Every once in a while, the French think about the last supper. Not Christ’s repast with the apostles, but their own last meal; the one they would order if they were going to be shot at dawn.
It’s not surprising in a civilisation obsessed with gastronomy. Decades after I first came to France, I am still amazed that one can head out of Paris, drive a few hundred kilometres in any direction, stop arbitrarily at a country inn and enjoy a delightful meal. Each time, it seems a gift and a miracle. French food is good.
French children learn early to be gourmets rather than gourmands: that one eats and drinks not merely to survive but for pleasure. Gastronomy is an art, a celebration and the occasion for fraternité.
In his magnificent Dernier Repas, Jacques Brel sang: "At my last meal / I want to see my brothers / And my dogs and cats / And the shoreline of the sea . . . " The only food and drink mentioned are communion wine and a pheasant hen from Perigord. Brel is festive, anti-clerical and defiant in the face of death.
How to eat ortolan
For his farewell New Year’s Eve meal in 1995, seven days before he died, the former French president François Mitterrand ordered oysters, foie gras, capon and ortolans. The last of that list are tiny, beautiful, endangered birds whose consumption has been banned in the EU since 1979. It took France another 20 years to remove them from restaurant menus.
One eats an ortolan burning hot, bones and all, with a white serviette draped over one’s head to capture the delicate scent and – opponents say – to shield oneself from God’s eyes. The bird’s fat allegedly tastes of hazlenut. Four French chefs from southwest France are campaigning to allow restaurants in the Landes region to serve ortolans one weekend a year.
In Afghanistan in 2001, hungry French colleagues and I imagined our last meals, or the meals we would consume on returning to Paris. I knew exactly what I wanted: a pepper steak with green beans and a glass of Brouilly, at a bistro near my apartment.
A favourite meal at one's local canteen is part of the joy of living in Paris. In the 1930s, James Joyce made Fouquet's on the Champs-Élysées his headquarters. Pierre Joannon, Ireland's consul general on the Côte d'Azur, organised a dinner at Fouquet's to mark the centenary of Joyce's birth in 1982, and persuaded the restaurant to baptise its prestigious first floor room the Salle James Joyce.
Joyce "loved the haricots verts prepared à la française and delighted in French regional sweets: nougats from Montélimar, pralines from Montargis, gelée from Bar-le-Duc," Lucie Léon, a friend of Nora and James, recounted in a text quoted by Joannon. The restaurant was part literary salon. Joyce recited Yeats's poems before his friends there. Drinking Riesling on the terrace one summer evening, he revealed the title of his last work, Finnegans Wake.
When I left California at the age of 19, I had probably never heard of James Joyce, Fouquet’s or Riesling. My mother was a working widow with four children. Everything we ate came from a tin or a package.
In her book My Life in France, the great American chef Julia Child, who was also born and raised in California, confessed to comparable ignorance. Arriving in France just after the second World War, she "experienced an awakening of the senses".
One morning in 1948, Child and her husband, Paul, watched their Buick being hoisted out of the hold of an ocean liner in Le Havre. They stopped in Rouen, where they drank a bottle of crisp, white Pouilly-Fuissé from the Loire Valley and lunched on oysters, sole meunière, green salad and fromage blanc, followed by coffee. It was, Child wrote, "absolute perfection . . . the most exciting meal of my life".
I had a similar experience when I arrived in Paris at 19. I remember in particular a dinner at a little restaurant called L'Auvergnat, where I tasted tarte aux poireaux for the first time. I didn't even know what a leek was, but I loved the slightly bitter vegetable wedded to crust, cream and Emmental cheese. We washed it down with Morgon wine, and had prune ice cream from Berthillon, the best ice-cream shop in Paris, doused with Armagnac for dessert.
Happy memories
There have been countless meals since, in restaurants humble and grand. I still love sole meunière and green beans at the Brasserie Lipp, in Saint-Germain des Prés, with a glass of Sancerre. The Closerie des Lilas reminds me of Hemingway and Beckett, and good times with friends. The Brasserie Bofinger, just off the place de la Bastille, holds happy memories too.
Whenever I see a dog in a restaurant, I think of Jacqueline Capel-Lucien, who supervised my thesis at the Sorbonne. When we dined out, her dove-grey whippet had its own place at the table.
Smell and taste are every bit as evocative as photographs and letters. Marcel Proust discovered a whole world in a few morsels of cake soaked in tea.
The first youth hostel I stayed at, on Rue François Miron in the Marais, served fresh baguette, butter and jam, with steaming bowls of café au lait every morning. Those were the best breakfasts ever.
Crepes cooking at outdoor stands conjure up the Latin Quarter and my year at the Sorbonne. So do the roast chestnuts sold in paper cornets at this time of year, when leaves fall and the weather turns cold. And who can resist the smell of chickens turning on spits in front of the local butcher’s?
But the best French meals are those served by one’s friends. Anne-Elisabeth’s cheese soufflé. Pierre’s home-made foie gras. To die for.
Ernest Hemingway was right: Paris is a movable feast.
C’EST LA VIE: FIVE PARIS FOOD EXPERIENCES YOU CAN’T MISS
- Lunch at La Tour d'Argent For big budgets on special occasions. Watch swans take off from the Seine over Notre Dame Cathedral. Savour deliciously gamey duck in blood sauce. They give you a postcard with its number; mine was 1136014.
- Picnic by the Seine My favourite spot is on the right bank between the Pont de la Concorde and the Pont Alexandre III, at sunset. The Eiffel Tower sparkles on the hour. Tourists wave at you from the bateaux-mouches. All you need is an old blanket, cushions to sit on, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou.
- La Grande Épicerie du Bon Marché Sells every imaginable delicacy from the world over. For picky guests, try the beef fillet roast or pork stuffed with apricots and prunes.
- Open-air markets Unripe and tasteless fruit and vegetables in supermarkets have driven me back to the Boulevard Raspail, Avenue de Saxe and Rue Mouffetard. Carry a straw basket and chat with the vendors.
- La Pyramide This dessert version of a Ferrero Rocher is made by Rollet-Pradier on Rue de Bourgogne. The fluffy, creamy, hazelnut pastry sits on a meringue base and is coated with chocolate and crunchy pralines.
Next week: Simon Carswell on Washington DC
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