Ptipois

If I were to list the best non-french cuisines in Paris, the ones from the countries that share a colonial past in France would come first, obviously. Other ethnic neighborhoods are related to the industry, for instance the Turkish population working in the leather district in the 10e. So I'd choose, in descending order: - North African: Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan. Best eaten at little joints, small couscous places and holes in the wall. Avoid expensive Moroccan restaurants, with a few exceptions. Pied-Noir food can be very nice (area around rue Montmartre, rue Richer and porte de Champerret) but a bit heavy compared to cheap North African food. - Vietnamese. I mean pure Vietnamese and not viet-chinese, which accounts for the majority of Asian restaurants in Paris. And yes, the spice level is allright, with no chili missing. All you have to do is go to the right places. - African. The search for a good poulet braisé, thieb or yassa is a great pastime for people who have time to devote to it. However, you can come across truly miraculous food in small places all located in the Northern part of the city (18e, 17e mostly). - Korean. There are good places, mostly in the 15e. - Chinese. It is possible to find some really good Chinese food in Paris if you know your places (not many, really). - Thai. It is also possible to find good family-style Thai and Lao food with the right amount of spice added to it. Whoever says (quite rightly regarding the most common cases) Thai food in Paris is edulcorated has never had a laap neua at the Lao Thai. - Turkish: decent, simple Turkish food around rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, below the gare de l'Est. - Indian: Indian food in Paris used to be downright terrible. It still is, except for the relatively recent places opened between the Gare du Nord and the La Chapelle area, most of them Sri Lankan and South Indian. They sure have improved the level. Simple curries, rotis, parathas, masala chai, idli and dosai, all well-spiced. Some help: look for undecorated places, plastic laminate tables, avoid the spun-sugar "Indian palace" interiors like the plague. - Lebanese food is mostly okay in Paris. I only regret there are so few Syrian restaurants...

Sorry, not yet.

Er, I'm sorry (my turn!), but didn't I read somewhere that you worked at the Crillon? So it's not a typical situation.

This doesn't really make sense because in rural France, corn-growing regions have known for centuries animal-fodder corn as well as human-food corn, which was widely consumed, though not on the cob. There never was a "wariness" about corn on the cob, it just wasn't common use, that's all. As I wrote before, there's no reason why corn on the cob should be universal. The fact that your Dutch friend referred to is more, I believe, a modern problem. Fodder corn, that is now grown all over Europe, does exhaust soils and is not suitable for human consumption. It forces growers to rely on more chemical fertilizers, hence making soils poorer and poorer and unfit for other cultures. This is a quite different situation than the traditional one, in regions where people have been growing corn to feed poultry and people in a polycultural context (Landes, Bresse).

I'd be curious to know more about this khobz. The idea of corn bread is quite foreign to the French mind (with its dedication to crusty, springy, light bread), but I came across corn bread in Southern Portugal (Algarve) and I'm wondering whether it may be similar to Khobz, Algarve cuisine having many common points with North African cuisines. And the use of corn as human food in Western Europe is, at any rate, older than the first corn on the cob boiled in the US... As early as the 16th century, maize was a staple in the Basque country. It was quickly adopted elsewhere in the Southwest. In Italy, polenta as a staple dates back to the 2nd half of the 16th century. Maize/corn was adopted much more easily than the tomato and the potato, for it never had the reputation of being toxic.

Just because boiled corn on the cob is rare in France doesn't mean there has been resistance against it, or even against corn. I'm amazed that European cultures should be labeled "resistant to change" just because they have not adopted an American recipe as an everyday dish. Corn has been widely consumed in some regions for centuries: as polenta (polinte) in Savoie, Dauphiné, Bresse and Bugey since at least the 17th century, also in the Soutwest of France as gaudes, miques, millas, every kind of corn-based mush, cake or pancake. The French below the Loire have been using find cornmeal, coarse cornmeal, yellow maize flour and in some places white maize flour for quite a while. They never usually ate corn in its fresh state because they didn't grow the right kind of corn for this. And I won't mention the use of cornmeal in Italy, Rumania and Portugal. As you see, there wasn't really a resistance to corn in Europe, but to everyone their way of adopting foods according to their soil, climate and preferences.

No worry, there was absolutely nothing offensive in what you wrote, but then I believe it was a little too short! I'm glad you explained it further. It's true that when we French are described as being lyrical (especially on the pont des Arts ), we're so amazed that indeed we do need a bit of clarification. I understand your perception of France completely and I am quite aware that it was a compliment. But we tend to see ourselves as a more prosaical bunch, becoming lyrical in certain conditions that are few and far between. I sense now that you were referring to a different kind of lyricism — so to say to the beauty in the eye of the beholder.

Oh then that's perfectly allright We all know the flaws of Internet communication - there's absolutely no way to hear it when we get a little silly. Dommage !

Corn on the cob is known in France, but not widely consumed. And we do it wrong: most of the times, corn ears are sold stripped of their husks, so not good anymore. Living in the US I understood how much of a national dish corn on the cob is. Americans took it to a point of perfection. Eating boiled corn on the cob may seem simple, but it is by no means universal. However, it is possible to find corn in the husk at Asian markets like Paris Store or Tang Frères. Some good fruit and vegetable vendors (like Cours des Halles, Palais du Fruit, etc.) sell it too. Corn is very popular here in its canned form. Sometimes a bit too popular, judging by buffet salads and some ready-canned salads.

Belgium is too small to export its mimes, and we have a zoning law against Canadian mimes and mummy impersonators.

(A French voice :) With so many conditions to fulfill, how could we be up to the standards that are set for us and remain human? Being lyrical when we talk and laugh. Being "culturally sensitive". Hey, we're people, not museum items — and as people we have our share of stupids, plus a good portion of ill-mannered jerks, and we're entitled to a few obnoxious mimes as everybody else. Sometimes the romantical image that is set upon us gets on my nerves. This is the Internet, and this forum is also read by French people. (French cooling down. Sorry for this, it had to come out.) Bravo! To return to the Pont des Arts, I think it's a nice place to eat a panini standing up there waiting for your pals to show up, but not to spread a tablecloth and sacrifice camemberts. However, if one avoids rush hours, why not? But at night — no way. At nights, in warm weather, it is the meeting point of all the drunks in the area (Notre-Dame drains another crowd of them).

Not really an experience, I go by the Pont des Arts quite regularly. In Summer I always find it this way. I have begun avoiding it in the warm season unless I do have to cross the river. I like it better in Winter. Being a Parisian I'd much rather picnic in a quiet, green place like, yes, the parc de Saint-Cloud. The Pont des Arts is convenient for setting a rendez-vous though, as long as your darling doesn't make you wait.

Not legendary, but at the moment one of the best breads in Paris, though Moisan is doing very well too. I wouldn't be caught dead picnicking on the Pont des Arts, especially in Summer. Yuck! No shade, no green, tourists, fire-eaters and even mimes, people riding bikes, pickpockets, smelly winos scolding their German shepherds and/or playing harmonica, and slippery mayonnaise on the boards. Non merci.

If I were rich... I'd buy a lot of stuff from La Grande Epicerie du Bon Marché, bread from Eric Kayser (rue Monge), Some fruit from my Moroccan grocer (best fruit in Paris), Bake my own lemon pound cake and/or white peach pie, And take it all to the parc de Sceaux.

I just walked up the rue des Carmes. There's only one bistrot there, called Le Berthoud. I do not think this is the place. Your bistrot may be, actually, anywhere in the area surrounding the Panthéon. Les Pages Jaunes is a great search tool, but more effective, I'm afraid, if you know the name of the place.

The lower part of rue des Carmes (left side) is occupied by a big police building, so no bistrot there. Then as you walk up towards the Panthéon, there are some bistrots in the middle-upper part of the street. I couldn't locate one from home using the Net (and there's a heatwave here so I don't go out), so I guess I won't spare you the pleasure of looking for it once you're in Paris. When you do find it, let us know...

Aha. We're getting a little closer. Les Fontaines' particularity is that it didn't have a bistrot-like feel to it, so you couldn't guess that you'd be served such good bistrot fare there. Now the décor is just as dull, but the food is no longer remarkable, which is why I use the past tense. There's only two straight streets offering a direct view upward on the Panthéon. Rue Soufflot, which is more like a short, wide avenue with a triumphal view of the monument uphill. Now there are a couple of large cafés on the left side of that street but nothing resembling a bistrot or restaurant. The second street is rue des Carmes, starting from place Maubert not far from the Seine. There are a few neighborhood restaurants on the left side of the street, much more bistrot-like than Les Fontaines, but I have never been to any of them. Your bistrot may well be one of them. Is the street you're thinking of beginning at the Jardin du Luxembourg or at boulevard Saint-Germain ?

Les Fontaines used to be one of the best bistrots in the cinquième. Since Mr. Lacipière is no longer there, the place is not what it used to be. I still doubt the place mentioned by Jeff L. is Les Fontaines. The description doesn't really fit. More questions: did the place look more like a cornerstreet café than a restaurant? (There was absolutely no way to guess the food was so good at Les Fontaines if you hadn't been introduced to the place somehow.) Was it really crowded at lunch & dinner hours? Was it on the righthand sidewalk walking up a wide, steep, straight street with the Panthéon facing you? (Can't possibly miss that huge saint-honoré cake.)

What's the recipe like, pears aside ?

Could you be more specific? The Panthéon is miles away from the Montmartre area and across the river. Besides there's the rue Montmartre area, between Les Halles and Le Louvre, and the Montmartre area, further up North, on the Montmartre hill. What you're describing reminds me of Chez La Vieille, rue Bailleul, which is really in the rue Montmartre area.

It makes sense that your husband's Breton aunt's pear "clafoutis" tasted more like a far breton, because she probably used a method more suited for farz (far) than for clafoutis. There is not much difference between clafoutis and farz except that clafoutis is softer and richer. Farz is usually sturdier food, keeps longer than a clafoutis and is not so wet. Anyway there are many things called "clafoutis" (we've seen that) but stricto sensu (then everyone does what they like of course) the word "clafoutis" is only for the cherry version. In Limousin, any pastry involving a clafoutis batter with any other fruit is called a flognarde, and you make it when you have no other choice, i.e. when cherries are out of season. Of course the name escaped from its original context in various manners. In Auvergne, I've seen old ladies make "clafoutis" with raisins soaked in rum. The batter was very clafoutis-like, slightly puffy because it had been left to rest and then had been whisked madly before going to the oven. That was very fine but it really would have been called a flognarde in Limousin, which is a few doorsteps away. Which doesn't keep everybody else, including all kinds of chefs, from making clafoutis with pears, raspberries, apricots, even bacon or asparagus. Ducasse's "clafoutis" is a thing of beauty, made on a basis of crème pâtissière, eggs, tons of butter, truckloads of ground almonds and a few pitted griottes. It is one of the most delicious and luscious pastries I've ever eaten. But it is not really a clafoutis. To answer your question simply: if that pastry is called a "fondant aux poires", then it is not a clafoutis. It is... a fondant aux poires.

"épicerie" only means "grocery store".

Hey, Bus, no offence intended, it's just that a clafoutis is a clafoutis — not a thingee, delicious as it may be, with pitted cherries and/or lemon juice, lemon rind, cinnamon and what else. All the brilliant variations in the world won't keep clafoutis from being the way its Limousin creators from long ago meant it to be. Now call it as you wish, actually the dispute between pitted/unpitted is worthless since a true clafoutis means unpitted cherries. But it's not that important. The pitted type is only a bit less interesting and subtle. A flan with cherries is never to be despised. The original cherry used in a clafoutis is the guigne, a bitter, dark, juicy type meant for cooking. The stone is very small and difficult to remove without creating a mess of black juice that makes the clafoutis-making impossible. Hence the tradition. The unpitted thing tends to produce a very nice contrast between the crunchy, sour cherries and the mellow, sweet batter. That's the whole point of it. Some people go as far as not removing the stalk entirely — cutting it a few millimeters short of the fruit to seal the juices in and add some flavour. However the cherries, when they're very plump and juicy, threaten to burst during cooking. There's a trick for this: when they're in the dish, kept in place by the thin layer of butter, prick each one with a pin before adding the batter. That wasn't directed to you but to those who advocate pitting for fear of accidents. But someone who eats clafoutis and chokes on stones or cracks a tooth on them just eats it too fast, without the philosophy it requires. I didn't say that was your case. So don't pit the cherries! Please enjoy the Summer by all means! But you can do it and not pit the cherries. I'm pretty sure of that. I am in Paris but my father was from Limousin and Auvergne (clafoutisland). And I was partly raised in Nice, where cherries are tops. They are quite good this year, by the way.

Your mother was making clafoutis, therefore she wasn't taking out the pits. The lemon juice and lemon rind are just as strange. That must be very nice but that's not a clafoutis. As for the cunning tricks designed to replace flavour lost by pitting, why not just leave the pits in, the way the recipe was designed? Keep it simple. If some people have such poor mouth and palate sensitivity so as not to notice that they're eating a whole cherry in a clafoutis and swallow the pits, they probably shouldn't eat clafoutis in the first place. Clafoutis should be eaten slowly and leisurely, not devoured.

Just to set our regional geography right, Lyon is by no means in Burgundy. It is the center for its own region, the Lyonnais. Mâcon and Mâconnais are part of South Burgundy, though Vonnas, at a short distance Eastward, is located in Bresse. I, too, like Georges Blanc very much. The Disneyland aspect is undeniable but stops at the doors.