" Good food is the basis of true happiness " With these words, Auguste Escoffier, king of cooks, made French cuisine known internationally, making millions of people happy. I think of him everyday. Because, like my fellow citizens, my eating habits have changed and my gaze on my refrigerator too. He became the essential interlocutor during this period of confinement. Worse, it is at the center of our lives and our thoughts. Our gaze has changed towards him and especially what it contains is no longer the same. He is a close friend who shares our desires, our desires and our whims. He is a confidant whose effects are reassuring. "There is only in France where we talk about food while eating. It’s instrumental and social "Says chef Philippe Verpiand of the restaurant l'Etoile in Houston.

From the first days of confinement, the queues in front of the supermarkets were formed and the shelves robbed for fear that our dear friend at home would find himself naked and disheveled. “This health crisis caused collective fear in the face of a food shortage. The fear of lack, of not being able to eat, an immaterial threat. Which explains the instinct to store basic foods that people consider essential to our comfort, " explains Antoine Mesnard-Duvroux, neuropsychologist at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. However, it is unthinkable for the French to think of food as a simple nutritional contribution. Our personality is forged by our way of eating.

In my XXL family, love is transmitted through my cooked meals and my gourmet recipes. This confinement allowed me to explore new avenues but also to deploy my culinary art. The appetite of my four boys and my daughter has become an experimental laboratory. Because the positive aspect of this pandemic is time. No more schedules and no more time trials, meals become real New Years Eve. The dazzling success of video cooking lessons is proof of this, such as "Top Chef" or "Confined cooking" at Figaro Live. It has become a hobby that mixes business with pleasure. Between escape and safe bet, meals become real subjects of family debates. From a simple amateur I have become the star of the kitchen. I become the starred chef by combining simple products never used before with an artistic or inventive creation on the plate of each of my guests.

“Cooking is first and foremost an art. It is a perilous exercise that brings comfort in these difficult times. It's a homecoming and home made "Stresses Christine Solgnié, a nutritionist who never fails to point out that the opposite effect is also true. Namely, the loss of the usual benchmarks can lead to a total destabilization of the diet. Some people will not only be satisfied with a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner, they will nibble all day long or invent a snack break, in short it is the famous "we eat when we are hungry" . Others will rather opt for the continuous meal, that is to say "anything, at any time". " Since I am at home I cannot start a telecommuting meeting without my supply of cookies and cakes while I am not at all greedy even less sweets ”, I admit my neighbor whose daughter, rather slender and sporty, meanwhile, snacking all day compulsively. For Doctor Mesnard-Duvroux, it is clear that certain behaviors in the face of this event translate into a refuge in food.

"Faced with public misfortune, one takes refuge furiously in private happiness", underlines the philosopher Francis Balle. The fridge then becomes the nerve center of our lives, sometimes even incarnating the enemy to kill. A real torture to see him, a dangerous fascination. Stress, anxiety or depression are all triggers for a frenzy of bulimia. Conversely, loneliness and food do not mix well according to our plate specialist Philippe Verpiand and this is accentuated during this period of confinement until causing loss of appetite, even undernutrition in some cases. The announcement of having to live together 24 hours a day also destabilizes family relationships. No more small restaurants with friends, a gourmet coffee break, lunch with girlfriends, private dinner, everything is reorganized and lived under the same roof. Social networks have also exploded the phenomenon. Photos of manual activities abound and the kitchen comes first. Instagram is the first relay on food with the hashtags #food, #foodporn. Since the start of containment, the site has recorded an increase of over 140% in these views of dishes. Philippe, an engineer at Total, proudly photographed his first bourguignon beef. Marie-Christine, for her part, made a pheasant terrine with mushrooms highlighting all the stages of the process. The site has thus become an essential tool to help the food reorganization of the whole family. The undisputed star is bread. Everyone makes their own baguette, the baking tray becoming a refuge from the anxiety of confinement.

Because this repatriation to the house shakes up the shopping, the menus and the consumption of each one. The more I fill my fridge, the more it is robbed. Better, to take advantage of this reinforced complicity, the children as the spouse discovered the inclinations of a cook stuffing the fridge with "comforting food" such as pancakes, chocolate cakes, quiches with a thousand flavors, shortbread with salted butter , caramel creams and strawberry pies. Suddenly, my friend the fridge is unrecognizable. No more peanut butter and jelly, place for local products on the shelves of my long-time friend. Because of this, it is more attractive, attractive and you want to be constantly immersed in these shelves to compete in culinary imagination and small gourmet dishes. And too bad for the pounds that go with it! We will have plenty of time afterwards to lose them and abandon this faithful ally, then reduced to hosting green salads.

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