It's okay, I'm American...

French and American cultural differences aren’t too grand, but if I had to characterize one thing in particular, I would say that Americans are more germaphobic. A couple of months ago I read an article in the newspaper written by a fellow American living in France expatiating on some of his daily life experiences supporting this generalization. Ever since then, my own personal observations have been accumulating.

For example, take the good old, quintessentially French baguette.

Here’s the problem: when I buy a baguette at the supermarket, the bag that holds it only reaches a bit past the three-quarters mark, leaving the tip exposed. Certainly it’s nice to be able to see the contents of the wrapping. Yet this means that when I place it into the shopping cart and put it onto the conveyor belt to pay for it, it is inevitably vulnerable to the microbes of its surroundings. And if I am not very careful with the transport of it home in the car, it could get scrunched (crumbs in the trunk) or soggy (if it’s raining outside). To me the simple solution would be making the bag a bit longer or the bread a bit shorter.

The other day when I went food shopping, I observed a four-year-old running his fingers along the ends of the bread, touching them with his presumably grubby hands, meaning that future customers’ immune systems would unknowingly be subjected to his personal collection of bacteria and viruses. Maybe that sounds a bit harsh. Granted, no one is going to die from it, it just doesn’t seem hygienic.

Being cognizant of my dilemma, all this made a humorous experience for me when I went to the local convenience store in town the other day to pick up a baguette.

The arrangement there is a bit different: the baguettes are held in a straw basket and the bags to place them in are right next to it, so that customers can do it for themselves.

The store is a small, cramped place, and the bread is located right in front of the cash register. There was no one else in the store, and I could sense the eyes of the owner looking at me. He’s an older Frenchman, completing the archetype with a robust gray moustache that he twirls in his fingers as he waits for customers to come by the counter.

Knowing that one bag would present the aforementioned problem, I took two, sheathing one on each tip so that my baguette was completely covered. The whole time it was dead quiet, except for the crinkly rustlings of the paper wrapper as I completed my maneuver. When I turned around, the facial expression that greeted me was priceless: eyebrows raised, perplexed and quite suspicious that I was up to no good.

Clearly, I was a foreigner. But I didn’t mind so much, because I was coming home with an in-tact, clean loaf of bread for supper.