Cuisine en France

Cuisine en France. (Cooking in France)

*Listening to 'What You Waiting for' by Gwen Stefani.* Pretty catchy.

Ever since June 2nd 2004, the day I landed up in Paris, I have been eating out at various restaurants, not because I suddenly realized the existence of a silver spoon in my mouth, but out of sheer compulsion. Somtimes, the team of cryptographers go out to eat lunch, and I am one of 'em. No, it is not a office dictat to eat together, but I prefer to join them every now an then; helps me increase my knowledge. No, not technical knowledge, but linguistic knowledge.

Well, June falls under the 'summer month' category, so the then preferred luncheon by most Frenchies is 'salad'. Now, the mention of a 'salad', can be surely prevaricative. Now imagine salad leaves, lots of salad leaves, scattered with sauteed onions and potato chips, slice up 2 boiled eggs, a couple of tomato slices, 3 slices of whole wheat bread toasted with butter on the reverse, and the obverse is overed with melted cheese of different types. Put some ham slices below the leaves, and pronto, you have 'Salades du Berger', roughly translated to 'Shepherd's Salad' or 'Salad of the Shepherd'. Now, you can mix and match different types of cheese, and meat, and salad leaves, and call them different names.

'Chevre' is goat cheese, 'Rockfert' is cheese from cow's milk and fungus is 'compulsorily' allowed to grow into it, and tastes amazingly swell, 'Reblochannade' another type of cheese made from cow's milk, although the preparation method is different obviously and unknown to me, 'Emmantel' is another good variety, and there are about 396 of 'em, whose names I can't remember and don't care to. And a particular cheese tastes exceptionally good when consumed avec (with) a specific type/cut of wine.

There are more varieties and blends of wines than people in Paris, and I have tasted most of the cheaper variety, primarily because of the obvious reason that they are less expensive. They do not taste as 'celestial' as the more expensive wines though. I have tasted some of them as well luckily. Most wines are named after the region where the come from, so you will find their names on the wrapper on the bottle. For example, Chateau, Bordeaux. Champagne is the name of a place over here in France, and that's how the drink derives it's name. So calling sparkling white wine as 'champagne' made somewhere else would be incorrect. (apologies to Rob Lowe in 'Wayne's World')

France is inhabited by people from all over. Mostly Algerians, Romanians, Sri-Lankans, Greeks, and surprisingly not many Indians or Chinese. So obviously, there are many restaurants by all the aforementioned folks. Greek restaurants have sprouted around almost every corner. Since this city is just like Bombay, you will see cartwaalahs with their wares, sometimes food, sometime trivia, sometimes antique stuff, almost anything. Greek restaurants can be identified by their extremely poor hygiene, oops...can be identified by a triangular mass of mutton slabs strung together on a rod that rotates and stuff gets heated by a chamber of burning coals on one side. That might be a tad difficult to imagine, I shall admit. They are certainly the cheapest among all the restaurants in Paris. I just love 'Merguez Sandwiches', merguez are Spanish sausages. A 'Grec'(Greek) sandwich is characterized by it's pita wrapping, with salad fillings, and extremely oily meat in it, and super crisp fries. Err...In France, we don't call them 'French fries', you see. Just 'Frites', that's French for 'Fries' !

Indienne or Indian restaurants are also seen once in a while as you drive; I have been to just 2 of them, and the 'baingan bhartha' was good. Since I keep going to the same restaurant pretty often, atleast once in two weeks, the chef knows me, and makes it in a good manner, to be read as, does not scratch his balls or armpits before touching those 'aubergines' ( US-eggplants, IND-brinjals) and puts in extra spice, without the previously required nod. So, it's the usual Indian food, chicken tikka masala, tandoori, naan, kulcha etc etc...You know it all. And KingFisher of course, that is guzzled by my French friends, I choose to abstain. Now if it were Khajuraho, then it would have been difficult.

Let's come to Thai. Aah...I have not had Thai food in France, so I can't say anything about Thai. Same goes for Chinese, Malaysian, Euthopian, Nigerian. Alrite alrite, I'll stop pakaoving.

How can I forget Italian or Italienne! The first time, I had pizza over here, I had no idea what was in store for me. I am quite used to the nice, hand tossed pizza in the United States, all sliced up, with garlic sauce on the sides, with numerous customized toppings, that makes your tongue drool, and salivate for sure. And over here, the crust is so thin there is no way, you can slice it up, and if it you shall be having one 'flaccid' slice in your hand, and that is not a good sight. So you are served the entire pizza, 12"...I am still talking about pizza...diameterwise, and the names are lovely, will
come to that in a bit. The basic ingredients would be mozarella (Italian cheese, of coz'), tomato salsa and the flour that goes into making the crust/seating. Now on top of this mandatory stuff, you can order a Vegetarienne-vegetarian pizza, which consists of mushrooms, onions, brinjal slices, olives, fat red peppers (Shimla mirch), Texane-cornbeef, smudges of other fat, and parsley, Orientale- Merguez pieces and that's it. Napolitane- sea food stuff, and me is not interested, DonCarlo- Horribly perfect circular, extremely thin slices of superHuge sausages, embedded in cheese, Royalle- Everything, and there are other names that are not comin' to me right now. And all these pizzas have got No-Paltee egg thrown in, and when you spread the yolk on the pizza, it apparently tastes good, but I hate it, and its always 'sans oeufs' for me. Oeuf equals Egg.

Plat du Jour. Plate of the Day. That's usually the most interesting dish in any restaurant. Once, somebody ordered 'boudin', which he asked me take a bite from his plate as an experiment. I did, and it tasted lovely. It was made from the blood extracted from the intestines of a pig. Now that was said with an intention to make my stomach shudder, but I exclaimed 'C'est Magnifique'. Now, what can I say to something that tastes like 'New Azaad made onion bhajiyaas'. That was good. If that's on the menu, I am getting that, so what if it's made of pork blood. 'Yech', is that what I hear you say. Trust me, you will have to taste it to acknowledge my words. That was just an example of 'Plat du Jour', there are other dishes, like lamb chops cooked with some special herbs, making it taste like cauliflower, that was 'C'est Formidable'. (Formidable in French means 'fantastic'!
Queer... isn't it).

Likewise there is Tartine du Jour. The basic idea being bread toasts with 'X' on it. X could vary, eally vary from fish eggs, cavier, to goat cheese, to chorizo sausage pieces. They are named sometimes after different artists, for reasons unknown. Rembrandt is my favorite. It's got spicy sausage slices, with fried tomatoes, cheese of course, and salad leaves on the side, with mustard, sel and poivre (salt and pepper...You guessed it) Tart du jour. This is different. Imagine wooden bowl, with 'x' number of cheeses that you have requested, melted cheese, with pomme de terre (apple of the soil...if literally translated, for the simple minds like me, it's potatoes), oignons (onions...yeah, that was simple). It all depends on what kind of cheese you want in your Tart du jour. Just so that you don't make a mess with all your stupid choices, the restaurant, pre-arrange the choices, and you just select. Numero Dix pour moi/ma, si'l vous plait. Number 10 for me, please. Simple. Reblochannade, if you want to Google. That's a kind of cheese, already talked about a few paras up.

Kir, or Keer, is white wine with berry juice in it, tinged with something, and laced with another something, both are the bartenders choices, and you have control over him. So when you say 'Kir', you have no idea what you are gonna get. You just have to try. Rest assured, you won't be disappointed, if ou are a 'kir' lover. I think, I would pass on 'Kir', if I had a choice between Beer and Keer. It does not rhyme with Beer, it rhymes with....hmmm....Try this...The drink that is available at Dadar station r mebbe Byculla called 'Neera', remove the letter 'a' in it, and that's the closest rhyming word that I could think of. Can't think of any English or Hindi words that rhymes with the pronunciation of 'Keer'. ut it certainly does not rhyme with 'Beer' ! Oh yeah, how the gaavtiis say 'beer' as 'beeeeeerrrrr'...something like that ! He he heh.

'Leffe'. That's my favorite beer. It's Belgium, 6.5%, and has got a bitter taste to it, and a very ...hmmm...good flavor. Next in line would have to Amstel, it's good, and cheap. Oh oh...Before I forget, 'Pastis' or more famous with the brand name 'Ricard'. It's got this dumb liqourice flavor to it, which I dislike. The bartender serves a small glass filled with pastis, and another jar with ice cubes, and cold water. You are supposed to make your own drink combination, as you like it. Liqourice is 'Jeera Goli' taste, and certainly not good when it's a drink. Absinth also tastes exactly like JeeraGoli juice. Does give you a good high though. The way the guy makes you the Absinth drink is cool. Alrite, Squarish crystal glass on the coaster, now keep a stylish wire guaze on top of the glass, keep a lump of sugar on top of it, pour the Absinth into the glass over the sugar through the gauze, and set the lump of sugar on fire, it burns with a bluish tinge, very cool sight, and then after the flame dies out, put the burnt sugar into the drink, and stir the drink. Neat! The absinth that I had was the one with NO hallucinogens in it, very unfortunate indeed. It's not really legal, but I am sure there are places where you can get them, if one really wanted to. My curiousity hasn't been picked as yet. I got drunk on that itself, so was cool.

Well, there are many things that I could continue to write about, but I believe I have touched the important items. The myriad of genres of French food is amazing, and certainly tastes better than the food that I was having in the United States, no offence. The French don't make burgers as good as the Americans do, of coz'!!! But you know now, where 'burger' (berger) comes from, nei !