Emily in France 🇫🇷 I Can Feel it in My Gut... And My Spleen

A post-Christmas liver crisis is commonplace in France

Ever felt butterflies in your stomach or heard a story so awful it felt gut-wrenching to even consider? Maybe you’ve had your heart broken, or, on the contrary, met someone so special just thinking about them made you weak in the knees.

The body as metaphor and idiom is commonplace in many languages. But just as prepositions vary widely depending on what language you're speaking (in French, one rides in the bus, not on it), so too do the body parts metaphorically tapped.

Backache, in French, is typically ascribed to the kidneys (les reins), while over-doing it on a rich meal of, say, the foie gras and buttercream so beloved at holiday meals, may send one into a crisis of the liver or foie. Over-rich foods like these may also be écoeurant – literally disheartening – while feeling mal au coeur (literally heart pain) is a euphemism for carsickness or nausea. A hangover, too, is described based on where it can be found in the body: The slang term for post-merriment misery is une gueule de bois – a snout of wood –, and when you're really suffering, you might have mal aux cheveux (pain in your hair).

And these expressions aren't just physical. Someone who in English might be described as having a big head would find, once in France, they have swollen ankles (les chevilles qui enflent). To feel one's spleen, in French, is to feel an overwhelming melancholy or disgust with no real-world reason, while to feel something in one’s guts – dans les tripes – is to feel something viscerally (literally in the viscera). When one gets the sense one is having one’s leg pulled, it’s not uncommon to call out the liar by indicating one’s eye. (“Mon oeil.")

If you're brave, your eyes aren't cold (ne pas avoir froid aux yeux); if an explanation is too convoluted as to be believable, it's tirée par les cheveux (pulled by the hair.) And when you do something easily, you say you do it "les doigts dans le nez" – which for some reason, the French delight in translating into English. So if you ever hear someone in Paris respond to a request with "finger in the nose," know they're telling you they can happily – and easily – fulfill your wish.

Cheese of the Week

Cornish Yarg hails, as its name suggests, from Cornwall, though given its ancestral roots, it may be surprising to learn it’s a relatively recent addition to the local cheesescape. It was revitalized in the ‘80s by Michael and Margaret Horrell based on the 13th century recipe discovered by Alan and Jenny Gray. (Yarg is just Gray backwards – how’s that for some cheesy trivia?) The surface of this crumbly, Caerphilly-like cheese is wrapped in nettles, which gives it a gorgeous green hue but also changes the pH of the surface of the cheese, encouraging the specific bloomy molds that give it its lovely lemony tang.

To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.

What I’m Eating

Step into Omar Dhiab’s eponymous table just steps from the Louvre, and the codes of French fine dining are already flouted. The door opens not into the Michelin-starred dining room but directly into the open kitchen, where the young Dhiab himself, dressed in jeans under his pressed chef’s jacket, presides over a small brigade. He’s welcoming and friendly from the get-go – even at 1pm, with the weight of the lunch service on his shoulders. This relaxed ambiance – what the French would term décontracté – pervades the entirety of the experience. More on the blog.

What I’m Doing

1. Our next TERRE/MER retreat is on the books! Join us for cooking, ceramics, and yoga overlooking the Mediterranean from April 11 to 14. Book now to secure yoru spot!

2. Signups for the next edition of the Nantes Writers’ Workshop are open! In the meantime, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep those creative juices a-flowing.

What I'm Writing

1. Top chefs in Paris dish about their favorite spots to eat and drink when off duty. For Fodor’s.

2. This comprehensive guide to the Bay Area's best mocktails is perfect for anyone attempting a dry (or dry-ish) January. For InsideHook.

3. From the archives: Breakfast in Paris is a short and sweet affair—but this wasn’t always the case. For Life & Thyme.

What I'm Reading

1. I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive was both odder and not quite as odd as I expected, and for a story that follows a San Antonio doctor stripped of his medical license who becomes an abortionist in an attempt to foot the bill of his heroin addiction, all the while being haunted by Hank Williams, that's saying something. The novel's themes of found family are nice, but at the end of the day, much of the characterization is unfortunately reductive, and while I was glad to see the book didn't slip into all of the tropes I expected, it ultimately didn't go quite far or deep enough to conquer my heart.

2. This exploration of the ways in which France is changing under the influence of African speakers of the language. In the New York Times.

3. This oldie-but-a-goodie glimpse into the kitchen at Les Halles under Anthony Bourdain. In the New Yorker.

A bientôt !