Ptipois

Enough, anyway. Chicken should always be well-done. Some chefs have taken the habit to undercook chicken during the last ten years or so, which only makes it rubbery and doesn't let the taste come through. Duck is a problem, I admit, because the magrets and filets should be cooked rare. But I doubt sick ducks are likely to be put for sale. Cooking chicken properly (which means: enough) without making it dry is a delicate art that recent cuisine has mostly decided to do away with. Undercooked chicken was dangerous even before the bird flu craze (salmonella, etc.). One positive effect of this regrettable period could be a return to better ways with chicken.

I think a similar product might be what we know as Canadian Bacon, ptipois. I have found that here in France, this product is also heavily sugar cured as well. Yes, Canadian bacon is also sugar-cured, but genuine French-style "filet de bacon" (which is more traditional here) is generally heavily smoked and salted, but not sugar-cured. They are the same cut, but a different product. Actually "french" bacon is getting rare because, since the 1970's, the French have discovered more interesting, non-French types of smoked bacon. Yes, and there is also a fourth type not to forget: poitrine demi-sel, which is brine-cured, unsmoked and undried pork belly, and part of the "petit salé" category. It is more lightly salted than the others but how salty it is depends on how long it has been brined. That's the one you cook with lentils, choucroute, and various regional potées.

I don't get it. You're claiming your right to subjective re-creation of a sociological reality ("having a heart and mind", sure, as if you were the only one to have them here) on the faith of an obviously badly-researched book, and then you ask me for proofs for facts that don't require any? (The comments on the gross errors that can be found in just one tiny excerpt of the book were already more proof than was required.) You don't need proofs to believe any nonsense that's printed in a book, but you need "proofs" when people with experience backed by a long contact with the facts patiently explain to you that it's obvious BS? What more do you want — police reports? Biological tests? Of course that kind of dialectical gymnastics has allowed one of the most fabulously silly threads in history to drag on, which is some kind of a feat, but now I do believe it's time to put an end to its misery.

Useful info, indeed. I will add that there is a choice between "poitrine fumée" (smoked bacon) and "poitrine salée" or "nature" (with "lardons nature" being available in supermarkets). Poitrine fumée is more readily available. Poitrine salée is closer to the "ventrèche" of Southern France or pancetta of Italy. "Bacon" in the French sense of the term is, full name, "filet de bacon". It is smoked eye of pork loin, is often wrapped in plastic, and has no trace of streakiness. It is not so popular as it used to be. I always found it uninteresting because of its unfattiness. But when you order something with "bacon" in France, that's often what you'll get.

Etc., etc. Could we be serious and to the point for a minute? Excuse me, but when I speak of the reality of French markets, as some people here who do know the subject as I do have done too, there is nothing poetical, romanticised, personal, or even remotely related to a myth, and it's as far away from psychology as it is possible to be. Do have your thrills as you like them. But here we're dealing with people at work and their respectability, as well as quality rules and regulations that are by no means ethereal. Also, remember that we are supposed to be dealing with an anthropology book. Anthropology and romanticism are a dangerous mixture. Yes, tell me about "painstaking"... The crux of the discussion?

Though this thread has really gone too long now, it is nevertheless fascinating because it shows in the most minute details how BS about an over-romanticized country — whose image is all-too-readily misshapen through some writers' ignorance and other writers' fantasies — gets spread beyond borders. It's a good example of the process. The final phase, still yet to come, will probably be the publishing of enthusiastic reports on Mme de La Pradelle's enlightening and oh-so-ironical anthropology book (cherchez l'erreur), saying how accurately and rigorously she described the phenomenon of the French Market®™ ("Well, who would've thought? — Oh, I guess we had it coming — you know, those French, after all..."), even though one single excerpt shows all too blatantly that she has little clue of what a market is, and that she obviously can't see or feel the structural difference between a wheel of Laguiole and an aluminum-wrapped wedge of Vache qui Rit. The problem is that some readers will believe it's information, and there you go.

I like Camdeborde and I like his Comptoir, but to that particular question, honestly, I'll answer no, and certainly not this one.

Whaddaya say? De La Pradelle won the Prix de l'Académie française? Wow. How come nobody tells me anything? Pheh. You privileged one, you. I'm disgusted. 5 euros! I got two literary awards in France and all they got me was a Baccarat crystal pyramid (oh well, okay, and one bottle of monbazillac at the Périgueux book fair, but it was drunk in the wink of an eye in the company of my publishing team).

The newest estimates since the confirmation yesterday that it was specifically H5N1 are that chicken/poultry sales are off 30-50%. But officials are clearly trying to combat the fear of contracting it through oral consumption of cooked poultry and eggs, publicizing its safety by their eating such; President Chirac serving supreme de volaille at the Elysee and the health ministers eating poultry in Vienna at their meeting. ← I have been buying and cooking more chicken since this began, I intend to go on, and I wish more of us French people would do that. Volaille is supposed to be properly cooked anyway, there's absolutely no reason to panic.

No, it is a boulangerie chain started by an Alsatian. It's getting pretty big now. The bread is very nice but the pâtisserie is so-so, but at least its rusticity makes it likable, there's nothing pretentious about it. One thing about French pastry and breadmaking: always remember that in France there's Alsace, that Alsace has a German dialect, that Alsatians have German names, and that Alsace happens to be one of the regions of France where many famous pâtissiers and/or boulangers come from. Alsace is indeed pâtisserie heaven. In Paris, there used to be many wonderful Alsatian pastry shops, most of which are closed now, like the others. Except the Stoeffler pâtisserie, on rue Montorgueil (I think).

It did win a literary prize but it didn't make any particular fuss I have been aware of. Many literary prizes (and indeed there are many, from the Goncourt to the International Prize of Southeast Cantal Tobbaconists or the Sassetot-Le-Mauconduit's Cycling Single Mothers Association's National Literay Award) are won in France every year without raising much public attention. This one didn't.

During the last 20 years, many of the best artisanal pastry shops in France, whether in Paris or in the regions, have disappeared. In Paris alone I remember Aux Cornets de Murat, rue Saint-Jacques; one wonderful pâtisserie I forgot the name of, boulevard Beaumarchais at the Bastille; Poussin, near the Jardin des Plantes; Ragueneau, in the 17th (now replaced by one branch of the Kayser chain). In Rouen, a city I know very well, traditionally famous for its butter pastry, the great Roland pâtisserie has been recently replaced by a travel agency. I don't know if Paillard is still going on, I think it is, and Meier is still sticking to the place de la Gare. Périer, which used to be my favorite pâtissier, is now a perfume shop. And so on and so on. If you don't live in France and only visit occasionally, it is not easy to notice those changes, because indeed there are plenty of boulangeries-pâtisseries and so, some must be thinking "what is she talking about?". But I already explained why boulangeries-pâtisseries don't count because the "pâtisserie" part is only an economic necessity in them. Also, the limited hype of new-style pâtisserie (amounting to three or four shops in Paris and not many in other regions) hides what's really going on in the country. What do 60 million French people care for Ispahan or yuzu foams sold on rue Bonaparte for 7 euros when the best artisanal pastries selling true French pâtisserie are gradually disappearing all over the territory, and all that will be left to them, eventually, will be plastic-wrapped industrial pastry, or average-quality pastry bought from the closest boulanger? As for the reasons, I'm not sure. Economy. People being manipulated into butter fear. The decadence of taste. Industrial food taking over. Elitism leading to polarization. I don't know, I'm sure it's complex. The only thing I'm sure of is that, whatever the reasons are, they can't be separated from the other current trends in French ethnofoodology.

Hello Madumbi. The book is out of print. Here's a Amazon link though. Also this one. You can find it on several websites, but there's no information added. If you really can't find it, PM me for more information.

Well, Bleudauvergne, sorry to practise "acharnement thérapeutique" on the thread when I'm the one who complained that it had become too long. But this excerpt is such a laugh that I can't resist. This is hilarious. To any shopper of average competence, this only evokes cheese vendors. Anyone, anthropologist or not, believing that a cheese vendor on a market may actually have made the wheel of Comté or Beaufort that he's cutting up, or even the very camemberts that he sells, seriously needs a good trip back to school.

Sorry, but if something about the book can be seen miles away, it's its methodology and its conclusions. The excerpt given by Bleudauvergne a bit further up makes them appear even direr than I first assumed. It's complete baloney. Cutting butter off the mound and cheese off a wedge cut from the wheel is just a normal way to sell them at retail, especially on markets. Drawing that sort of conclusions from that sort of fact doesn't make any sense. It would be just as silly to point out that Norman fishmongers, at markets, sell whole fresh fish instead of breaded fish fingers so they can trick the customers into believing they fished them out of the sea themselves. Do you have to read all books that get published in order to decide which ones would interest you? Again, I now know quite enough about this book not to waste any precious time on it. And if it were of any interest, I certainly would have heard about it when it first came out in France.

OK, highly subjective, don't feel bound by my appreciation, but since you ask... This is what I would do if I were given the choice. Alain Ducasse ---> No. L'Arpège ----> Not sure (incredibly expensive). Le Grand Vefour -> No, except for the scenery. Guy Savoy --> Yes, by all means. Ledoyen ---> Not sure. Peirre Gagnaire ---> Yes but don't have lunch, don't even have breakfast if possible. Taillevent - My aunt's favorite.. --> good reputation but no direct experience of mine. I'd pick Guy Savoy and Pierre Gagnaire, in order of preference. Also, I'd consider trying L'Ambroisie, Le Bristol or Le Meurice.

Although this thread has been going on far too long IMO, let me only point out that what was discussed here by people who haven't read the book was precisely the thread itself and the assertions that were made there in relation to a subject that some happen to know very well. The book itself seems of little importance to me and I'm not interested in reading it — so far I can see it's pretty poor research. Why it got translated and published in the US is none of my business. There's a certain kind of experience of recurrent clichés that make it easy to identify the ideas at work. This is as true for the book as it is for some reactions I could see here. Again, it's that good old over-romanticizing of France and its corollary, the childish joy of smashing things that we adore in excess, just to look clever.

My dear Jamie, once again you seem to miss my point completely and you don't seem to get the one Cafe Queen is trying to make. But you add bits and pieces from them to your theory in order to comfort it. This, at the very least, makes the debate appear like it has remained in its earlier stages. The de La Pradelle thesis — if indeed it exists as it is described in this thread, of which I am not sure — is severely flawed, all the more since it seems to rest on a highly erroneous definition of the field of study and a partial ignorance of the dynamics involved in the particular case that has been chosen, and quite possibly of the dynamics of shopping in general. Or maybe the flaw lies in the general ideas drawn later from that particular case, stretching them ignorantly but happily to global, oversimplified statements. This has been discussed wide and far, with what I hope to be some pretty solid arguments to ponder, based on a long-time experience of French markets, of French food production and distribution, and of shopping ways. So there's no way that anything I'll write could be supportive of what you call the "de La Pradelle thesis", even by twisting it in every direction. I'll let Cafe Queen say her mind about that because I can't decide for her, but I doubt it will be very different from mine. I've already pointed out that, in any French farm, it would be total nonsense to bring products to market in a shiny Peugeot. You don't need to be French to realize that. Ever since Deux-Chevaux, the quintessential rural car, existed, people have used them for heavy and dirty jobs like bringing products to market, carrying logs of firewood, small livestock, etc. Now that 2CV are disappearing, they have been replaced by functional and ugly Renault Kangoos if the ancestral 4L hasn't given its last breath yet. But, at the countryside, you don't use the good car for that kind of job. Nobody does, and there is no trace of deception in that. I'll add that Deux-Chevaux, though coarse and sturdy, have always been an object of respect in France, and that, however battered they may be, they are by no means the equivalent of a flapping shoe. Beware of cultural differences and be dead sure of the value applied to things, objects and details before you draw any conclusions. I am from Auvergne through half of my family and I think there are many things in your descriptions that are hasty misinterpretations, including the bizarre "Dior dresses" detail that lingers in my mind. Harmless or not, I fail to see the fun in what you're describing, though I understand the wit and amusement in Cafe Queen's story about her father-in-law. There certainly is a sense of fun in his behavior, a very French one, ingrained in our everyday life, but as far as I can see you're missing it completely, because you're seeing it where there's no trace of it. Now the French can also be fun, as I wrote before, when Americans see them as exotic cartoon characters or, to put it more bluntly, as monkeys in the zoo, and then anything can be fuel — picturesque deux-chevaux, peasant girls dressed in Dior (the nerve!!!), Basque béret and baguette, and total, albeit "funny", misinterpretation of the ways markets function. But that's also missing the point.

Don't forget L'Ami Jean, rue Malar. One of my favorite bistrots. The Lebanese joint on the other sidewalk, still rue Malar, puts far too much lemon juice in the food, IMO, but if you like that it's pretty good. The fattouche salad is probably the best in Paris. Le Chamarré does Mauritian-French modern fusion. Expensive, a bit too fussy for my own liking, but really interesting. Corner La Tour-Maubourg and rue de l'Université. (Edited to remove last sentence after re-reading the initial post and finding that my remark was incongruous...)

I wouldn't describe my friends as poor if they're going to be fed khao soi. Rather, poor Ptipois, condemned to hard labor. Yes it's a good thing I bought that krok and saak.

Cafe Queen, warm thanks from the deepest heart of Ptipois for knowing us so well and expressing it. (One detail though: I never see much bargaining at markets, though it may be practised in some regions. What is more frequent is vendors selling out large quantities of remaining fresh stuff for bargain prices, or even giving them away. The other day at marché Monge, I got away with one free brioche and three free romanesco cabbages, without having ever asked. It was the end of market time.) As for the book, and at the risk of ruffling a few feathers (as a Frenchwoman with a good experience of markets, I must say that mine were ruffled a few times here, so I'm only being good sport), I should add that I'm always a bit suspicious of a book about the French that gets to be a hit in the US, or even in England. From my experience, it is always a hit for the wrong reasons. Yup. Your pa in-law is probably very aware of the tricks that bank employees play with their clients, so he feels he's perfectly right to do that. I'd do the same if I were him. Actually, I sort of do it, too. I'm sure many people do. By the way, that tattered clothes and flapping shoes trick is exactly what my own father did at divorce court, back in the '60's. After that, he tried breaking through our apartment through a tiny window in order to steal the TV set and then realized he couldn't take it out through the window. Hehe, are we fun sometimes.

Well, since I've posted the "Bataille du khao soi" on my blog, many of my friends have been asking me to cook at a khao soi party... Which has yet to be organized. This is what you get by playing that sort of game That could be called one of the side effects of food blogging. Drooling friends are a risk that shouldn't be overlooked.

I wasn't comparing them to add fuel to the discussion, just mentioning that I rated American home bakery very high. And that, by the way, yes, I rated it higher than French shop-bought pastry in its present state. Not that it means anything in particular. Just that French commercial pastry is sort of dwindling, but I think that's kind of clear now. I know the different uses of "your" in English, but in this case it's true that your sentence wasn't very clear to me. Thanks for the clarification.

As a matter or fact, I wasn't wondering at all. I was focused on the subject of pastry. Besides, not all French chefs expatriate for the money.

Hint: you can add an extra swirl of coconut milk to the bowls just before serving, and that extra touch will probably be counted as an additional chance for you to win the contest Anyway the nice thing about this contest is that once it's over, you know how to make khao soi for good. And for pleasure!