Paris / Steak Frites

"I'm not a voracious carnivore, but there's something about being in Paris that makes me want to sink my teeth into a bloody piece of beef."
     – Ann Mah










Where food, history and fantasy meets is that special place the food writer tries to find for inspiration of understanding over and over again.  The Renaissance in American food and the restaurant industry is one of the truly great things happening in the U.S. today, but it is new and we can notice that it is drawing more and more not only on the history and tradition of place, but very often – as is so often the case with anything American – on other cultures around the world.  Mah briefly chronicles the fascinating history of Parisian cafes in order to understand the very concept of food prepared and served by others outside of the home itself.  "Cafes have existed in Paris since 1686, when an Italian named Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened Le Procope on the rue des Fosses Saint-German on the Left Bank.  The self-proclaimed 'oldest cafe in the world' still stands in the same spot."

What's interesting is how cafes began.  As people from the area surrounding Paris, the Aveyroannaise, came to the city seeking work, factory workers needed food choices and so often relied, essentially, on sandwiches or snacks, called le casse-croute.  "Every morning Madame Odette would slice an armload of baguettes lengthwise and fill them with butter and ham, or sticky slices of Camembert, or pate and coronations.  She'd stack the sandwiches like logs in a woodpile and sell them through the day to ouvriers, workmen or factory hands, who formed the base of Le Mistral's clientele."

Some of the other menial jobs of Parisian laborers were to deliver water and hauling buckets of coal to private homes.  "This gave way to coal shops, warm places where regular customers could indulge in a glass of wine while placing an order for delivery, which eventually turned into cafes."  At this point, we could use the tool of fantasy to easily picture a situation where the drudgery of a day of work finds people trying to find brief relief in a warm shop filled with the aroma of already prepared food and a quick drink.  Then some historical time passed. The clientele, as Parisian life cultivated, turned from factory workers to an increasing number of bureaucrats with time on their hands and more choosy stomachs.  It was a hot meal they desired.  What easier combination to make quick and hot than beef and potatoes?  Customers could bring their own beef portions from home to the cafe itself, whose cooks would prepare to the taste of the individual palate while a glass of wine could be enjoyed.  "Customers kept asking for a 'plat du jour' – a hot lunch – and cafes need something quick to eat and easy to prepare.  Et voila, le steak frites est arrive!'  It is the same spirit as the sandwich...except its hot."

When considering what exactly American food is, the idea often comes to mind that it is a hamburger and French fries, as though somehow this was an American invention which somebody one day invented in New York or somewhere down in Virginia.  Truth be told, one of the very conflicts we often see between the ideals of French and American food might very well stem from the fact that we did nothing more than make one of the purest and most original historic French meals into something even quicker, plus a bun, dumbed down by ketchup and mustard, that's all.  If we truly think about American food – other than the Renaissance mentioned above – we see that Subway and McDonald's are simple retreads of the quick French sandwich and hamburger served in easy-in, easy-out cafes.

The biggest difference, really, comes down to the fact that the French, over the centuries, have given themselves more time to sit down to eat.