The French Are Spinning American Food

Spring twilight comes late to northern France, and around 9, when we left the Marine Le Pen rally, a hush was settling across the countryside. This, the candidate had said, was the real France, and it was certainly the France that American tourists long for, untouched by the homogenizing forces of global travel.

Every step away from the village square seemed a step away from modernity, into a peasant history so ancient as to be functionally eternal. Venerable trees creaked in the breeze; deep grasses gently waved; the farmers in their brick houses were already putting themselves to sleep beside the fields that would need their labors come sunrise.