Parisian/Parisien Cooking Defined

[John Talbott]

Recently, I posted a question on the Toronto, etc., Forum asking for advice on taking some French pals to a "Canadian" meal. Quite appropriately and politely (as Canadians are wont to be - thanks be,) mkjr asked me

Just curiuos, what would you say is a uniquely Paris, France dish (and not something that one would just identify as French generally)?

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and I replied (politely - hey, my grandparents were Canadian, I summered there, etc.,)

Oh my, there is no Paris or Ile de France food.  There are mushrooms called Mushrooms of Paris, and not far away are the great Bries of "M" - Meaux, Melun and Montereaux.  Hummmm - great Parisien foods; Starbucks, McDo's and Ben & Jerry's.  You have a great point.  Let us start a new thread.  What's Paris food?

OK folks, plunge in.

[John Whiting]

Marlena Spieler’s Paris for Williams Sonoma is a good place to start. After acknowledging that Paris is a meeting point for the world’s cuisines, she goes on,

The city has its own strong culinary identity, based on recipes that originated in both its quartiers and its environs. For example, a dish surrounded by tiny, butter-sauteed vegetables that have been glazed with meat juices and sprinkled with parsley is called a la parisienne. Entrecote Bercy (steak with a red wine sauce) after the quartier Bercy, once site of the Paris wine market; puree Saint-Germain (pureed pea soup), a favorite brasserie offering named after the Paris neighborhood; potage Crecy (carrot soup), traditionally made from carrots harvested in the nearby village of Crecy; and potage aux primeurs (vegetable soup), created by Careme, chief to foreign minister Talleyrand, are all Parisian classics.

And that’s just for starters.

EDIT: And then there's Waverley Root's The Food of France:

It has even been said that this area has originated no dishes of its own. This is not so, but the inventions of the Ile-de-France were taken up elsewhere so long ago that their place of birth has been forgotten. …The Ile-de-France seems to have been the first to have produced a matelote. The vol-au-vent is probably a native of the Ile-de-France also….Deep fat frying is also a specialty of this area.

He goes on to cite local dishes to which non-Parisian names have been transferred, such as sauce bearnaise. According to Root, this was first made in the restaurant known as Pavillion Henry IV in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just outside of Paris, and was named in honor of Henry IV, who came from Bearn.

And there’s crepe Suzette, and a whole catalog of soups, including several varieties of potato and onion. The latter kept the porters at Les Halles going through the long working night.

Since Paris attracted great chefs, there are many personal creations that must be at least circumstantially credited to the area.

Edited May 12, 2006 by John Whiting (log)

[fresh_a]

The Croque Monsieur, first seen on a Parisian menu in 1910.

[Ptipois]

There is quite a treasure of Ile-de-France regional food. It is no less rich than the food of other regions. To add to what Marlena has already described, most dishes named after a historical celebrity of the Ancien Régime or any of the two Empires, etc., linked to the Versailles or Paris courts may be considered Parisian cooking: potage Dubarry, crème Pompadour, etc. Dishes "à la française" (like petits pois à la française) are also part of the Parisian heritage. Early restaurant and bistrot dishes like haricot de mouton, pied de cochon pané, gratin de chou-fleur, etc.

One could, very roughly, discern a few main features of Parisian-Ile-de-France cooking this way: predominance of fresh vegetables and mushrooms, a moderate but regular use of cream (as compared to Normandy), boiled ham (still called "Jambon de Paris") used instead of bacon.

As Marlena pointed out, preparation styles like Bercy (wine and beef marrow), Argenteuil (asparagus), Croissy or Crécy (carrots), Poissy (noyau liqueur), meldoise (whole grain mustard), versaillaise,

Ile-de-France food is pretty easy to research and define. Parisian cooking is another matter. It is not easy to grasp as a concept and as a corpus, not that it doesn't exist, but its specialties have long been integrated into the répertoire of cuisine bourgeoise and the former cuisine de cour, which evolved into haute cuisine towards the end of the 19th century. It does exist, but it is not easily visible, though many of us (French) may graze on it everyday.

In order to understand what "Parisian cooking" means, one should direct the research towards: 1) what people used to eat in Paris since the Middle Ages (some specialties like charcuterie and some pastries have been here for a long time), 2) what used to be cooked in the château kitchens of Ile de France (Versailles, Paris and elsewhere), 3) what was recuperated from the former in the kitchens of the restaurants, 4) and, later, what was recuperated from the popular Paris tradition by the bistrots of Paris, in the second half of the 19th century. The blanquettes de veau and gratins de chou-fleur that were consumed by the working classes in the "bouillons" and "crèmeries" of Paris in the late 19th century do represent this Parisian tradition, which they don't immediately evoke today because they're only associated to the répertoire of "classical French dishes".

[John Talbott]

This is an outstanding thread, thanks folks.

But what strikes me is that while we (really I) go to a place for Southwest, Basque, Alsatian, even Northern cooking, I've never seen or heard someone say "let's go to the Bistro X, they've got really great Ile de France stuff." Like so many other things, is that because being in the cultural, governmental and gastronomic capital (I suppose that the Lyonnais would dispute the latter) what's here doesn't need a name, it's so maintsteam.

Again, thanks all, I hope the Toronto folks are listening in.

[John Whiting]

As soon as you get into restaurants/bistros, the situation is complicated by the fact that these were for a long time dominated by migrants from the Auvergne and Aveyron, who brought their recipes with them.

[mkjr]

This is an outstanding thread, thanks folks.

But what strikes me is that while we (really I) go to a place for Southwest, Basque, Alsatian, even Northern cooking, I've never seen or heard someone say "let's go to the Bistro X, they've got really great Ile de France stuff." Like so many other things, is that because being in the cultural, governmental and gastronomic capital (I suppose that the Lyonnais would dispute the latter) what's here doesn't need a name, it's so maintsteam.

Again, thanks all, I hope the Toronto folks are listening in.

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I am with great interest. Your question in the Toronto forum really struck a cord with me since it was the first time I ever really thought about "authentic" Canadian cuisine (it even seems odd saying "authentic" because so many people here are turning our own locally sourced and unique ingredients into delights that one would associate with other nations, certainly not Canada). I know of only one restaurant in Toronto (not aware of any in Vancouver) that is trying to capture what this unique identity is. Perhaps this is due to the diversity of our residents that bring with them their own national identities although I would have thought that after a few hundred years there would have been more than a few unique dishes? In any event, my wife is asking me to go and finish the nachos...... thanks for the thread Mr. Talbot. Regards, Mark

[Ptipois]

But what strikes me is that while we (really I) go to a place for Southwest, Basque, Alsatian, even Northern cooking, I've never seen or heard someone say "let's go to the Bistro X, they've got really great Ile de France stuff." Like so many other things, is that because being in the cultural, governmental and gastronomic capital (I suppose that the Lyonnais would dispute the latter) what's here doesn't need a name, it's so maintsteam.

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The reason is certainly that, since Louis XIV and later the Jacobins, France is extremely centralized with Paris dominating as the capital city, and the system has been defined as a strong Paris-province opposition. So there's the Paris way and the provincial way, and "provincial" implies "regional" while Paris doesn't. Paris is apart, it's not a province, so its cooking doesn't have to be counted as part of the provincial tradition. Also, its dishes (as I've written earlier) have come, centuries ago, to represent not a regional style but the classical French répertoire of "cuisine bourgeoise" or "cuisine populaire". As you say, it doesn't need a name. It doesn't even need any characterization. It just exists, it's la cuisine.