Invariably, when I return from France, someone will ask me about the great, rich French food, or if I ate in such-and-such a famous restaurant. The truth is that I like to discover restaurants. A couple of years ago I saw that there was a Tibetan restaurant near my studio apartment. I had no idea what Tibetan cuisine was like, so I tried it and found it delicious. The decor was eye-catching and the staff was delightful. Paris offers so many cuisines from the many immigrant communities that have settled in the great city that one could probably try something new and unusual every day for a month. I still haven’t been to a Senegalese or Ethiopian restaurant, although I have tasted the fare at a couple of Moroccan establishments.
During my recent time in Paris I was searching for a cafe or brasserie near the Jardin des Plantes. I wanted French food and kept finding Italian pizza-and-pasta eateries. Those two items, which I enjoy, were not on my current “approved” list, but finally I gave up and went into a little restaurant that serves only their house-made pastas. I figured that if I had to eat pasta, it could at least be unusual. Each dish was made with a different pasta. There was barley, chestnut, buckwheat, and a few others I’ve forgotten. And each pasta dish was different from every other. I settled on the barley pasta with salmon, leeks and seaweed. It was scrumptious and no tomato sauce in sight! This is the kind of eating adventure that adds to my joy of being in Paris.
Even the most ordinary foods can be delicious; a sandwich of ham and cheese on a baguette, lentil soup, a big salad. Because the French are so interested in the origin of their foods, you even see signs for French fries “de la maison”, meaning house made fresh rather than frozen. Imagine that in the US! Of course nothing says “French food” like bread. Hardly any French person would settle for a day-old baguette. Someone from the household always goes to the nearby bakery in the morning for fresh croissants and baguettes. In the afternoons it’s as ordinary to see someone walking down the street holding a long baguette as it is to hear an impatient driver blow his horn. There’s absolutely nothing in French cuisine to compare with the wonder of their breads. The croissant is a delicate layered marvel that makes eating just a single one a challenge. (If you’ve never had a real, French croissant, I would say you’ve never lived.) And the baguette with its soft inside and crunchy outside was made to carry passengers, whether butter and jam at breakfast or sauce at dinner. At the end of a meal it does the mop-up work on a plate. Perfection.
The day after our arrival I headed for Notre Dame with a student to help her catch up with the group. An unsightly although fabulously redolent tent was set up in front of Notre Dame celebrating something, not the divine Ascension. (That was happening inside the cathedral.) It was the Fête de Pain. Ahhh, something else divine, French bread. We wandered through, taking in the dazzling variety of breads, rolls, sweet rolls of all kinds, pastries, and finally sandwiches on baguettes. Everybody fell for something irresistible. I considered getting a langue de belle-mère, a large oblong cookie called a mother-in-law’s tongue. I settled for a tiny bit of a croissant-like roll. A delicious morsel. A taste of the city that said “Welcome.”
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