Five Ways to Tip Off French People That You're American (or at least not French)

This morning I had breakfast out at a little café (long story) and was inspired to write this blog entry. I hope you like it -- and Besançon friends, feel free to leave your opinion in the comment box. 

1. Smile with top AND bottom teeth 

This is probably the single biggest tip-off, because smiling with only the top set of teeth is more of a European thing in general than just French. Also, if you're from the Midwest or the South, more likely than not you smile at everyone whom you make eye contact with on the street -- here a dead give-away that you're not a native. 

This came up at the Friz'Bistonins Christmas party before winter break, and here Colin and I are demonstrating the difference. Notice how I look awkward in the first and he looks downright pained in the second:

Then TéTé and Alex decided they would demonstrate the difference too:

 

  <-- Natural smiles

                  "American" smiles -->

 

2. Leave a tip after buying only a single beverage

Leaving a tip is certainly expected at a nice restaurant for dinner, where the service is presumably more involved, or at a bar if you've been there for a while. But servers are paid proportionally more here, and their livelihood is less dependent on tips, so not leaving a tip, especially for something very small, isn't rude like it would be in the States. So leaving a 50-cent tip on a 3.50 coffee and pastry will certainly be appreciated, but don't be surprised if as you're leaving, the server asks you casually, "So, where are you from?"

3. Ask for coffee WITH your meal

Big, big no-no. Coffee is an acceptable order at pretty much any time or morning, day, or night, except during a meal. This is probably because when you order a regular coffee here, what you get is much smaller and much stronger than the typical cup o' joe served in restaurants in the US. The flavor is intense enough to mask most other flavors, so it's sort of like dumping salt and pepper on the plate you are served; you're saying the flavor of their food is so lacking or unpleasant that you don't mind masking it with the super-strong flavor of coffee.
 

4. Say "I'm sorry" 

This one is a bit more complicated, but certainly the one I commit the most out of the list. "I'm sorry" would be translated into French a couple of different ways: "Je suis désolé(e)" (as in, "I'm sorry I'm late), or "Excusez-moi" (as in, I'm sorry I stepped on your foot), or "Je suis navré(e) d'apprendre que..." (as in, I'm sorry to hear you broke your leg). Just plain "désolé" is probably the one I use the most, and tend to use in the context of when I would say "sorry" in the U.S. : sorry about that uncatchable pass I just threw you on the Frisbee field, sorry you missed your bus, sorry you have a lot of work tonight... But either French as a language is less sympathetic or I use sorry too much, because I frequently get funny looks. When I ask what I said wrong, people often reply with the question "Why did you say sorry, it's not your fault?" It's not that I was necessarily claiming fault with my initial sorry, just expressing my sympathy for whatever unpleasant situation arose. But apparently this is a huge tip-off.

5. Ask for butter to go with your bread (unless it's breakfast), or, god forbid, your croissant

No no no no! First of all, butter is probably the foundational element of French cuisine. Asking for more in almost any context is like saying, "Please oh please, my arteries have a death wish!" And if you've ever attempt any French recipes, you'll learn Paula Dean's homeland could just as easily be Franche-Comté as the good ol' South. But I think this aversion to butter on bread is because bread usually serves another role in the meal. For instance, in the morning, it goes with coffee or tea, and the flaky crustiness is a nice contrast with the strong coffee. At lunch or dinner, it's used to mop up the rest of the delicious sauce which covered your main dish, and as a conduit for cheese. This isn't to say that French bread isn't perfectly delicious on its own, but usually it's eaten in conjunction with something else, and unless it's breakfast and you're out of jam or Nutella, that something else is almost never butter.