Some words of wisdom from a table mat

Eating in a restaurant is nearly always a pleasure. Sometimes it is better than others, because it is not just the quality and presentation of the food and wine that are important, but the ambiance and the service too. I like it when a restaurant gives you those extra little touches, and you come away feeling that the evening was really rather special. One of those special little touches is sometimes there right in front of you when you sit down at the table. For example, a year or so ago, we went to a restaurant in the neighbouring village of Sainte Marie La Mer, the restaurant was called Can Olivier, Can being a contraction of the Catalan word for the house of.  There were three of us eating that evening, and each of us had a different table mat, welcoming us to The house of Olivier. As you see above, one of us had a picture of the Castillet and the Railway Station in Perpignan, one a beach scene, and the third a picture of pleasure boats in the harbour. Immediately, we found ourselves talking about the mats and the views.

A similar thing happened on Sunday evening when we went with our friends from Ireland, to a restaurant called La Galiote in Canet Plage. Here the table mats did not have pictures, but sayings connected with food, appetite, gluttony and cooking! At the end of the evening, having expressed my delight with the table mat, the waitress very kindly gave me a clean one to bring away with me.

The words are probably not too easy to read in the photograph, so let me type them out for you here.

L’appétit vient en mangeant, la soif disparait en buvant. – (François Rabelais)

Le Créateur, en obligeant l’homme à manger pour vivre, l’y invite par l’appétit et le récompense par le plaisir. – (Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin)

La gourmandise commence quand on n’a plus faim. – (Alphonse Daudet)

Si vous n’êtes pas capable d’un peu de sorcellerie, ce n’est pas la peine de vous mêler de cuisine. – (Colette)

Bien manger, c’est atteindre le ciel. – (Proverbe chinois)

“But…” I hear some of you say, “I am still no wiser!” Alright, I’ll translate for you!

Appetite comes with eating, and thirst departs with drinking.

The creator, in obliging man to eat in order to live, invited him there with appetite, and rewarded him with pleasure.

Gluttony begins when one is no longer hungry.

If you are not capable of a little magic, it’s not worth the trouble to interfere in the kitchen.

To eat well, is to reach the sky. – (Chinese proverb)

Words of wisdom indeed, especially as you look down at them staring up at you between courses. Thankfully they didn’t put me off my food!

Post script:

In a similar vein, I read some other sayings, this time not on a table mat, but believe it or not, painted on the toilet wall in another restaurant in Canet Plage a year or two back.

Unfortunately there is a letter “r” missing at the beginning of the last line here, but the translation of this saying is:

Do not seek the most beautiful woman in the world,

But seek the woman who will make your world more beautiful!

And the other saying on the same toilet wall was:

To do what you love is happiness

To love what you do is freedom.

So there you have it, words of wisdom from two unexpected places in two different restaurants, a table mat, and a toilet wall!