If Parisian’s habits are any clue to those of the hinterland, then the French have an uncommon appetitte for fast food “nouveautes”. Almost every franchise chain, native and foriegn, seems to trot out some unprecedented flavor combination once, if not twice, a month. The results range from enticing, to moderately successful, to downright abominable.

The French fervor for fast-food innovation seems to embody a sort of inverse calculation of menu predictability. Fast-food in America – and, I used to think, globally – represents, with it steadfast, franchise-specific offerings and gnomic value-meals, a common denominator of “comfort”, insofar as you always know what to expect. In France, this sort of unwavering approach to la carte is already fulfilled by what has often been satirized as the “state mandated” menu found in the majority of its bistros and brasseries – entrecote, confit de canard, blanquette de veau, etc. Perhaps because French cuisine is so codified and readily available – as fast-food is in the States – the French turn to the chains with, or rather the fast-fooders try to turn the French towards them for, an expectation of sub-par variety.

To list the myriad “limited time only” dishes that have been sent out of the fast-fooder labs in my months here would test any reader’s patience, but I will offer some examples. McDonald’s has been perhaps the most successful, as most of their offerings are not, at first glance, revolting (compare to Quick). They are constantly spinning their basic chicken and beef sandwiches, such that I have seen steak-au-poivre flavored, “Mexi”-flavored, and double-trouble bacon-cheese burgers, as well as Italian-themed “Chicken Dons” or Indian-inflected “Tandoori” McChickens. The latest is the “Chicken Mythic”, whose ads contain iconographic American silhouettes (quarterbacks and cowboys), and which is topped by an inscrutable “Yankee Sauce” that, so far as I can tell, is little more than curdled mayo. Although Quick has had a couple of winners – their deep-fried yellow and red bell pepper Sunny Rings last summer come to mind – more often than not their generally lower-quality fare is exacerbated by monstrosities that would seem to satirize American eating habits were they not actually on the menu. Their latest affront is the “Crousti Cheese”; depending on your perspective it is either a mucous mockery of that eastern european delight, the fried cheese sandwich (nothing tops Czech beer better at 4am), or a steroidal perversion of the mozzarella stick. Either way, I ain’t having it.

This post has been wholly inspired by Pizza Hut’s latest assault on taste. Pizza Hut’s ads and specials are some of the most unappetizing I have encountered thus far. The latest batch isn’t as quite as offensive as their previous, a tartiflette presented in artery-hardening macro, but they are laughable, insofar as they are simply really bad pizza ideas packaged as “ethnic interpretations”. Never mind that most of the “cultures” or “cuisines” already have their own varieties of flat-breads with toppings. Never mind that at all. Obviously a “mexican” pizza must have…corn?

I honestly don’t know if such miscarriages are simply the deranged products of the French fast food industry in particular, or if the reductive presentations of “ethnic” point to a more general, cultural provincialism on the part of the French. I certainly hope it’s the former.

UPDATE: At dinner this evening I was showing my blog to a friend of Mathilde’s and mine, Maxime, who is doing his thesis on office culture of the advertising and marketing business. He told me that the director of marketing for McDonald’s in France told him that they offer a new “special” every 6 weeks in order to drive store traffic. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

Last Friday night, Mathilde and I joined some friends at Le Vertbois, a cute little bistro near Arts et Metiers that opened in mid-2006 just a few doors down from well-regarded tourist fave, l’Ami Louis. Hip but not branché, correct but not particularly ambitious, Le Vertbois offers a decent value and convivial atmosphere that – if it proves reliable – may just become a good standby address in its neck of the 3rd.

The restaurant is rather small, with perhaps 16 covers on the main floor and the same upstairs. Decor is a minimal retro-chic, with little embellishment beyond the choice of furniture and fixtures. On the left wall, three ceiling-high mirrors and reproduction sconces air out the narrow dining room, while on the right wall smaller mirrors and the menu ardoise take up what little space is left at the end of the long zinc bar. In the rear a creaky, wooden spiral staircase – which I would recommend ascending one-at-a-time for safety’s sake – leads to another dining room, the WC and the kitchen.

We were seated upstairs, which was quieter and more intimate than the elbow-to-elbow main floor. The paneled walls are painted a very light green, the wider front of the room is separated from the narrower back by a tasteful piece of scrolled ironwork, and each table sports a blackamoor candlestick (the French are far more tolerant of this sort of imagery than PC Americans). I was rather fond of the seating – cheekily gilt Louis XV wickerback armchairs.

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The carte includes 5 starters, perhaps 7 mains and 4 desserts, with a 3-course dinner formule at 25 euros. Three of us went for the croustillant des gambas aux poireaux, prawns and sauteed leeks backed in a crepe wrapper, served atop mesclun. It was quite good, the sweetness and softness of the leeks providing a homey counterpoint to the toothsome, savory prawns. I was famished and put mine away in moments. Mathilde had raved about the honey-baked camembert she tried on a previous visit, but the fourth appetizer looked less like the menu-advertised baked chevre and more like a lowly chevre tartine.

Mains were solid and correct. My entrecote was perfectly sanguiner, with little drops of blood pooling on its sides. Around the table, there were no complaints over the confit de canarde, parmentier de poisson, or grilled TK. The plating was simple – for me, a pool of sauce au poivre, a small cup of roquette, and three skinned, roasted baby potatoes. Mashed potatoes accompanied the duck, and some greens crowned the parmentier, but I found it rather incongruent and lazy to pair the grilled fish with another three roasted potatoes. Likewise, the recurrent garnitures of roquette and mung beansprouts were rather boring. All told, however, the meal was quite satisfying, and the young servers were friendly and attentive throughout.

Although the food was good, and the service and space tres geniale, short of the croustillant I had encountered no new combinations on the menu or on the plate. I tend to believe that, as far as middle-of-the-market Parisian restaurants go, 30 euros for a 3 course dinner is the general threshold between run-of-the-mill joints and places with a little more panache. Well-informed eaters know, however, that there are a number of spots throughout the capital that offer reasonably interesting – or simply excellent – fare at around the 25 euro mark. One of these I am particularly fond of is just around the corner from my apartment: le Pre Verre offers a dinner formule of 25.50, and on the whole its menu shows far more thought and experiment than Le Vertbois – e.g. rasberry and yellow bell pepper claufoutis. For my money, I prefer such liberal kitchens, but if you’re looking for a moderately-priced trad-French meal with a hip veneer, then Le Vertbois is worth considering.

Le Vertbois
38, rue Vertbois, 3rd
01.42.71.66.95

One of the first things I noticed upon my arrival in France was that the standard order of beer was not the pint, but the demi. Now, while the “pint” is, in spirit, the standard unit of beer consumption in the Anglo-American world, it is hardly a standard measurement, complicated by metric, standard imperial designations and, in Australia it seems, a whole slew of regional beer vernaculars. In spite of historical cross-pond differences in measure – 16oz/473ml (US) or 20oz/568ml (UK) – I would hazard that the most common pint these days falls right in the middle, at the happy 50cl mark.
But I’m not here to talk about pints. They have them here in France, and they are consumed, as are the more Germanic looking 100cl steins, les Barons, and the daintier, 15-20cl gallopins – which was evidently introduced to the French drinking public by one Monsieur Gallopin in 1876. Likewise, we have half-pints in the US (or “schooners” as I knew them in the Pacific Northwest, where they better facilitate sampling the region’s countless craft brews), but they are far less common and often not to be had at all. The simple fact is, if you order a draft beer in the US, UK, or Ireland, you’ll be given a pint. If you order a draft beer in France – and don’t specify its size – odds are you’ll receive a demi.

Now, the causes behind such cultural idiosyncrasies could be manifold. Glassware marketing schemes ascendant in each country? Disparate refrigeration and/or beer-tap technologies? Evolutionary differences between French and Anglo-Saxon constitutions and digestive tracts? Who knows? The simplest answer is, of course, that British drinkers, on the whole, prefer beer, while French drinkers prefer wine. Beer being the principal intoxicant of the island nations, it is only natural that they should drink larger quantities from larger glasses. Besides, a hefty pint seems to rather fit the British national character, as a matter of both history and mythology. To say that a bourgeois, stemmed wine glass fits the French National character – especially in its red-capped outbursts – would be incorrect. A demi – smaller, more civilized – does however seem in accord with that certain idée de la France, especially when that certain idea is to have barley-pop instead of wine.
I have warmed to the demi over time, I think because I have come to appreciate the rather French virtues it embodies. While the French hardly have a reputation as a sober people, they lack the statistically-supported binge-drinking cultures found in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. In these latter places drinking, no matter its social function, is but a means to the end of drunkenness. Of course, there are temperate folks and factions in all these countries, but it seems to me that – in the rising generation especially – drunkenness is the logical end to a night out, and is not particularly frowned upon. In France, alcohol (commonly wine), is integrated into daily life in a much different way, and to a much different end. Wine, though full of its own virtues, is by far most virtuous when accompanying a meal, thereby complementing the flavors and extending the total experience. When consumed judiciously, it gives pleasure by heightening the senses, whereas beer, typically, gives pleasure by deadening the senses. Of course, I am a beer drinker, and appreciate the best expressions of the brewers art, and the steadfastness of better beers against even the richest of foods, but I cannot deny that, between beer and wine, the latter is the more sensual libation. Here I could get in to an exposition on the Northern and Southern temperaments of Europe, but I have not lived here long enough, and will leave it at a gesture.

Thus the French, wine drinkers at heart, drink beer differently – by and large – than the Anglo-American world. The French certainly will get drunk on beer, for which application pints or barons are recommended, but they also treat it with a certain French casualness and friendliness towards pleasure, and this is why their standard order is half of ours. A beer during lunch in the States – a pint, as it were – will almost certainly be worn on the breath, back to the office, where it may garnish untoward sniffs and will almost certainly slow you further than the post-prandial coma. A beer during lunch in France – a demi – will neither mark you nor slow you back at the office. If anything, the glint of a buzz and the effervescent carbs will fortify you for the rest of the day. The demi is more civilized simply because it is less – it costs less, takes less time to drink, and weighs less on the body. Thinking of the demi as one drink – and approaching beer thusly – in fact allows you to enjoy beer more.

Case in point: to “stop for a beer” in the land of demis is not as time consuming a proposal as it is in the land of pints. In the land of pints, the inclination is to sit, chat with a friend, ruminate, what have you – much in the same way “having a coffee” is treated. In France, while both you can “have a beer together” or “have coffee together”, you can just as easily “stop for a beer” and “stop for a coffee”. Many Americans seem to think that, because the French do not drink coffee on the run, they must always linger in cafes when they need a caffeine fix. Hardly the case – they drink at the zinc. Because a French coffee – usually just an espresso – is smaller than an American coffee, they can take 3 minutes out of a crosstown walk to prop an elbow on the counter, put down a demitasse in 3 or 4 sips, and continue on their way. The demi, likewise, offers this flexibility, and I have seen it enjoyed in such a manner many times. The pint requires leisure. The demi is adaptable, and I have thus adapted to it.

Of Butchers…

When most Americans think of the “freshness” of French food, I’m sure a few tasty images typically come to mind: the technicolor orgy of the farmer’s market, the smell and crisp of fresh bread, the rich tang of raw milk. But nowhere is such freshness better exhibited – and in no manner more striking to shrinkwrapped American sensibilities – than under the butcher’s knife.

A couple of weekends ago, while poking about the Saturday market at Mauber-Mutualité for some brunch fixin’s, I came across one of the itinerant boucheries that had set up shop there. To my sanguine delight, behind the glass counter, behind the butcher himself, hung a great queue of skinned, drained carcasses, the most impressive of which was, or once was, a goat. Madame Chevré hung confusedly from one of her hind legs, stripped of her weekend finery and looking as uncomfortable as the dead can. Though I have come across happy pigs heads in Brooklyn Italian butcher shops, never had I seen an animal so lately gutted, skinned, and offered up for retail. On a table to the side of the display, a healthy hare, still in his winter coat – and I do mean still – waited patiently beneath another butcher’s knife, which cut the air as the price of its object was under dispute.
I sorely regretted not having my camera that day. Madame Chevré and Monsieur Lapin were as fresh images in my mind as they were fresh meat for the scale. Neither of them disturbed me in the least; if anything, I found it quite proper and cordial of them to show their faces to the shoppers. The American meat and poultry industry has long been a source of moral disquiet for me, on three fronts: first, for the reprehensible “husbandry” of factory farms; second, for the unnatural hormonal, dietary and genetic alterations; and third, for the, shall we say, client-side divorce from that supermarkets force between meat and its eaters. For an unsuspecting tourist, I thought, this would make a happy reunion of the raw and the cooker.

I am a meat-eater, and though I have never killed a warm-blooded creature I have long said that, if to eat meat I must murder a cow, why then I’d bathe shoulder deep in its blood as I drew a blade across its throat. I would stare into its doelful, dimming eyes and promise that its sleep would be sweet, as its flesh would be to me. I’m prepared to do that. Maybe I’d cry a little, but I’d do it. Steak is too goddamned good. The point is, most urban and suburban (i.e. nonhunting) are so, so far removed from the realities of meat – farming, raising, killing, dressing, butchering, hell, cooking – that seeing Madame Chevre in her undress, and Monsieur Lapin patient for the knife, threw a lifetime of sanitized consumption into relief.

That relief became all the more stark today. Luckily, I had my camera. Now, Europeans are, in general, much more omnivorous than Americans. Even if you tremble in the face of tripe, one happy medium that the Euros have dicked is game meats. Grouse, pheasant, deer… In Corsica they eat wolf for God’s sake. (There’s a resto here I plan on trying it at.) One game meat I developed a taste for, while I was studying abroad in Prague (in 2001, during the height of the Mad Cow scare), is wild boar. Unlike pork, it is not a white meat. It is dark and unctuous and tastes as much of the forest as the goat tastes of the farm. Donc, imagine my thrill when I encountered our fine friend, pictured above, snoozing fitfully over the side of butcher’s case, the hollow of his gut modestly covered with a yard of cloth. A spectacular animal, and a spectacular piece of advertising. No one was immune to his charms – children, held by their parents, would reach out to pet his smiling snout; passing teenagers would shake a hoof in greeting; older adults would smile and study him hungrily. How many family dinners can a boar make? I’ll let you know when my French is better, but tomorrow I plan on seeing exactly what fine parts Madame Sanglier has been parsed into.

But dinner. From the first time I sat at table with Mathilde’s family, I noticed they had a very methodical approach to the special-occasion family or social meal. Now, I’m sure this procedure is not particularly unique in France, quite the opposite, I would imagine, amongst the petite bourgeoisie, but I was first introduced to it by the Perrottes and thus thank them for it.

Unless they come from a particularly foodie family, or one lately immigrated from, say, Italy, most Americans are unacquainted with the sort of end-to-end pleasure of a properly conducted repast, one whose purpose is not to feed, but to nourish with pleasure and company. Thanksgiving hardly counts – the menu is too staid, the day singular and fraught with the stresses of family…stresses, it seems to me, exacerbated by American mobility and by the general atrophy of the American family. Suffice to say that it is the rare and lucky clan that comes to its own table together more than twice a year, without the pretense of a holiday. (I stress its own because, in the States, I think we are more liable to take a non-holiday celebration out to a restaurant.) The Perrottes are one of these families.

Now, dinner with Mimi this time was, as it has been but once before, a smaller affair with she, Mathilde et moi. The ritual remains the same though, and I will outline its stages below:

1. Aperitif – Either champagne or negronis, though Mimi (and as well, Mathilde’s parents) often chooses whiskey. Knowing my fondness for whiskey above all liquors, and my peculiar sensitivity to the bubbly (ça me fait mal à la tête), Mimi always stashes a bottle of Paddy’s under the coffee table, which she gleefully produces as the preferred alternative. The aperitif is consumed over warming conversation and a variety of snacks – typically something crispy and something savory, and at Mimi’s always including some amazing piquante olives – while the main dish is being finished. In this instance, a massive cut of Limousin beef – raised on a Norman butcher’s family farm and brought back by Mimi that very day – which had five minutes in the oven before being transferred to a searing pan full of rock salt. I turned it once before the ice in my drink had melted, and by the time my glass was empty the kitchen aroma announced that it was ready.

2. Food & Wine – Obeying the call “Á table!”, we move from the salon to the dining room, where the meal itself is plated. This evening, the aforementioned viande, sliced thick, the rosy hips of each cut oozing with juice beneath a smear of roquefort blended with butter. On the side, a leek tarte and some exceptionally crispy roasted potatoes with garlic. I asked Mimi how to give spuds such an excellent texture, and she answered, simply, “Put them in the oven, and forget them.” Accompanying the meal were two bottles of red – a 1990 Bordeaux and a 1997 Burgundy, if I recall correctly. Every adult Perrotte maintains a respectable cave, and thus I have quickly realized the value of cellaring wine. I may not be able to distinguish a $100 bottle from a quality $15 bottle, but I can tell the difference between a good wine and a bad wine, and can safely say that now I understand how a good one definitely becomes better with age. By the end of the main course, belly bursting with and head high on red-meat, I was ready for a smoke. But the repas was not yet 2/3 over, and it would have been rude to leave the table. One must forge ahead.

3. Cheese and salad – In the States, both of these items are usually offered in advance of the meal, but not so here (nor, I believe, in Italy). A tray of three to five cheese – here, a chevre, a roquefort and a semi-hard whose name escapes me – goes around the table, followed by a bowl of salad. I’m sure that somewhere there are gastronomic treatises extolling the digestive virtues of appending, and not beginning, a meal with dairy and greens, but I can only speculate on the logic and affirm that it is rather nice to bridge the meal and the dessert with crunchy and creamy textures.

4. Dessert – Here, a home-made tarte aux pommes, unctuous with God knows how much butter. After a childhood gorged on candy I have rather lost my sweettooth, but I cannot deny that, in a procession of savors, it is best to end on a sugary note.

5. Coffee – By this point the wine is exhausted, or at least abandoned, and the juice of the bitter bean is required to guard against the lethargy of consumption. The arc of pleasure being almost complete, this stimulant helps buoy its latter half.

6. Digestif – Now a small glass, or two, of some regional firewater. As coffee rouses, so the digestif emboldens – calming the belly to its proper functions, and fortifying the mind to take on the remainder of the night, if there is any. In this case we had Mirabelle, a clear liquor from Lorraine, made from tiny yellow plums. Two shots from a silver thimble, some more conversation, and the arc is complete.

After saying our goodbyes, Mathilde and I cabbed it home and slept blissfully. I beleive I could get used to this “everyday civilization”.

Welcome to my blog.

I was born today, October 8th, in 1979.

I am writing this to know myself better.