Crème fraiche

n. sour cream
Un oeuil au beurre noir
n. – black eye
Doesn’t crème fraiche or literally translated “fresh cream” sound so much more appetizing than “sour cream?”

It goes without saying that the food culture here is among one of the strongest. I love that the French implement a food item even to describe a black eye. Literally translated, it means an eye of black butter. The Italians also take their food very seriously. We were discussing the passion of the Italians recently with friends from Milan. Even if they’re upset about something, they’re immediately distracted when they see food on the table. The Catholic Church is embroiled in an ever growing scandal – oh look the pasta’s here, let’s eat.

Both countries take their food very seriously and as such, the time they take over eating it is never rushed. In Paris you have to practically stand on your head to get the check, or “l’addition,” which is logical since it’s the addition of what you’ve eaten. My all time lunch record was five and a half hours and that’s only because my friend and I finally wanted to leave. We could still be sitting there.

Getting the check is one thing. After that, you have to wait some more to get the waiter to bring the portable credit card machine. If I’ve asked for the check, it’s a good indication that I want to pay so why it doesn’t come hand in hand or at least shortly thereafter without another headstand, I’m not sure. And it’s almost an insult if you don’t want a coffee. Last night, we were offered coffee, tea or even digestives on the house. It’s as if leaving after only two hours at the table was simply too much to bear. I had an armagnac just to keep the owner happy and because a free digestive is just too good to pass up.

Here a “tisane” or herbal tea is nicknamed a “pisse mamie” – it’s not very polite – meaning literally it will make granny pee. I recently bought some eau de toilettee and it made me realize that it’s like the pisse mamie of perfumes. It’s so light that no sooner have I spritzed it that the scent is gone. As such, I’m not much of a tisane person. I will have coffee after lunch and as I said, I’m never one to pass up a digestive after dinner. I also love alcohol soaked desserts like prunes in eau de vie. What could be bad about a drink called “water of life?”

I remember once we had dinner plans with another couple. We invited them to our apartment for a drink before hand and the wife had a glass of water. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t even sparkling. Moving on to dinner, she ordered tea. That’s all, no entrée, no main course, just tea. When dessert came around, of course that was out of the question, too, but she was curious about what I ordered which were cherries soaked in brandy. I watched as she took a bite and as I feared her face contorted sort of as I would imagine a baby’s doing if you fed them a sour pickle.

I suppose there is such a thing as karmic retribution though since I had my own face puckering experience one afternoon when meeting another friend. It was too late for coffee and too early for a drink so I copied her order of hot lemon water. I’m not sure if this is a French thing, she’s from Guatemala. I like lemonade, but something about it hot rendered it undrinkable. I tried adding more and more sugar, to no avail.

It reminded me of the time we were making fresh mayonnaise and added too much salt. We kept adding more oil to balance it out, transferring it from a small bowl into a larger and then even larger one. Finally we had the mixture in a huge salad bowl and had run out of oil, but it was still too salty! This was like the hot lemonade, I could have added all the sugar on the table and it was never going to be enough.

I will leave you with my last food observation for now, which is a small anecdote from a restaurant that’s known for its’ specialty in game food. When dining there recently with friends, we kept coming across hard little pieces in our meat that we had to spit out. We finally realized it was actually gun shot. I guess you can’t get more authentic than that so bon appetit, but be careful of your teeth.