The French and cuisine are what Birkin was to Gainsbourg, the cigar to Churchill, and chocolate to coffee.
Intrinsically linked.
Our language itself is inspired by it.
It is not uncommon to hear in the course of a conversation the formulas
: "be half fig, half grape"
,
"in a row of onion"
,
"tell salads"
,
"the cherry on the cake"
,
“Having your work cut out for you”
... Yes, without the influence of cooking, Molière's language would not be so spicy ...!
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But let's remain vigilant.
The barbarisms and faulty jobs proliferate in our conversations.
So the formula, very popular in restaurants:
"good tasting!"
The latter has even succeeded in dethroning the
“consecrated one
that
we once heard”
, the immortal and so French:
“bon appétit!”
Exit this formula, it is now more chic to wish yourself the second.
Even though
"it would only be a matter of lunch of a salad of tomatoes or a steak and fries"
, notes the French Academy mischievously.
Is it out of snobbery? By taste of bombastic formulas? In any case, simplicity is put on the shelf. Nowadays, it is common to hear formulas that are more creative than the others, such as
"good start to the tasting"
or
"good end of appetite"
, the
"bel appétit"
variant
, and even
"good gastric experience. "
! But let us remember that our
"good appetite"
, which has been exported beyond our borders, is said to be several centuries old.
The lexicographer Alain Rey traces its origin to the court of Louis XIV.
No offense to the slayers of the formula, who proscribe it from the delicate French art of living, it was already in vogue in the Great Century, in the form of a prayer.
We asked God to be preserved from suffocation, at a time when gluttony and other gargantuan meals were the custom.
Victor Hugo and Houellebecq's “bon appétit”
We also remember the famous verse of Victor Hugo in
Ruy Blas,
which made the fortune of the play and sounds like a French motto:
“Bon appétit messieurs!”
So hasten to this unsightly formula, which translates a
"swollen tone of a half-gastronomic, half-literary emphasis, watching the customer for signs of complicity or at least of interest"
, in the words of Michel Houellebecq in
Sérotonine
.
Let's be sober and do justice to the classic formula.
Or prefer to say nothing at all.
After all, an appetite is always good when the food is good.
