande), face-to-face interview, June 23, 2017.
55
APPENDIX TABLES
Appendix Table A: Cultural origins of menu items in Saint-Fargeau-Ponthierry
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 87.3 France 74.1 France 77.6 France 90.5 France 96.1 France 96.7 France 88.8 Italy 3.3 Italy 5.4 Italy 10.5 Neth. 7.4 US 2.0 US 3.0 Italy 2.4 US 2.6 US 4.8 Carib. 6.1 Switz. 2.1 Carib. 1.0 Switz. 0.4 US 2.0 N. Africa 2.3 India 4.5 Asia 1.7 Mexico 0.4 Neth. 1.8 Spain 0.7 Switz. 2.2 Mexico 1.0 Italy 0.2 Carib. 1.0 Carib. 0.5 Spain 1.3 M. East 1.0 Peru 0.2 Switz. 0.9 China 0.5 Asia 1.0 N. Africa 1.0 N. Africa 0.7 Neth. 0.5 Carib. 1.0 Peru 0.3 India 0.5 Brazil 0.3 Hungary 1.0 S. Lanka 0.3 Asia 0.3 Bulgaria 0.3 N. Africa 1.0 US 0.3 Spain 0.3 Greece 0.3 UK 1.0 Mexico 0.2 Portugal 0.3 Senegal 0.6 Africa 0.1 Switz. 0.3 Africa 0.3 Brazil 0.1 Africa 0.2 Greece 0.3 Bulgaria 0.1 India 0.2 Iran 0.3 China 0.1 Mexico 0.2 Mexico 0.3 Greece 0.1 Peru 0.2 Peru 0.3 Hungary 0.1 Portugal 0.3 Iran 0.0 S. Africa 0.3 M. East 0.0 Peru 0.0 Portugal 0.0 Senegal 0.0 S. Africa 0.0 S. Lanka 0.0 UK 0.0
N 607 N 313 N 294 N 662 N 488 N 537 N 2901
56
Appendix Table B: Cultural origins of menu items in Clichy-sous-Bois
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 82.5 France 69.0 France 78.9 France 87.7 France 98.5 NA NA France 83.3 Italy 5.8 Italy 7.2 Italy 8.4 Neth. 7.8 US 1.2 Italy 3.9 N. Africa 3.4 US 4.9 N. Africa 2.4 Switz. 4.4 Tropical 0.3 Neth. 2.0 US 2.9 Réunion 3.6 India 2.0 US 1.9 Bulgaria 1.2 India 3.1 M. East 2.0 Switz. 1.6 Greece 1.2 UK 2.6 Switz. 1.6 N. Africa 1.2 China 1.0 Spain 2.3 Réunion 0.8 India 0.9 Spain 1.0 Belgium 1.6 Senegal 0.4 Réunion 0.9 Austral. 0.5 Brazil 1.6 Spain 0.4 Spain 0.8 German. 0.5 Switz. 1.0 UK 0.5 Mexico 0.2 Asia 0.8 Carib. 0.5 N. Africa 0.8 Belgium 0.3 Senegal 0.8 Brazil 0.3 Carib. 0.3 Bulgaria 0.3 Portugal 0.3 Greece 0.3 Thailand 0.3 M. East 0.3 China 0.2 Senegal 0.2 Asia 0.2 Australia 0.1 German. 0.1 Mexico 0.1 Portugal 0.0 Thailand 0.0 Tropical 0.0
N 416 N 387 N 251 N 473 N 325 N 1852
57
Appendix Table C: Cultural origins of menu items in Voisins-le-Bretonneux
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 86.8 France 76.7 France 85.0 France 92.1 France 97.5 France 99.4 France 91.7 N. Africa 4.8 Italy 4.3 Italy 9.9 Neth. 4.9 US 2.2 US 0.5 Italy 2.4 Italy 4.2 N. Africa 3.8 N. Africa 2.2 Switz. 3.0 E. Asia 0.4 Switz. 0.1 N. Africa 1.3 Carib. 1.0 UK 2.3 Spain 1.0 US 0.9 US 1.0 US 2.3 E. Asia 0.6 Switz. 0.7 Réunion 0.5 Switz. 1.7 German. 0.3 Neth. 0.6 Spain 0.5 India 1.4 India 0.3 UK 0.4 Switz. 0.5 Réunion 1.4 UK 0.3 India 0.3 Thailand 0.5 Brazil 1.2 US 0.3 Réunion 0.3 Asia 0.9 Spain 0.2 M. East 0.9 Brazil 0.2 Belgium 0.6 E. Asia 0.2 German. 0.6 Asia 0.1 Hungary 0.6 Carib. 0.1 Carib. 0.3 German. 0.1 China 0.3 M. East 0.1 E. Asia 0.3 Belgium 0.0 Spain 0.3 China 0.0 Turkey 0.3 Hungary 0.0 Thailand 0.0 Turkey 0.0
N 189 N 347 N 313 N 266 N 279 N 849 N 2243
58
Appendix Table D: Cultural origins of menu items in Paris – 10th arrondissement
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 86.3 France 74.1 France 87.7 France 90.5 France 98.6 France 99.9 France 91.1 Italy 5.2 Italy 7.2 Italy 6.5 Switz. 4.6 Belgium 0.6 Tropical 0.1 Italy 2.6 N. Africa 4.7 India 3.9 Carib. 2.5 Neth. 4.0 Brazil 0.3 N. Africa 1.1 US 1.2 N. Africa 2.8 Greece 0.7 Greece 0.6 Portugal 0.3 India 0.6 Greece 0.6 UK 2.2 China 0.4 UK 0.3 US 0.3 Switz. 0.6 Vietnam 0.6 Belgium 1.7 E. Asia 0.4 Neth. 0.5 Brazil 0.3 Hungary 1.7 India 0.4 US 0.5 Denm. 0.3 US 1.7 Mexico 0.4 UK 0.4 Hungary 0.3 Spain 0.8 N. Africa 0.4 Belgium 0.3 Spain 0.3 China 0.6 Spain 0.4 Greece 0.3 Turkey 0.3 Denm. 0.6 Turkey 0.4 Carib. 0.3 Greece 0.6 Hungary 0.3 Asia 0.3 Spain 0.2 Brazil 0.3 Brazil 0.1 Czech 0.3 China 0.1 E. Asia 0.3 Denm. 0.1 Russia 0.3 Turkey 0.1 Senegal 0.3 E. Asia 0.1 S. Amer. 0.3 Vietnam 0.1 Turkey 0.3 Asia 0.0 Czech 0.0 Mexico 0.0 Portugal 0.0 Russia 0.0 Senegal 0.0 S. Amer. 0.0 Tropical 0.0
N 344 N 359 N 277 N 326 N 347 N 732 N 2386
59
Appendix Table E: Cultural origins of menu items in Dives-sur-Mer
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 94.1 France 82.6 France 86.1 France 93.8 France 99.3 NA NA France 90.7 US 3.3 Italy 6.0 Italy 6.6 Switz. 6.2 Italy 0.7 Italy 2.9 N. Africa 2.6 India 3.0 India 3.7 India 1.4 N. Africa 2.4 M. East 3.7 N. Africa 1.1 Spain 2.4 Switz. 0.9 UK 2.4 USA 0.9 Hungary 0.6 M. East 0.7 US 0.6 Spain 0.6 UK 0.6 Greece 0.1 Hungary 0.1
N 153 N 167 N 137 N 97 N 146 N N 701
60
Appendix Table F: Cultural origins of menu items in L’Aigle
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 90.3 France 82.5 France 91.1 France 100.0 France 99.2 NA NA France 91.6 N. Africa 3.5 Italy 8.4 Italy 7.4 Exotic 0.8 Italy 3.9 US 2.8 Switz. 2.6 China 0.7 N. Africa 1.3 Greece 1.4 India 2.0 N. Africa 0.7 US 0.9 Italy 1.4 N. Africa 1.3 Switz. 0.6 China 0.7 USA 1.3 China 0.5 China 0.7 Greece 0.5 Greece 0.7 India 0.5 M. East 0.7 M. East 0.2
N 144 N 154 N 135 N 83 N 126 N N 642
61
Appendix Table G: Cultural origins of menu items in Douvres-la-Délivrande
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 87.8 France 66.9 France 88.2 France 92.0 France 99.3 NA NA France 86.8 Italy 3.6 US 6.5 Italy 7.5 Neth. 5.1 US 0.7 Italy 3.1 N. Africa 3.6 Italy 5.8 Carib. 3.2 Switz. 2.9 US 2.0 US 2.2 Switz. 4.3 Switz. 1.1 Switz. 1.7 Brazil 0.7 UK 3.6 N. Africa 1.4 India 0.7 N. Africa 2.9 Neth. 1.1 Mexico 0.7 Argent. 1.4 UK 0.8 Peru 0.7 Spain 1.4 Carib. 0.6 Asia 0.7 Argent. 0.3 Belgium 0.7 Brazil 0.3 Brazil 0.7 Mexico 0.3 Canada 0.7 Spain 0.3 Carib. 0.7 Asia 0.2 Ecuador 0.7 Belgium 0.2 Greece 0.7 Canada 0.2 Mexico 0.7 Ecuador 0.2 M. East 0.7 Greece 0.2 Réunion 0.7 India 0.2 M. East 0.2 Peru 0.2 Réunion 0.2
N 139 N 139 N 93 N 138 N 140 N N 649
62
Appendix Table H: Cultural origins of menu items in Caen
Starter Main Side Cheese Dessert Goûter Total Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % Origin % France 77.9 France 73.4 France 83.7 France 92.6 France 99.2 NA NA France 84.4 Italy 8.6 Italy 7.2 Italy 11.1 Netherl. 3.7 UK 0.8 Italy 6.0 N. Africa 4.3 N. Africa 5.0 Carib. 2.2 Switz. 3.7 N. Africa 2.1 US 2.9 UK 2.8 M. East 0.7 Neth. 1.1 Neth. 2.1 India 2.2 Neth. 0.7 UK 1.1 Russia 1.4 Spain 2.2 UK 0.7 US 1.0 Bulgaria 0.7 China 1.4 US 0.7 Switz. 0.8 Spain 0.7 Réunion 1.4 Spain 0.6 Switz. 0.7 Greece 0.7 Carib. 0.5 UK 0.7 Hungary 0.7 India 0.5 M. East 0.7 China 0.3 Switz. 0.7 M. East 0.3 US 0.7 Réunion 0.3 Vietnam 0.7 Russia 0.3 Bulgaria 0.2 Greece 0.2 Hungary 0.2 Vietnam 0.2
N 140 N 139 N 135 N 81 N 126 N N 621
63
Appendix Table I: Cultural origins of menu items in Clichy-sous-Bois, archival data (1975-1995)
1970s 1980s 1990s Total Origin Percent Origin Percent Origin Percent Origin Percent France 91.5 France 95.0 France 93.4 France 93.8 Italy 3.4 Italy 1.6 Italy 2.1 Italy 2.0 UK 2.4 UK 1.3 UK 1.3 UK 1.3 Netherlands 1.4 Netherlands 0.5 Netherlands 0.7 Netherlands 0.7 E. Europe 0.7 Spain 0.5 Switzerland 0.6 Switzerland 0.4 Germany 0.7 North Africa 0.4 US 0.5 Spain 0.4 Tropical 0.2 Spain 0.3 North Africa 0.3 Switzerland 0.2 Denmark 0.3 US 0.3 Germany 0.1 Germany 0.3 Germany 0.3 US 0.1 North Africa 0.3 Denmark 0.2 Hungary 0.1 Greece 0.1 Greece 0.1 India 0.1 India 0.1 Tropical 0.1 Peru 0.1 India 0.1 Norway 0.0 E. Europe 0.0 Peru 0.0 Hungary 0.0 Norway 0.0
N 293 N 2176 N 4027 N 6496 Note: 1970s menus from July through August 1975, October through December 1975. 1980s menus from September through October 1986, and 1987-1989. 1990s menus from 1990-1992, January-April 1993, June 1993, March-April and September-October 1994, and end November-early December 1995. Menus include starter, main, side, dessert, cheese and goûter. Excluding goûter, the percentage of menu items with French influences is 91.5 for the 1970s, 94.3 for the 1980s, 92.7 for the 1980s and 93.1 overall.
64
ENDNOTES
1The 2016 KOF Index of Globalization ranked France 19 out of 207 countries for overall globalization. France’s disaggregated ranking was number 2 for political globalization, number 11 for social globalization and number 63 for economic globalization. For more detail see http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/, based on initial work from Dreher (2006). 2Prominent French social movements against globalization include the protection of agricultural and gastronomic traditions (Bodnár 2003), and the maintenance of certain labor practices and the culture of social welfare protections (Ancelovici 2002). 3See also the 2013 special issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power entitled “Ethnography, Diversity and Urban Space” (Volume 20, Number 4). 4A particularly important development of the early 1970s was ‘central kitchens’, which were often located off-site and prepared meals for several schools. These central kitchens were dependent on technological advances in temperature control (both hot and cold) that allowed them to deliver balanced meals (including meat, dairy, fresh vegetables and fruits) in sanitary conditions. This also made it possible to serve full meals in schools where there was no space for a proper modern kitchen. 5See Décret n° 2011-1227 du 30 septembre 2011 relatif à la qualité nutritionnelle des repas servis dans le cadre de la restauration scolaire (Decree number 2011-1227, from September 30, 2011, concerning the nutritional quality of meals served in schools). 6French school lunches are often juxtaposed to US school lunches, which are at the other end of the nutritional spectrum. Critics charge that US schools which have become controlled by industrial providers of junky fast food because sodas, potato chips, French fries and other junk foods are either regularly served as part of lunch or are readily available in vending machines (Brownell and Horgen 2004; Levine 2008). 7Modifications are made to suit the particularities of child diners. Meals are prepared at lower costs than in upscale restaurants and dietary requirements limit the amount of fats that can be used throughout the meal (which is most certainly not an official requirement in upscale restaurants). Nonetheless, the key point is that the dishes on school lunch menus connect children to the historical French gastronomic traditions (and not to the contemporary global fast food traditions). 8For more see “Politique éducative de santé dans les territoires académiques” (Education policy for health in academic establishments) from circulaire n° 2011-216, December 2, 2011, in the Bulletin officiel de l'éducation nationale (Official Bulletin of the Ministry of National Education). 9There is variation across schools in the logistics of serving lunch. In some schools children are seated at the table and servers bring each subsequent course to them as in a restaurant. In other schools children serve themselves as in a cafeteria. Either way, these four courses are always present. 10In comparison, school lunch periods last an average of 30 minutes in the US. But after getting to the cafeteria and waiting in line, students often have as little as 10 or 15 minutes to eat, which numerous studies have shown is insufficient (Westervelt 2013). 11The percentage of foreign items offered in a school could be severely distorted by choosing a day or week when there happened to be a special item (or series of special items) that rarely (or never) appear again.
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12I choose the age range of under 15 years old because it directly captures the relevant elementary-school age population. Nonetheless, cities with high/low percentages of people under 15 without French citizenship also have high/low percentages of the overall population without French citizenship. Admittedly, the citizenship measure does not capture all people of foreign origins in a municipality, because it cannot distinguish between immigrants with French citizenship and native-origin French people with French citizenship. Nonetheless, presumably the residents without French citizenship are the most likely to have international connections and therefore are the most relevant for this study. An ideal selection mechanism for demographic diversity would have been an ethnic (or national-origin) fractionalization index. However, this would require data on the population size of each ethnicity (or national origin group), but due to privacy concerns such data are not included in the publically-available census files that cover each French municipality. (Data identifiability is an issue for the small municipalities and there are 3,477 French municipalities with fewer than 100 residents). 13The average municipal population is 815 people in Lower Normandy, compared to an average municipal population of 10,868 people in Île-de-France. 14There were a few other options for each of the categories. In the Île-de-France, Claye-Souilly is another option for the low education and low foreign combination, La Courneuve is another option for the low education and high foreign combination and Marly-le-Roi is another option for the high education and low foreign combination. In Lower Normandy, Alençon and Flers were options for the low education and high foreign combination. In each case the alternate municipalities have poorer data availability for lunch menus. 15A detailed overview of the interviews is in the appendix. 16Clichy-sous-Bois is an exception, where the menus are archived by the city and by the Agglomeration of Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil. 17The longer time period for menu collection in the Île-de-France means that I have more data points for those municipalities than the ones in Lower Normandy. However, results are consistent when I limit my analysis to menus collected during the 2016-17 school year (and thus an equal time frame for both regions). 18At times, some menus were not posted to the local government website. In those cases I requested menus from the city government department responsible for archiving and from the food service provider that created the menus, but was not always able to obtain the missing months. There is no reason to believe that these menus are missing for any reason other than administrative neglect, and as such they should not systematically bias my results. 19In fact, when French Caribbeans migrate to metropolitan France they are often treated as more culturally foreign than immigrants from European countries (Maxwell 2012). For the same reason, I code rougail, zembrocal rice and chicken cari as coming from Réunion and not from France. 20Moreover, I acknowledge that at some level all dishes could be considered cultural fusion because so many ingredients have traveled from their indigenous homes to mix with ingredients from elsewhere (a classic example being ‘Italian’ tomato sauce with tomatoes from the Americas). As in (REFERENCE OMITTED), I demarcate cultural origins where the dish initially emerged, even if ingredients or techniques that are part of the dish originated elsewhere. 21Another common and ambiguous dish is coleslaw. 22Interview with Stanislas Satis and Sebastien Jouen (in-school cooks in Dives-sur-Mer), June 22, 2017.
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23Interview with Richard Grougi, Dietitian and Hygienist for Convivio (providing meals to Douvres-la-Délivrande), June 23, 2017. 24Interview with Stanislas Satis and Sebastien Jouen (in-school cooks in Dives-sur-Mer), June 22, 2017. 25The Netherlands is not present in Dives-sur-Mer or L’Aigle. Most of the other countries and regions in tables 4 and 5 represent one or two items that appear in only one special lunch. Some foreign influences (e.g. the Caribbean, India or the UK) appear somewhat-regularly (e.g. every other month) in some municipalities but are less present in others. 26The other 8 percent are all merguez (sausage). 27The other 30 percent are either rosti potatoes or cordon bleu. 28The only exceptions are Italian pasta dishes noted as done in the Parisian style (à la Parisienne). 29There are no dishes for which North Africa is a secondary influence. Unlike for primary influences, the US is the main foreign secondary influence, accounting for 60 percent of the secondary influences. This is largely because of (non-US) dishes where ketchup is added as an accompaniment, or the hybrid dish known as ‘cake’ in France, which is based on the American muffin recipe (and uses the English name), but is a French version of savory bread loaves with various additional ingredients. 30To the extent that elementary schools experiment with some dishes, they need to supplement with traditional (and filling) dishes elsewhere on the menu, to make sure the students do not leave hungry. (Interview with Richard Grougi, June 23, 2017). 31The importance of good nutrition revealed the competing (and contradictory) conceptions of ‘mainstream French gastronomy’ among school lunch dietitians. The dietitians who designed the meals felt they were providing the ideal form of French cuisine as a counterweight to the proliferation of ready-made low-quality cuisine eaten by the average French family at home. I frequently heard school lunch providers argue that ‘nobody eats this way anymore in France’ (in reference to their school lunches) to emphasize the importance of keeping the ideal French traditions alive. 32In fact, the dietitian for one of the food service companies in Normandy argued that treating foreign foods as special and festive (e.g. by putting a flag in the dish) can make kids excited and eager to discover new things (Interview with Richard Grougi, June 23, 2017). At the same time, this strategy reveals the cultural distance of such foods from mainstream French society. 33There are conferences and networks that disseminate standards and norms within the large food service provider companies (e.g. Scolarest or Siresco). However my sample includes municipalities where the menus are designed independently (e.g. Paris 10th, L’Aigle, Dives-sur- Mer), and the menu designers do not attend conferences and claim not to follow broader industry trends or templates for school lunches. Yet there are the same dishes and cultural influences on school lunch menus regardless of who is designing the menus. This suggests that the cultural diffusion of what constitutes mainstream French gastronomic references is broader than just the school lunch industry. 34For another example see the similarity of children’s menus in restaurants across different cultures. 35The next largest groups are Caribbeans, Turks, and Sub-Saharan Africans, who are each roughly 1.5 percent of the population (Brouard and Tiberj 2005; Maxwell 2012).
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36A recent study of prepared meal products in French supermarket chains found similar results, where couscous, tabbouleh and tagines were all standard products (Maxwell and DeSoucey 2016). 37Interviews with Patrick Berichel and Vanessa Dissake of SIRESCO (May 9, 2016) and with Nathalie Buisson and Florence Maysounabe of the Voisins-le-Bretonneux city administration (May 11, 2016). 38For example, Senegalese chicken (or fish) yassa appears six times as a main dish, once accompanied by a vaguely Senegalese rice with peanuts. Turkish influences appear only four times, mostly on a special Turkish menu as part of a week of special foreign menus in the 10th arrondissement of Paris to celebrate the European Championships soccer tournament. 39This contrasts with findings from French supermarket prepared meals, where East Asia is among the most prominent foreign influences, accounting for as much as 10.5 percent of the prepared meal products in the supermarket chain Carrefour (Maxwell and DeSoucey 2016). This difference between elementary school lunches and supermarket products may reflect key consumer differences. East Asian supermarket products are portrayed as exotic, trendy and new (Maxwell and DeSoucey 2016: 93-94), which may be enticing to some adult supermarket shoppers but is not a presentation that works for elementary school children. 40Adhering to the classic French dishes and menu formats is not easy and can create challenges for food waste. The Clichy-sous-Bois municipal councilor in charge of education described how many of their African-origin students were not accustomed to dairy products and not interested in the cheese course. However, the school lunches are required to include dairy products, so the strategy is to start with children in the preschools and encourage them to slowly try more new things. (Interview with Joëlle Vuillet, May 10, 2016) 41The schools that have adopted halal menu options are primarily in Alsace-Moselle, which is unique in France because the 1905 French law on the separation of church and state does not apply. Instead, Alsace-Moselle is governed by German-influenced laws that permit state involvement in religion. 42The other Italian dishes are a limited assortment of the rest of Italian cuisine (e.g. Piedmont potato salad, polenta, or meat with an explicitly-Italian sauce or preparation). Also note that pasta or pizza recipes can reflect distinctly-French tastes, most notably using French (or non- Italian cheeses) like goat cheese, la vache qui rit, or Gruyère. 43The most common Swiss influence aside from cheese – cordon bleu – also has a long history in France. Including one of the most familiar aspects of a foreign culture is further evidence of how the cultural diversity that does exist is fairly limited. 44Interview with Eva Carlos, Dietitian for NormaprO France (May 26, 2016), interviews with Patrick Berichel and Vanessa Dissake of SIRESCO (May 9, 2016) and interviews with Marieline Huc, Odile Bonnaire, and Sandra Delvalleu of the 10th arrondissement of Paris (May 11, 2016). 45Richard Grougi mentioned a meal where special Italian cheeses were served to students in Douvres-la-Délivrande, but the cost was so high that it disrupted their budget for weeks and they decided never to serve such cheeses again. 46According to Héloïse Fonnard (dietitian for Scolarest), she selects these cheeses because they are the ones offered to her by the food supplier. She cannot select any cheese she might like to have (April 15, 2016). 47My interview subjects acknowledged that children are attracted by fast food culture and consider American menus their favorite foreign lunch items. However, to protect the educational
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and nutritional mission of French school lunches, fast food dishes are staggered so that they only appear once or twice per week and are served in ways that make them as healthy as possible. For example, barbeque sauce is served in small quantities and with a healthier recipe than one would get in a fast food restaurant. (Interviews with Patrick Berichel and Vanessa Dissake of SIRESCO, May 9, 2016) 48These menus were obtained from the municipal archives in Clichy-sous-Bois. The menus cover sporadic weeks from 1975 to 1995. I attempted to obtain historical menus from the other municipalities but nothing had been archived.
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