Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - October 2002 - Volume 9, Number 10
Copyright (c) 2002 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
I'm often asked whether Paris is as exciting and glamorous as people say it
is.
I must admit my feelings are mixed.
First of all, I have to say that I have had two different relationships with
this city. The first one was passionate - and blind - love, the kind you
have when you can overlook any fault, no matter how obvious, no matter how
great. Your rose-colored glasses are strapped firmly on. In those days
(about ten years, one husband and two children ago) Paris was a
Toulouse-Lautrec painting into which I had stepped. Its color was hazy blue
and its sounds were muted. It was the Paris of cozy cafés and small
bistros, of tiny maids rooms tucked away under eaves, of concierges who
called me "tu" and invited me in for onion soup, conversation, and a lot of
(too much) bad red wine.
That Paris has changed. It's turned into the cold, unhospitable Paris of
the 16th arrondissement. Its color is no longer hazy blue, but gray like
the winter sky. The sounds are no longer muted; they have become harsh.
The small bistros are too noisy or too "à la mode". Let's face it: I have
to pay the baby-sitter too much for me to be able to maintain my
illusions....
And so I have watched my relationship change from passionate love to amused
or sometimes angry tolerance. After having been robbed four times and
attacked twice in the metro, you'd think I'd hate the place - but I don't
(is this the way mothers feel about their children who grow up and become
criminals?)
I just hate SOME things: the metro in rush hour, all the old hunched-up,
pinch-faced ladies in the 16th arrondissement who manage to look at my
little boy with the greatest disapproval, salespeople who give me the wrong
change, my dark apartment which in Paris is a "find" but anywhere else in
the civilized world would be considered a disaster area.
And I love others: my concierge who always has a bright word, my apartment
which is wonderfully spacious and cozy at night with the lights turned on,
the odor of chestnuts warming on a brisk fall day, the nice old ladies who
ask about my son and remember his name, and the salesgirl at Prisunic who
always sneaks a pencil or a piece of candy into his back pocket.
In spite of the pollution, the metro, snarling salespeople, dog poop all
over the pavement, the interminable wet winters and the steel gray skies, in
spite of the fact that I may someday wither away from claustrophobia, I
still love this place. It takes just one balmy spring day to erase a winter
of discontent; one smile from a salesperson; one evening spent in a
tète-à-tète with my husband at a favorite bistro to forgive Paris her faults
as an indulgent mother would a wayward child.
That's my Paris. Don't ask me about nightclubs and discotheques and fancy
restaurants. I don't go and they don't interest me. On the other hand,
Paris at 6 a.m. seems more real and interesting to me. The street sweepers
are out by battalions. Shopkeepers roll up their steel curtains with an
authoritative clang. Good smells waft out of bakeries. Everything seems
fresh and clean and I prefer people's just-out-of-bed rumpled-up look at the
beginning of the day to their sad-disgruntled-irritated look at its end.
So, yes, Paris is glamorous. It is exciting. If Plato in his scale of
values named an absolute City, it would be Paris. It has all the good and
evil a city needs plus an undefinable "something else". In short, it has
the perfect urban mix. But for how long? My worry is that after having
tried to emulate America and American cities for so long (the Beaubourg
complex, the expressways along the Seine) the city may lose its
authenticity. Why should the most beautiful place in the world give itself
over to the Automobile and Macdonalds? The day Paris becomes a pale
imitation of Detroit I'll flee, passport and French family in hand.
But where will we go? There's no other place like Paris in the world!
Those of you who follow my column may wonder why, in the above homage to
Paris, I say things like "ten years ago" or refer to "babysitters" or my
"little" boy. The reason: this is a column I wrote twenty-two years ago
and exhumed during a recent move! I thought it so appropriate I decided to
reproduce it here because in many ways nothing has changed - and in other
ways, of course, everything has.
For one thing, the little boy the Prisunic saleslady would slip candy to is
now a 26-year-old computer specialist living in Montreal. And shortly after
I wrote the column, his younger brother, now 22 and a doctoral candidate in
Philosophy at the Sorbonne, was born.
If I rewrote that column today, I wondered, would the fact that they are
grown be the only change I'd make?
Probably. Paris still has steely gray winter skies. It still has smoky
(interesting I didn't say that the first time around...) noisy bistros. I
still dislike the metro although I take it because it's fast (and even
though there's a lot of talk about pickpockets and "insécurité" I haven't
had any problems). The dogs still poop on the pavement.
I no longer have a concierge but found a fantastic apartment with a private
south-facing garden. No noise and lots of light. Nice old ladies don't ask
me about my children, of course, but coo with delight over my little
granddaughter when I take her for a stroll.
I still don't frequent nightclubs or discotheques or fancy restaurants. I
do, from time to time, glimpse Paris in the wee hours of the morning,
usually on my way to a train or a plane. I love to see parents holding the
hands of their little ones as they take them to school, pressed looking
executives clasping their briefcases, blue collar workers enjoying a last
drink at the café before attacking the day.
There are now scads of Macdonalds and the Automobile continues to pollute
the air we breathe. Fortunately the new Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe,
has opened bike paths and more bus lanes and is making some interesting
noises about closing the expressways along the Seine and returning them to
the Parisians. Wouldn't it be Parisian indeed to see young lovers and
fishermen on the banks of the Seine instead of a long line of vehicles?
Since I wrote that column, I moved twice: once to the exclusive, wealthy,
clean (and boring) suburb of Neuilly in the Bois de Boulogne where we
brought up our children and two months ago to a funky, "in", working class
area near the Père Lachaise cemetery in the east of Paris. Another
experience, another Paris, where there's less money but more contact with
human beings. In Neuilly, I never got beyond a certain perfunctory level of
politesse with the local tradespeople. After only two months in my new
neighborhood, I'm "l'américaine" and fast friends with the baker, the
butcher, and the fellow who sells newspapers.
One of my favorite activities, justified by being the new person on the
block, is to check out the neighborhood. I take my morning coffee at the
appropriately named "Rendez-Vous des Amis", a café-restaurant near the Père
Lachaise. Since I'm not really a morning person( which is why I wrote so
much about it), I never get there until at least 11 when they are starting
to set up tables for lunch. In spite of that, they serve me cheerfully and
leave me to scribble away. The patronne, a vivacious, energetic
Frenchwoman, manages to keep an eye on everything and everyone while
remaining the picture of elegance in a red sweater, black skirt and high
heels. It's very much a neighborhood place. Everyone seems to know each
other. I secretly hope one day I too will become an habitué.
Coffee over, I walk up the rue des Pyrenees to do some shopping and admire a
boutique called La Campagne à Paris. With its gold and yellow storefront
and windows filled with mouthwatering fruits confits, macaroons of every
flavor, boxes of dark and sweet chocolates and colorful tins, it's
impossible not to go in even if you don't particularly need anything.
On the right in this tiny boutique is the chocolate counter. They are all
homemade and come in a variety of forms - heart shaped, log shaped, with
pistachios on top or liquor inside. Next to them are calissons, caramels,
almond paste candies and guimauve, a kind of marshmallow. (But being French,
the marshmallow is coiled in thin bands in different colors in a beautiful
glass jar). On a high shelf cherries in raspberry liquor and prunes with
armagnac give off lovely colors.
On the left are all kinds of teas and biscuits. Some I'd never heard of,
such as carrés d'auvergnes pur beurre, navettes à la fleur d'orange, and
some I had, nonette au miel, my favorite, and madeleines de commercy. What
else? Meringues in various colors and pale blue and pink and multi-colored
almonds. Patés, foie gras, confit d'oie, canard and cassoulet are also
lined up in case you want to indulge something other than your sweet tooth.
Charles and Gisele Rivero have owned the boutique for twenty-five years and
tell me their clientele is almost entirely composed of the locals (who seem
to know what's good). The Riveros are exacting: they taste every single
item that comes in the store, including ones from suppliers they've known
for years. "You can never be too careful," Monsieur Rivero tells me. Son
Frank, a wine expert with a Master's degree in Geography, prides himself on
finding attractively priced quality champagne and wines from small producers
and has built up a faithful clientèle of young people.
Remember, this is a working class neighborhood. So you can imagine how
surprised I was when the Riveros told me that their best-selling products
are ...foie gras and champagne! "Parisians adore champagne," the Riveros
told me. "We sell it as fast as if it were lemonade!"
And this is why I love Paris still and always will. Give me a country where
people appreciate the finest, even and especially in a working class
district. Even and especially if it's for a once a year treat, how
wonderful that people accord such importance to the good things in life.
Did I really speculate all those years ago that Paris might someday become a
fief of Macdonalds or a pale imitation of Detroit?
No way! Paris will always be Paris. As Paris-lover Joe Murray, a senior
writer for Cox Newspapers put it in the International Herald Tribune, "Paris
should be declared an international shrine. The World Bank should finance
its economy. The people of Paris should work at no other job than simply
that of being Parisians."
Amen.
Harriet Welty-Rochefort, is the author of
French Toast: An American in Paris
Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French and
French Fried: The Cu
linary Capers of an American in
Paris.
Both are published by St. Martin's Press.
For more of Harriet's prose on Paris, check out her
Paris Diary.
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
harriet.welty@hwelty.com.
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.
