51. Our Third Anniversary! Listener Q&A

by Diana S. |

“Plaisir partagé, plaisir doublé.”

(“Joy shared, joy doubled.”)

― French proverb

It’s our THIRD ANNIVERSARY! I’m celebrating with a listener Q&A! What an amazing ride it’s been. I’ll Thank you again for all your support over the past three years!

Episode 51: “3 Year Party! Listener Q&A”

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Anniversary Reading List

Here are the books I recommended in today’s episode – note that I’m using affiliate links, but I own and personally recommend every single one of these.

I’ve added these to my brand new recommendations page!

Transcript

Bienvenue and welcome back to The Land of Desire! I’m your host, Diana, and this week we are celebrating a very special milestone: this podcast is officially three years old! Woohoo! It’s been a wild ride. Over the past three years, I’ve created 50 episodes, which have been downloaded half a million times, and best of all, I’ve heard from hundreds of listeners along the way, so thank you to everyone who has written in with questions, suggestions for future shows, and interesting personal anecdotes. This week, I’m featuring some of those listener questions in a Q&A episode so everyone can learn more about what goes on under the hood, what I’m reading and listening to, and more! 
 
This week’s episode is dedicated to two listeners in particular: Brianne, my greatest cheerleader, who gave me the courage to turn my crazy dream into reality, and Stephanie, one of my dearest and oldest listeners, who is going through a difficult time and wanted to know about new episodes. This episode is for you!
 
Let’s start with listeners Cecile and Saundra, who both wanted to know: what is your method when it comes to building an episode? How to you pick a theme? Do you already have a list or do you just wander around doing research and pick one? where do you get your info and how do you distill it down to such understandable bits??
 
There’s a really important lesson that took me a very long time to learn: don’t make the podcast into homework. When I assign topics for myself too far out in advance, or I commit myself to a multi-part series, I usually lose interest by the time the episode rolls around, or when I’m halfway through the series. I write a LOT for my day job, most of which involves boring technical documentation or business correspondence. It’s really important to me that the podcast be something that’s not forced, and that means giving myself the freedom to pursue whatever weird interest is on my mind at a given time, rather than drawing a subject from a list. I tend to think about whatever subject is intriguing me in a given week in terms of what I’m reading or watching, and then figure out how that subject might overlap with French history. This method has a side bonus of taking me down some weird roads, into parts of history that might not be discussed frequently! For example, I have a big interest in epidemiology, so I’m always trying to find stories about public health and diseases in French history. Another time, I was reading a lot about Neolithic art, which drew me into the Lascaux caves, and then Chauvet Cave, which I’d never heard of before. Right now, I’m reading and researching a lot about long-distance footpaths, especially ancient ones in Europe, so don’t be surprised if I have an episode on pilgrimage routes soon!
 
Once I have a subject in mind, the next task is to read, read, read. I spend the week prior to an episode just reading everything I can about a given subject and following whatever rabbithole that research takes me down. I usually have 50-odd tabs open at a time, and my laptop is constantly giving up the ghost. Whenever possible, I draw from books, especially those published by university presses, and peer-reviewed journals. If I can track down the primary source document, I’ll try to do so. This podcast has been a fun way to practice my French reading and translation skills! I usually have a document for my notes, where I organize everything a bit topically. For example, for my previous episode on the Black Death in France, my Notes section was divided into bullet points about 13th century France, about the bubonic plague, and about the history of the Hotel Dieu. Sometimes I’m copying down interesting passages, other times I’m just writing freeform summaries of what I’ve read, to organize my thought and set the stage for my script writing. One really important exercise is to try to summarize what I’m reading out loud to my boyfriend. This helps me separate the wheat from the chaff: after that whole afternoon of reading, what stuck out in my memory? Why? Explain it to another person without referencing notes, and without being worried about judgement. Using enthusiasm to drive the creation of my narratives is really important, and keeps me from going on tangents or droning on about something because other people always drone on about that thing when they discuss this topic.
 
Finally, it’s the week of release. By Sunday night, I need to have my notes finished and, God willing, part of my script drafted. By Monday night, I need to have my script completed. By Tuesday night, I’ve recorded my raw vocals and edited them to remove coughs and mistakes and to improve the sound quality. Wednesday night, I mix in the background music, which is the most time consuming part of the entire process, and then create the blog post. Finally, I hit ‘Publish’ and set up my social media posts to send in the morning! Whew.
 
Next, Christine asks: I have to admit, food episodes are my favourite! Do you think there’s any link between classic French cuisine and French Canadian dishes like poutine and tourtiere?
 
Christine, food episodes are my favorite too! When I first began planning the show, I wasn’t sure whether I should make The Land of Desire about history in general or just specialize in food history. I have to restrain myself, sometimes! 
 
To answer your question about a possible connection between French Cuisine and French Canadian cuisine – absolutely there is! Poutine is a uniquely Canadian invention, but it wouldn’t be possible without a healthy serving of gravy. ‘Gravy’ is derived from the Old French word ‘grané’. We don’t really know what grané meant, but we know that somewhere along the way a typo occurred and got stuck. Since tourtiere hails from Quebec, there’s naturally a foundation of French cuisine behind it. Essentially, it’s a particular kind of meat pie, one which happens to be served in a specific dish which the French traditionally use to prepare tourtes, or pies.
 
Next, Melissa asks: Do you speak French? And if so, what was it that really helped you? I love the language but I’m really struggling with it.
 
Zut alors, what a question! Depends on who you ask and what part of my life we’re talking about. When I lived in France I was fluent, but I’ve lost so much since moving back to the States that it’s as though it never happened. I can still read French, but I struggle to understand spoken French. What helps me? A few things:
 
First, you have to be in an immersive environment where you’re being asked to converse in French exclusively. I gained more fluency in French in my first four weeks in Paris than I did in two years of rigorous university French classes.
 
Duolingo helps with vocabulary but not much else – you need formal lessons and immersive conversations to get your head around the grammar. The Alliance Francaise network is a great resource, so I’d recommend searching to see whether they have a location near you. 
 
Once you have those resources in place, I find French language podcasts and books really helpful. I used to listen to ‘News in Slow French’ and the RFI 5 minute news update podcasts to practice my listening skills. Assuming I’d been keeping on top of the news, I’d have enough contextual clues to figure out the French I didn’t understand. The same principal goes for books – I always tell French students to pick up at least one Harry Potter book in French. You know the storyline by heart, so you can quit worrying about comprehension and focus on understanding why they used the specific words they did, in the order they did – in other words, the grammar.
 
With that said, my French listeners are constantly writing in to correct my French. Oui, je sais, je sais, je suis desolee! Another listener, Ellen, recently wrote in with the following advice:
 
“I learned about your podcast when you were interviewed by Oliver Gee and have been enjoying your stories ever since.
During the interview, you mentioned challenges with French pronunciation. Well, although this may be exceedingly presumptuous, I want to share with you a wonderful resource, Geri Metz, who provides lessons on French pronunciation for Anglophones. She is quite knowledgeable and helpful. Her web address is https://pronouncingfrench.com/” – Ellen Cutler
 
Laura: what other podcasts about France do you listen to?
 
I’ll be honest – I don’t personally listen to a lot of them on a regular basis, because I don’t want to be influenced by them! However, there are a number of podcasts I’d recommend to listeners: The Earful Tower and The Siecle focus specifically on France. The Lonely Palette is an art history podcast, which frequently focuses on French history. 
 
Finally, there are two podcasts I’d recommend in particular: Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast and Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This. These two shows were the examples I used when trying to envision the kind of podcast I’d like to make, the kind of podcast that didn’t exist. I loved the funny, sometimes snarky storytelling in Revolutions, as Mike made the minutia of the French Revolution easy to parse and follow along with. I think Mike is following me on Twitter now, so if you’re listening, THANK YOU! Four years ago, I was hiking around in the fields by my parent’s house, listening to you talk about the French Revolution, wondering if I could do what you were doing. I wrestled with the idea for another year or so until I discovered You Must Remember This. Karina’s storycraft was exactly the kind of gossipy, casual tone I sought to recreate, and I loved her use of background music. Above all, she was an example of a woman running a narrative podcast, and doing it all on her own. She was absolutely my mentor when I struggled to shape the concept of the show. A year later, The Land of Desire was born!
 
Christopher asks: Can you discuss the history of the French 75 cocktail? 
Do you prefer an aperol spritz or a kir royal? 
 
Ooh, the French 75 is actually a tricky history! There’s a legend that English soldiers came up with the drink during WWI because they wanted to serve highballs and were out of club soda. What was on hand? Champagne of course! Pretty doubtful to me. The origins are murky, but it does have the distinction of being one of the few classic American drinks that was invented during Prohibition, and isn’t French in the slightest. The Champagne cup already existed from the 19th century, and when Charles Dickens served Champagne cups with gin, he was essentially handing out French 75s all the way back in 1885. 
 
As for the aperol spritz vs kir royal, well, that’s easy. My primary memory of aperol spritzes is drinking them in a plaza in Venice on a hot day. My primary memory of a kir royal? Someone once gave me a bottle of Chambord to celebrate my 21st birthday. Old enough to drink alcohol but too broke to purchase any, one night I remembered the liqueur in the fancy bottle in my pantry, and poured it into god knows what paint varnish was available to drink in a house of 11 college students. I woke up the next morning wishing for a guillotine to stop my headache, and have shied away from cassis flavored anything ever since. 
 
My next question comes from Riley: do you ever feel that you have trouble explaining your love of another culture and language to people who do not share it?
 
Ha, constantly! People assume I’m French, and don’t understand why I’d be so invested in this if I’m not. When I was originally brainstorming the idea of the podcast, I decided between a show on San Francisco history and French history. In the end, I figured there was a bigger market for, you know, the most visited place on Earth, but I wish I had the opportunity to tell stories about the culture and the place where I do live today. I’ll probably just start writing about the French emigration waves to Barbary Coast era San Francisco because I’m a modern woman and I don’t have to choose, I can have it all. But I digress. There are tons of people who instantly understand the pull of France and her history, but the ones who don’t get it, eh! That’s okay! 
 
Next, from Sheena: I find the gilet jaune movement interesting.. I feel like the French government hasn’t understood that the population can not be ignored.. Can you or would you dare, enlighten us on what is going on? I couldn’t help but get the idea that history is repeating itself.. Am I wrong?
 
It’s a timely question, to be sure! I’ve asked myself many times whether I should be discussing the Yellow Vests. For example, this May, when my mother and I got caught in a protest down the Rue Rivoli on our way to the Eiffel Tower! They’re certainly a huge story, and I think for people who aren’t currently living or visiting France it might be hard to comprehend what a big, all-pervasive movement it is. It’s certainly being reported on back in the States, but you really have to see it for yourself.
 
So why am I not talking about it? Well, to be perfectly frank and honest with you, I’m not confident that I could do it justice. I’m not sure anyone could. The superb subreddit AskHistorians has a community cutoff: discussions can only take place around events from at least 20 years ago. It’s hard to parse history when it’s happening, you need a certain amount of remove. I’ll quote from their discussion about this rule: “The closer you get to the present, the less we know about where things are going, what really went on, what really mattered. We usually lack deep knowledge of sources, as well, and are reliant on journalistic accounts, that is, the ‘first draft’ of history that is not really history at all, and in retrospect is often severely lacking in the ‘whole story’. For example, try to imagine someone writing a definitive, all-encompassing history of 9/11 in September of 2002. An entire year has passed – surely that’s enough time to review an event that we knew would be historical at its very moment? But if you’d written that book, you wouldn’t have a single chapter about the Iraq War, because it wouldn’t begin for another six months. You wouldn’t even be able to give a clear, straightforward history on the facts of the day itself, because the 9/11 Commission Report wasn’t released until July 2004. The point of talking about a historical event is to situate that event in a context, to see what led up to it, and what led away from it, and it’s just too soon to apply that kind of thinking to a movement which is happening right now, in the streets, as we speak. 
 
Now, that doesn’t mean I never cover recent events – I wrote about the life of Karl Lagerfeld’s famous cat, Choupette, who is eating caviar in a private jet somewhere as we speak. But the Gilet Jaune movement is far too serious to treat with that kind of unserious inquiry. I don’t know more than anyone else about how things will end. And 20 years from now, I’ll probably regret my confident storytelling in that episode when Choupette is our Supreme Overlord.
 
Peter: Do you have specific book recommendations on French history/culture that can supplement your amazing podcast? And thanks for all the work you put into the show.
 
Do I ever!!!! I’ll add my recommended book list to the website, because this is a great question that I’d love to answer. 
 
If you only pick up one recommendation from this podcast, make it Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne. The man was a legend, and he spent his entire career studying French history, and Seven Ages of Paris is his masterpiece, in my mind. It remains the best single volume history of a city I’ve ever encountered. It’s a shockingly reasonable length, considering it spans from the ice age to modern day, and it will have something to delight and intrigue you, I promise. I first read it the summer before I moved to Paris and it added deep value to my life there. I reread it again these past two months and boy does it hold up. If you’d like a slightly more expansive version, he also has his one volume history La Belle France, which recycles all the Paris content and adds more about the rest of the nation. They’re both great.
 
Next, I’d recommend The Other Paris by Luc Sante, which focuses on the historical underbelly of Paris. It’s a wonderful counter against histories of France focused entirely on rich, white, powerful Parisians, and has a ton of fascinating stories and photographs of the so-called other Paris, filled with socialists, artists, vagrants, sex workers, immigrants, Jews, the poor, and any other kind of nonconforming soul. I don’t mind getting caught up in the romance of Paris, obviously, but I’m exhausted at ideas of French life which begin and end at a portrait of Audrey Hepburn with a caption reading “Paris is always a good idea.” The Other Paris is an interesting and important corrective.
 
If you loved the Dreyfus Affair series, check out Jean-Denis Breden’s magisterial work, The Affair. You cannot do better.
 
If you like stories of World War II and the Occupation, I recommend When Paris Went Dark by Ronald C. Rosbottom as well as Alan Riding’s And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. And that brings me to Lynn Nicholas’s incredible, classic work, The Rape of Europa, which deals with the recollection and preservation of artwork during the war. If you read Monuments Men, The Rape of Europa is way better, and the documentary based on the book is perhaps my favorite documentary of all time.
 
All of those were non-fiction works. If you’re looking for some good old-fashioned storytelling, a few of my favorites include A Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, The Vagabond by Colette, Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac, Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, and honestly you can’t go wrong with The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
 
I have considerably more recommendations so I’ll add them to the website soon, I promise!
 
Teodora asks: are you a fan of French cheeses, if so which are your favourites and do you consider diving into their history?
 
When I first moved to France at age 19, I can tell you without a doubt the fact that surprised me more than anything else: the French don’t really eat brie! Not at the rate Americans do, at least. If you go into any glorious cheese aisle in France, 99% of the time the soft rind round cheese you pick up will be Camembert. You’ll have to hunt for the Brie. That cracked me up every single time!
 
As for my favorite cheese, it’s probably Port Salut, but I’m going to answer this question a little differently. My absolute favorite French dairy product is French yogurt. Not Yoplait, I mean the good stuff. Most grocery store brands in France will taste one thousand percent better than American yogurt, but the really amazing stuff can only be found in the cremeries. My last day in Paris, right after my interview with Oliver at The Earful Tower, I stopped in a cremerie for a beautiful little glass jar of yogurt with passion fruit seeds at the bottom and it was the best thing I ate in Paris. The second best dairy product after the yogurt is the salted butter. Sorry, cheese! If you live in the United States, the best French butter that’s relatively easy to find is from Rodolphe Le Meunier, which I once saw described as the Lamborghini of butter, and I’d say that’s correct. It’s $13 for a wheel of butter, but that wheel will last you forever and it will be the best butter you ever eat. I’ve only been able to find one yogurt that truly tastes French, and it’s from Saint Benoit, a dairy here in the Bay Area. They sell their little glass pots of yogurt at Whole Foods across California, and outside of California you might be able to find it at a natural foods store. They’re heavenly and I have one every night for dessert.
 
Ditte: do you have french listernes, and do you they like your take on France?
 
To my utter shock, I do and they do! At least, the ones who write to me say they do – I assume the French listeners who don’t like my take on France roll their eyes and skip to another show. One of the great joys of this podcast is hearing from listeners all around the world, and I hope to meet more of them in the future. Kerry, who runs that Loire Valley chateau, I swear you’re at the top of my list…
 
Finally, I’m saving the best question for last, which comes from Charles: Okay so there’s a Thunderdome of Disney/Pixar movies, and only one movie about France leaves intact… Which do you need to make it out okay: Ratatouille, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback, or Aristocats?
 
Charles, you have asked THE question! I have a lot of opinions, especially considering I am now a fully-fledged Disney annual passport holder. This question is threatening my relationship with my boyfriend Daniel, loyal listener and much-exploited unpaid intern, who has written several lengthy online petitions to recognize the greatness of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’d never seen it until last year, which shocked him so much that he started playing it for me immediately. Hunchback is an incredible, totally underrated movie, one that I cannot actually believe Disney made. Who was the target audience for that movie? Did they really think 7 year olds were ready for songs about religious persecution? Who was like, “The children just aren’t learning enough about infanticide and damnation, what if we animated it?” But it’s incredible, and it has “Out There” which is one of the top 5 Disney songs ever released. Nevertheless, I’m not gonna give my vote to an animated romp about exploitation and the Catholic Church, so let’s move on.
 
I only saw the Aristocats for the first time this year. It’s delightful, but it’s not that memorable, and I don’t have any nostalgic attachment to it so that one won’t get my vote either.
 
Now we get to the real showdown! Ratatouille is incredible and I love it for so many reasons. The food sounds delicious! The plight of women chefs fighting for respect is the real star of the show! Sly little jabs at Paul Bocuse! It’s a wonderful film and every time I rewatch it it makes me happy and hungry. There’s only one problem: there’s no songs! I’m sorry, Disney movies with no music are no fun! Which brings me to my last option, and the clear winner…
 
Beauty and the Beast! This movie has it all: gorgeous animation, hilarious jokes, and catchy songs about dinner time. Best of all, it has Belle, my favorite Disney princess, who ignores toxic masculinity and supports her public library, who calls out her wack neighbors to their faces every morning, who wants nothing more than to get out of town and is rewarded with a lifetime living in a castle literally a day’s ride from her childhood home. Hooray! But look, Belle and I famously share the same habit of walking while reading, and like her, I don’t run into things. Unlike her, I rarely conduct my reading surrounded by a flock of inquisitive sheep. When I first moved to Paris, I picked up a copy of The Three Musketeers. One day, I started reading it while I walked out of my apartment overlooking Pere Lachaise. Like Belle, I walked down the sidewalk, holding my paperback, paying attention to traffic signals by not rude passersby, until I finally looked up to see how far I’d walked and realized I’d made it all the way to La Defense! I’d walked straight across Paris! So what I’m saying is, Belle and I share the same hobbies, the same wanderlust, and the same willingness to give up that wanderlust in exchange for bookcases with swinging ladders. She married a secret hottie and spent the rest of her life reading all the books she wanted and eating enormous fancy dinners. May we all end up so happily ever after.
 
That wraps up this very special listener episode of The Land of Desire! Thank you so, so much to every one of who who has supported the show over the last three years, whether by rating and reviewing the show on iTunes, sharing the show with friends and family and the Internet, writing in to say hello, joining the Facebook community or contributing to the show’s Patreon account. However we’ve interacted along the way, it’s been a joy and a privilege, and I’m amazed every day at how big this whole project has become. Three years, fifty episodes and half a million downloads later, all I can say is thank you, and until next time, au revoir!

Support the Show

Thank you to everyone who wrote in with questions! If I didn’t get to yours, I’m sorry – I tried to answer just about every question which wasn’t simply a request or a suggestion for a future episode subject. 🙂 The Q&A doesn’t end here, of course – you’re always welcome and strongly encouraged to ask questions on the show’s Facebook page or through Twitter! And of course, you can contact me directly here.

Thank you again to everyone who made a contribution on Patreon! Your Patreon contributions are the only income I receive for the show, and thanks to your support, I don’t have to use advertising. Boo, advertising! We’ve all got Casper mattresses already, right? We fall asleep on them listening to Audible books…you get it.

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