WITH the ever-increasing numbers of celebrity chefs, the expanding girths of the teenage population, and the rash of programmes celebrating people who live off nothing but cheese and crisps, you could be forgiven for thinking that Britain has become a nation obsessed by food.

Think again; the Brits are not anywhere close to the French when it comes to thinking about food. They are not even on the same playing field. If France is the Beijing Olympics, then the UK is warming up somewhere in Alaska. In fact, I can almost guarantee you that the first question asked by the French Olympic squad on qualifying to go to China was "Where are we going to eat?"

A good example of this obsession was a recent lunchtime conversation with my colleague Guillaume. He was going up to Figeac to help somebody move some furniture at the weekend. Knowing that Figeac is near the Lot valley, a very picturesque part, I enquired about his sightseeing plans and where he was going to visit. He looked a little blank and then started waxing lyrical about going to a restaurant for lunch. Any scenery would be purely incidental to the gastronomic break. This struck me as reverse thinking to how I would plan things. I would be aiming to see the sights and then grab a bite somewhere as a pleasant bonus.

This love of food permeates all of French life. Napoleon declared that an army marches on its stomach. France is a whole country and economy that bases itself around its stomach. That is why retail businesses are quite happy to close for two of the most profitable hours of the day: money-making takes second place to nourishment.

It is not just the retailers that base things around lunch. If you go into any of the major towns on a Saturday morning you will have most of the shops to yourself, but wait until the shutters are going down at midday and you will see a real change: all of the people that weren't in the shops will suddenly appear in the restaurants, which will be absolutely heaving. Lunch is not something that you have when your feet start to ache from an excess of retail therapy, it is retail therapy and no shopping should be attempted on an empty stomach, and precious little gets done after a few glasses of rosé.

Probably the ultimate indicator of the different thinking between the two nations is the fact that the English language has never felt the need for an equivalent to bon appétit, the expression only being used in Britain by waiters in slightly pretentious restaurants. It always startles me when I am about to tuck into a sandwich, a somewhat solitary affair, and a perfect stranger passing by will call out bon appétit to me. My first reaction is to tell them to mind their own business, but they are only being friendly. The second feeling is one of confusion as to what to say; merci will suffice, but the whole experience is alien and feels odd.

So, has the whole obsession left them as a nation of bloaters? Rather bizarrely not. Despite appearing to eat nearly their own body weight in a single session, the vast majority seem to look as slim as whippets. I put this down to not basing every meal around potatoes, dense bread and any other carbohydrate that they can find. Yes, no meal is complete without bread, but the humble baguette is made purely from air, a small amount of flour and a special product which makes it delicious when fresh and like a rock within hours, you can't get fat on it.

So I suppose you could call it a healthy obsession. If it wasn't for the cigarettes they would live forever.