French Tea Time, Glorified After-School Snack, Crosses the Atlantic

Jan 9, 2009 by Anna Migeon

Europeans know: we all need to relax with a hot drink, a little bite to eat and someone to talk to at the end of the day. This deep human need is one Americans have underestimated, but it’s a simple matter to give it its due.

The French tea time is a more sacred, more cherished form of our after-school snack. It is sanctified by certain civilizing traditions.

I first discovered this custom in 1989 at my husband’s parents’ farmhouse in a tiny French village. They call it le gôuter (“to taste”)—it is not a full meal—or “les quatre heures,” literally “the four o’clock.” Taken any time between 4 and 6 p.m., it is  reinforcement for the dairy farmers there before the evening milking. A light dinner is served later in the evening.

Far less varied than dinner or…