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. Read the rest of this article »

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. Read the rest of this article »

The other night Mathilde and I were happy to have dinner with her grandmother, Mimi. Mimi is a spectacular woman, every bit the matriarch: ruddy, robust and flush with life in spite of her years, always with a bright, mischevious spark in her eyes. Mathilde has inherited this spark, the glint that looks for and finds joy, but it has not yet matured into the bright opalescence that Mimi’s contains. It is a mineral of love and humanity, I suppose, that can only be polished by time and experience, and which gleams brighter for each test of durability, and brightest when taking in the fruits of a life, the faces of a family well-loved and loving assembled near it. At all the large family dinners I have attended with Mathilde, but especially those at Mimi’s own country house in Normandy, I have watched this light in Mimi’s eyes as she pours the champagne to three generations, plays with the fourth, and pads from the kitchen with steaming osso buco for all. In any case, Mimi is an easy woman to love, and I am thankful that she favors me, because I would like never to see the alternate refractions of her crystalline gaze. Read the rest of this article »