A cultural lesson from the cheese shop

Last time I went to my favorite cheese shop in the market (the one where the salespeople all wear berets and where there is always a line around the corner and out the door), I asked for one of our standards comté--a kind of semi hard cheese from the Jura region where my grandparents had a house when I was growing up. The salesman, who happened to be the boss (I know this because my friend Ludivine went to high school with him and introduced me, which means I now get very special treatment, including a fidelity card that gives me all manner of little presents) said that this week, I should not get the comté, instead, I must get the Gruyere de Gruyere (a related cheese, but much stronger, so strong it sometimes makes your lips go numb when you eat it). Now, he had done this to me before, and I happened not to like the Gruyere, so I told him no, that I really wanted the comte. But, he said, really, the Gruyere is so much better this week, you must taste both of them again. Ok, I tasted both of them, and confirmed for myself that I liked Comte better. Oh, the disapproval in that cheese-monger's response! Ok, madame, I will give you the inferior cheese, since that is your uneducated and ignorant wish, but I strongly disapprove. (I don't think I'm exaggerating, though he did not quite say all these things).

The cultural lesson is this: in America, people tend to be relativists about tastes (this includes tastes for food, clothing, colors on your walls, some kinds of literature, home customs like when you eat and when you go to bed, whatever). Here, people may be relativists about morality... in fact, my impression is that most of them are, but they are fanatical absolutists about all matters aesthetic: food (what? You like the goat cheese from the supermarket better than the four times more expensive one from the market, how shameful), clothing (you are going to wear this shirt with those pants? And you are going to let your son wear pants that have an orange lining with a pink shirt? Oh, horror), souvenirs (what, Claudia and Magdalene, you are going to buy something from this tacky tourist shop? We don't want to be your friends anymore). And anything else you can think of... it's all a matter for judging your character. No wonder living in the States feels so freeing! There's so much less judgment of what you do.

I know, I know, the wicked ones among you are saying, but Claudia, that's just the way you are, you're always criticizing people for their uneducated tastes in food and whatever else. Well... now you know, it's not my fault, it's because I grew up here and everyone does it here.