The Tour Saint Jacques looking down upon a bowl of rice
“Eat heartily,” I tell my son at breakfast on Wednesday, pushing a yogurt his way. “For lunch you will have but a bowl of rice.”
“I like rice, Mom.”
“That’s good because that’s all you’ll be getting.”
I have just been introduced to the bol de riz idea and am mildly surprised my son doesn’t mind that he will be forced to fast at noon. This week he has being going to day camp run by the local Catholic parish; it also happens that we are entering the season of Lent. For Mardi Gras the parish organized a costumed fête in the church courtyard for the children replete with cotton candy (barbe à papa) and crêpes. I arrived in time for the central event, which in all my years of American Catholichood I had never before witnessed (I’ll get back to the rice in a moment). Let us call it the Bonfire of the Vanities.
A barrel shaped barbecue pit on wheels was rolled in the middle of our assembly bringing the whir of the cotton candy machine to a halt. Père de l’Epreuve (I have delicately altered the name to preserve anonymity, but left the telling particule) took the role of Masters of Ceremonies and clicked on a mic. I thought it odd he was using a microphone, but then again he was competing with rush hour traffic on the Avenue Simon Bolivar behind us, as well as the cries of an itinerate Trotskyist selling his tribe’s newsletter. Père pulled a little stray girl toward him, perhaps in imitation of Jesus who welcomed the wee without bothering with any of his own, but it did strike me that the child, now nearly pinned against his leg by the priestly arm, functioned as a comfort object, his doudou, as it were. The dear child stood there paralyzed and nervous. I believe she held her breath: “Am I being a good blankie, Père?” In response to her silent query, he caressed her tiny shoulder as he lowered his gaze to the B.B.Q. I thought to myself that I might just keep an eye on Père de l’Epreuve.
Two pock-faced Keith Richards look alikes in narrow leather breaches, parish helpers I presume, began tossing bunches of dead leaves and twigs – what the priest called rameaux– into the pit while Père explained (eye penetrating the B.B.Q., palm massaging wee shoulder) the significance of what was happening. The mounting fodder in the pit came from last year’s Palm Sunday branches. “Let us release what no longer serves us. Let us…” suggested Père de l’Epreuve while he gave a signal to the Keith Richards Men to empty yet another box of dry twigs into the B.B.Q. “…purify our hearts as we remember Jesus’ forty days in the desert.” The K.R. Men lit matches to the dead branches representing what no longer served us and then It began — the crackling, the spurting, the orange glow, the purple tongues, the yellow spitting, the choking smoke, the Bonfire of the Vanities. Whoof!
Parishioners pulled out phones to film the high-flying flames. Oh là làs escaped from front row bosoms; we stepped back for the fire grew wildly out of control as the wind changed course several times. Even the Keith Richards Men seemed poised for disaster and were tapping out sparks with their toes. I began to wonder if the bonfire was even legal: have the pompiers been forewarned? Père de l’Epreuve, however, did not budge an inch, nor did the child-of-the-caressed-shoulder who seemed miraculously protected by his handling, for is not the transitional object protected as it protects? His narration continued, without pause, his eyes fixed on the fire like those of a lion trainer staring down his beast to submission. “Let us pray…” The Hail Mary was sung as was the hit tune “Changez vos coeurs” . Eventually the fire died down, dissolving our sins, our petty strife, our narcissistic angst, indeed, reducing all the accoutrements of the Vanity Case to dust. Then, eyeing the glowing coals, mic to mouth, Père invited us back the following afternoon for the sequel: Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. It is not enough to burn the vanities, he reminded us. If you truly want to get over yourself, you’ve got to get ashed.
The child held doudou hostage was at last released with a pat on the back and the families dispersed to go about their business.
That was Mardi Gras.
Every day is Mardi Gras at the Pompidou fountain
So what’s this about a bowl of rice?
I’m getting there. The bowl of rice happened on Ash Wednesday, following Fat Tuesday. Parents were told not to pack their children’s lunch box because they would receive “le bol de riz”. Though I had never heard of the Rice Bowl, it did not take me long to understand this was a French Catholic tradition meant to initiate Lent. Back in Catholic school in California we were told we should give something up (Hostess Twinkies? Hershey Chocolate? Pot?) during the forty days of Lent, but what to abstain from and if we cared to abstain were questions of personal conscience. Like Protestants, we would weigh the spiritual benefits of our act (or non act) in the privacy of our boudoirs.
The Bowl of Rice project on the other hand suggests a sensible, collective approach that alleviates that extra worrying – Protestant in its connotations – of finding just the right pleasure to dismiss. Come to the table, the French Catholic Church seems to say, and we will take care of Lent together. Eat your rice and all will be well. Notice the importance here of communion, of coming together at the table, of eating the same thing. Here food cannot be used as a marker of personal identity and in a way this makes great sense. Who cares, least of all the Lord, if you give up your low-fat latte for a few weeks? Somehow I think God would look more kindly on a community of rice eaters, than on the fetishism of the “conscientious”. But maybe I’m wrong. I don’t presume to know the mind of God.
As my son would only be eating a bowl of rice, I tried to do the same. But it wasn’t the same. I was alone. I ate my rice on a plate with stir-fry vegetables.
This is not what I had for lunch on Ash Wednesday with my rice but at the restaurant of the chateau of Villandry in the Loire Valley.