No Peanut Butter in France

Lauren and Lee knew living in France was going to be different. They just didn’t know it was going to be that different.

The twins had learned French so they could speak with the French people, but everybody spoke so fast!

The food was different, too. Their mom was excited to try cooking some new French recipes. One night she made a cheese and egg pie, called quiche, for dinner. Lauren and Lee learned to pronounce it “keesh,” But they weren’t sure they liked it.

“What’s the use of living in France if we don’t try the food?” their dad asked.

“I’ll try it,” Lee promised, “but I miss peanut butter sandwiches in my school lunch.”

“I’ll be glad to make peanut butter sandwiches if I can buy peanut butter,” their mom said, “but I haven’t seen any in the stores.”

The next time their mom went grocery shopping at the supermarché, the supermarket, Lauren and Lee went with her, but they could not find peanut butter. Lee went to the manager. “Avez-vous . . .” he started to say in his most careful French. He had no idea what peanut butter would be in French, so he finished up in English.

“Ah, oui.” The manager smiled. He led the twins to a shelf full of jars of something brown. It didn’t look like peanut butter. Lauren showed a jar to her mom. “It’s not peanut butter, it’s hazelnut butter,” her mom said. “Let’s give it a try.”

It was good, but it didn’t taste like peanut butter. At lunch period, Lee gave a bite of his sandwich to his new friend, Jacques. “I know something you’ll like better than that,” Jacques said. “Ask your mother if you and Lauren can go with me after school tomorrow.”

Jacques took the twins to a bakery shop around the corner from school. When they opened the door, a wonderful fragrance of freshly baked bread and cake came out to meet them. Warm, yeasty, and sugary — so good, Lauren thought she could almost bite into the smell alone.

“This is the boulangerie, the bakery, where I get my after-school snack,” Jacques explained.

Past the baskets of crusty baguettes and rolls, the cases of eclairs and fruit tarts and decorated cakes, they followed Jacques to the counter. “Three pains au chocolat, if you please,” he asked.

The lady behind the counter handed a round, flaky pastry filled with chocolate to each of them. Lee took a bite.

“It’s great,” he agreed. “I wonder if they could make it with peanut butter.”

Pointing to his pastry, he asked the lady, “Peanut butter?”

“Mais, non!” She laughed. “No peanut buttair! Chocolat! No peanut buttair in France.”

Could that be true? No peanut butter in France?

Lauren and Lee went with their father to the epicerie, the little grocery store, to buy lettuce for a salad. “Do you sell peanut butter?” Lauren asked.

“No peanut butter,” the store owner replied.

Lee stopped at the boucherie to look for peanut butter. “That’s silly!” Lauren said. “You won’t find peanut butter at a butcher shop!”

She went to the poisonnerie to see if, by chance, they might have peanut butter.

“Now who’s silly?” Lee demanded. “Who ever heard of a fish shop that sold peanut butter?”

One of the twins’ favorite places was the crêperie. The crêperie served crêpes, delicious French pancakes. But crêpes weren’t served with peanut butter either.

When they had been in France a month, their parents took them out to dinner at a big restaurant. Lee read the menu hopefully. He saw nothing that looked like peanut butter, but he asked the waiter, anyway.

“Non, Monsieur, but we have a fine ragout.” Ragout, Lee discovered, was a very good mixture of vegetables and meat. He even learned to say it, “ragoo.”

One day, Lauren and Lee were walking with their mom through the grand magasin, the big department store. And there, in the section for foreign foods, was peanut butter.

“Peanut butter is not a foreign food!” Lee protested. “It is in France,” Lauren pointed out. “It’s an American food.”

“Then let’s buy a jar for Jacques, too,” Lee suggested. “I hope he likes it as much as we like pains au chocolat.”

“And as much as we like crêpes,”  Lauren added.

“And ragout and baguettes,” Lee said. “But I still love peanut butter. Maybe Mom should buy three jars — one for Jacques, and two for us!”