Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - December 2000 / January 2001 - Volume 7, Number 12
Copyright (c) 2000 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
PARIS--There are all kinds of things going on in France these days but the
two subjects which are on everyone's lips are the U.S. presidential election
and la vache folle (mad cow disease).
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - Every time I get my banker, doctor, lawyer, or
French friends on the phone, I get the same question: Do you have a
president today? Since I've been on the phone with all these people several
times over the past two weeks, it's getting rather old - and even they are
getting discouraged. The French media have covered the elections thoroughly
but the story has now been relegated to the last minutes of the news instead
of the first ones. But what am I saying? As I gaze at this morning's
Figaro, I see that the entire right-hand column is devoted to a story on
Gore and FOUR inside stories on the election! Are the French interested in
the U.S.? And how!
MAD COW DISEASE - A national psychosis! Depending on what day you watch TV
or read the papers, you CAN eat steak - or definitely should NOT. Some
French mayors decided to take beef off school lunch menus, then changed
their minds and put it back on them. President Jacques Chirac went on TV to
tell the French people that they're right to be worried - and while the
anguish built and meat sales plunged, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stood up
and said "pas de panique". No one knows who to believe although a recent
survey showed that the French are much likelier to believe scientists than
their politicians - and for good reason!
So while some unconditional carnivores are still tucking into their favorite
entrecote, others are shunning the red stuff (superstar Chef Alain Ducasse
just announced he'll take beef off the menu at his upscale restaurant in the
16th arrondissement and serve lamb and lobster instead).
Meanwhile, I suppose that I myself reflect the national schizophrenia. I am
repelled by the whole idea of mad cow and indignant that les vaches have
been eating feed composed of ground-up carcasses instead of good old green
grass. At the same time I really really hanker for a good steak tartare
with frites. In fact, I've started craving red meat the way I used to
crave delicious French pastries before I logically concluded that too many
of those things would turn me into a blimp.
The whole thing does get one thinking though. Three cases of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob or "mad cow" disease in humans have, regrettably, been
reported in France - and the entire country is seized by fear of eating
meat. Just as regrettably, thousands of people in France are victims each
year of automobile accidents and lung cancer - but there's no national panic
over smoking or bad driving. (In case you're reading this and feeling
unconcerned, think again - according to recent reports, it's in the vicinity
of "likely" that mad cow disease could very well hit the States as well).
But back to France, the mad cow crisis hasn't kept the French from enjoying
life - or food - or dinner parties. Red meat, however, has been relegated
to the "food-you-don't-serve-unless-you-ask-your- guests-category" which
includes squid, rabbit, tripe etc. I'm going to have a dinner party Friday
night and am planning to serve fish which should keep everyone happy.
Dinner parties are quite complicated affairs in France (not complicated for
the French, who have been doing them all their lives, but for non-French who
have to master all the intricacies). Here's what I say about a dinner party
chez moi (excerpt from FRENCH FRIED) and all its varied complexities:
" I decided on a simple menu. As an entrée, a light salad of avocado,
shrimps, and peeled grapefruit (not so simple becaues it takes a lot of time
to get the skin off each segment of grapefruit) followed by a lotte à
l'américaine (monkfish in a wine-and-tomato sauce) and rice (not very
creative, I admit), salad, cheese and dessert. The first glitch in my
perfect planning was that when I went to the market, I saw that for the
price of the monkfish that day I could buy a new car (just kidding). I had
to change my menu right there at the market. I decided on a veal sauté
Marengo for the good reason that when you have a stew like this, you can
make it ahead of time and don't have to keep popping back to the kitchen. I
bought the veal. I bought the salad. I bought the cheese, and I went to the
best pastry shop I could find and bought two wonderful cakes. Then I went to
the bakery to buy the bread. Philippe took care of the wine. When you think
about it, since I bought the cheese and the dessert, there wasn't that much
work. Right? Wrong! I figure that between the shopping at the market and
elsewhere, the polishing of silver and setting of the table, the cleaning up
the apartment before and cleaning up the whole mess afterwards, it was a
three-day affair! And you wonder why the French don't launch casual
invitations?
The point of this for foreigners who are invited to French homes is that
they should be aware that the hostess has in the majority of cases invested
a lot of time and thought and energy in the dinner. A dinner party is a
social event, not a happening, not something that has been thrown together
at the last minute or came from some kind of divine inspiration."
It was so much easier in the pre-mad cow days when you could make one of
those long simmering boeuf bourguignons! Oh well, let them eat quiche....
Harriet Welty-Rochefort, a bona fide Midwesterner from
Iowa, visited Paris for the first time while in
college. She became so completely enamored of
France that she stayed - and has been there ever since.
Married to a Frenchman and the mother of two
Franco-American boys, Harriet Welty-Rochefort writes
on business, lifestyle and travel for major U.S.
publications. Her book -
French Toast
- is a lighthearted look at
French manners and mores.
Writes Leslie Caron: French Toast includes the most delightful barbs at France's
subtle but deep-rooted codes of behaviour...I read the book on the EuroStar between
Paris and London and wished the train had not reached its top speed of 300 kph!
Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times on January 2, 1998, French Toast
is published in the U.S. by St. Martin's Press.
In the coming months, we'll be publishing short extracts from her
forthcoming book, French Fried, The Culinary Capers of an American in Paris,
which will be published by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press in March 2001.
If you've had some funny, startling, satisfying, or dismaying
food experiences in France you'd like to share,
you may contact Harriet directly at
hwelty@club-internet.fr.
Editor's Note:
Dear Readers, while our writers are always
delighted to hear and to receive comments, both about their columns in the The Paris Kiosque,
as well as your experiences in Paris,
they are unable to answer any requests
for travel information.
Thank you for your understanding.
