The Right to and Responsibility for Pleasure

Healthcare, Solidarity, and the Small Indulgences That Matter

For years, every time I was sick, my mother would tell me I should get my thyroid checked. I always got my thyroid checked. My thyroid was always fine. It became a long-standing joke in my family—Mom’s obsession with my thyroid.

I hate it when my mother is right. Don’t you?

Your thyroid is shaped like a butterfly, and the right lobe of mine is now double the size it should be, to the point where it’s compressing my trachea which, obviously, is not ideal. I’ve been navigating this across healthcare systems in two countries, getting poked and prodded, having fluids drained from my throat, undergoing ultrasounds, CT scans, and multiple biopsies. I know I’m privileged to have access to excellent care in multiple locations, and yet… I’m just so tired. I’ve been a zombie since Christmas, only now clawing my way back to life.

While everyone agrees that half of the thyroid has to come out, not everyone agrees on the exact method for doing so. So I’ve been gathering second, third, and fourth opinions before deciding whether to go under the knife. My latest stint has been at Gustave Roussy, widely considered the best cancer hospital in Europe and the fourth-best in the world.

I don’t have cancer, to be clear, but most patients there do. Spending time in hospitals has a way of stripping life down to its barest essential. You see what truly matters when you’re exhausted, vulnerable, and navigating an unfamiliar system. What matters to me, as always, is food. I’m particularly fascinated by one aspect of being a patient at this hospital: the two Michelin-starred chef Alexandre Bourdas of SaQuaNa in Normandy has been designing organic and seasonal menus for patients since 2017. For over a year, he had weekly meetings with the caterers and dieticians from service provider Elior and Gustave Roussy’s medical teams to develop recipes that address the unique challenges cancer patients face such as loss of appetite, altered senses, and difficulties in chewing. Each week, he listened to feedback, refined his creations, and trained hospital cooks to craft his recipes.

A brief skimming of the menu revealed dishes like a duck confit lasagna with mushrooms, feta and cumin, an orange salad with curried yogurt and sesame, a cheese course of blue cheese paired with speculoos cookies and pear. Not your average hospital menu, at least by my American standards where a cheese course would probably be string cheese. Only in France, right?

Bourdas’s commitment to making good food accessible doesn’t stop at the hospital doors, however. In 2021, he made the rare and radical decision to relinquish those Michelin stars at SaQuaNa, transforming his acclaimed restaurant into an all-day café with a boulangerie and patisserie. He wanted to create a space where more people—not just those who could afford fine dining—could experience the joy of his cooking. It’s a philosophy that mirrors his work at Gustave Roussy: the belief that good food should be accessible, not exclusive.

I was so taken by the language of the hospital’s initiative. A chef of this caliber wasn’t brought in merely to nourish patients, but to bring them pleasure. The hospital doesn’t shy away from the word. Over and over, it appears in descriptions of the program: helping patients rediscover the pleasure of eating; sweetening the daily lives of patients; maximizing pleasure as part of a high-quality nutritional policy as a healthy balanced diet is often the first step to getting better; transforming meal breaks into moments of pleasure and relaxation because regaining the taste for food also means regaining a social life. One passage especially stood out to me:

"Meals are not medication; they don’t have the capacity to heal. But they can bring comfort, a moment of escape wherein taste is central. By drawing on memories of childhood and sensations from travel, the flavors imagined by Alexandre Bourdas allow for positive memories, a momentary escape far from the confines of a hospital."

It’s almost certainly marketing spin. The patients are still, you know, confined to a hospital.

But every time I read it, I’m moved. It recognizes that a patient is more than a body to be fixed; they are a person who deserves to savor, to feel, to delight. It acknowledges that food, at its best, is not just fuel but a reassurance that even in illness, beauty, pleasure and connection remain within reach.

Coming from the U.S.—from waspy, puritanical New England in particular, where the greatest pleasure often seems to be in denying oneself pleasure—I relish the idea of pleasure as a pillar of health and well-being. That it isn’t a luxury, but a necessity. And in France, this belief extends far beyond the sterile halls of a hospital.

I’ll never forget when my friend Emily, who had worked in food justice, visited me in Paris during the annual Restos du Coeur food drive. At the grocery store entrance, volunteers handed out a pamphlet listing the most-needed donation items. Alongside staples like pasta, canned vegetables, and tuna were requests for chocolate, jam, cookies, and coffee.

She was pleasantly shocked to see chocolate as a suggested essential. In the U.S., there’s often a disconnect between what the system officially defines as "essential" and the broader idea of food relief as something that should also bring comfort and dignity. We have a need to police the consumption of poor people in America. Small pleasures are something that is unearned, comfort is conditional. Assistance programs like WIC and SNAP regulate purchases so heavily that shoppers use apps to scan barcodes and check what’s allowed as sugary cereals like Froot Loops might be banned, but Frosted Mini Wheats are considered acceptable because they are whole wheat. There’s an ingrained focus on nutrition as the sole measure of "healthy" food, that does not include pleasure within the notion of health. It’s a foundational difference embedded in French culture that seduces me again and again: pleasure as a fundamental right.

Which brings me back to healthcare. When people ask if I could ever move back to the U.S., my answer often starts here. What a gift it is to live in a country where healthcare is considered a human right.

Before I had French social security and a mutuelle (private supplemental insurance), I paid out of pocket for doctor visits. A primary care appointment cost 25 euros. I once needed to see a gastroenterologist who was so embarrassed to charge me that he made me promise to tell him if my American insurance didn’t reimburse me. I braced myself for the bill. It was 40 euros.

The system isn’t perfect—nothing ever is—but it’s an incredible thing to live in a society where getting cancer, giving birth, or surviving a car accident won’t bankrupt you, especially as a freelancer.

At the heart of all this—the hospital meals designed for pleasure, the right to small indulgences even in hunger relief—is a simple but profound belief: care is not just about survival, but about the quality of life.

Pleasure is not frivolous; it is fundamental. It is a recognition of dignity and a salve against hardship. In France, that belief is baked into the culture (and into our high tax rates, bien sûr). It’s why, even in a hospital known for treating the gravest of illnesses, there is still a chef crafting meals meant to bring comfort. It’s why, in the face of hunger or illness, the response isn’t just sustenance, but sweetness. It’s why, even when the world feels impossibly hard, there is an understanding that moments of joy—of rest, of flavor, of softness—are not indulgences, but necessities.

To many Americans, France exists as a kind of fantasy playground, a place where pleasure is freely given rather than earned. There’s the dream of long, lazy lunches drenched in rosé on a sun-soaked terrasse, the myth of the effortlessly seductive French lover, the allure of a life where one can subsist on cheese, pastries, and potatoes without consequence. Six weeks of vacation, a 35 hour work week, and universal healthcare shimmer like a mirage. It’s a vision of indulgence without guilt, of beauty without effort, of a culture that luxuriates in the art of living.

But this fantasy overlooks a fundamental truth: pleasure, in France, is not an accident, nor is it a privilege bestowed upon the lucky few. Like healthcare and other essential rights, it is built and fiercely defended—through solidarity and sacrifice, through low salaries and high taxes, through an unwavering commitment to the social safety net, and through protest. The French understand that a society is only as strong as its commitment to collective well-being, and when that collective well-being is threatened—they don’t just voice their discontent; they bring the country to a halt.

French protest culture is a masterclass in collective power. It is disruptive, unrelenting, and deeply rooted in the belief that rights are not given but defended. You have to admire how the French know how to truly shut a country down. Trains stop running, trash piles up in the streets—not out of chaos, but as a calculated demonstration of what happens when workers withdraw their labor. It’s disruption by design, a reminder that the system runs on the backs of the people, and if their rights are threatened, so is everything else. There’s a solidarity in it that Americans could learn from: when they come for one group—be it train engineers, teachers, or healthcare workers, or reproductive rights, immigrants, trans people—you don’t just watch and hope for the best. You show up, because next, they’ll come for you. The well-being of the individual is bound to the well-being of the collective, there is a shared responsibility of care.

Healthcare, leisure, security, pleasure… these aren’t privileges, but collective rights, fiercely protected with the same fervor that Americans reserve for individualism. A society’s strength is measured not just in how it cares for its most vulnerable people in times of hardship, but by how fiercely it refuses to let that collective care be eroded. The French understand that a good life isn’t a given, it’s something you fight for.

Many thanks to Henrike Klug for this perfect image