La Vague de Chaleur (Aug. 2003)
A Blue Flag Adventure (Aug. 2002)
Patio Talk (Aug. 2002)
Decoder Rings (Sept. 2002)
Eeyore and Tigger (Oct. 2002)
Wonder Woman Hangs from a Wire (Dec. 2002)
Serves Two (June 2003)
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Serves Two
June 2003
The other day I found myself actually liking butter and sliced gherkins on my salami baguette sandwich. And last week, when we ran out of cheddar for our burritos, we tried Emmental (Swiss cheese) and decided it was passable, if not quite good. Yet, I probably won't ever get used to the soggy undercooked excuse for pizza, the grisly steak, or the andouille sausage that is just a French word meaning big chunks of chitterlings (pig's intestines). All these food moments got me ruminating on how food is culture and culture is food. We grow up eating certain things, narrowly believing that they are staples eaten by everyone, everywhere. But thanks to travel, green cards, and the gourmet section of the supermarket, we could all be enjoying chitterlings with scrambled eggs one day soon.
Traveling back to the United States always gives me a new perspective. While still in France I thought about what I missed about home and if there were any foods in particular that I craved. I mused that it might not be possible to enjoy the slop of America after a mere six months in the land of cuisine. A land where supermarkets are entirely gourmet and the foreign food shelf sells microwave popcorn, chocolate syrup, flour tortillas, and peanut butter.
A few weeks in California turned out to be a good test in determining my food snobbery. The biggest eye-opener happened during a trip to Disneyland. I couldn't help from noticing that people were putting large tasteless items into their mouths while thundering from one ride to the next. America, the land of quantity over quality, was paying $3.00 for pink spun sugar or a soggy soft pretzel stuffed with melted jalapeno cheese.
Let's face it, for many, visiting theme parks equates to the supplication to junk food and all its greasy and sugary powers. It is a specific slice of Americana who finds their way to carnivals, circus', and theme parks. (Or maybe we all turn into that slice while we are there?) In any case, through my rather unscientific and judgmental observations, I have concluded that Americans who frequent theme parks and other largely neon lit venues are chronic snackers who often forgo meals to save time. Instead, they eat pre-packaged, hydrogenated, and processed items sold from wheeled carts or dark, faceless, rectangular windows.
Disney offers its famished park goers a plethora of outdoor vending snack options. The most popular is the much-touted churro. The churro is said to be a Spanish specialty consisting of a sweet-dough spiral that is deep-fried and coated with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Disney also sells them with a variety of ethnic dips. They are sold at DisneyWorld Florida with mojo sauce, Disneyland Paris with aioli mayonnaise and Disneyland Tokyo with sinus burning wasabi.
Why is the churro the biggest selling food item at Disney? Is it because park goers are starving for international snacks? If that is true, did Walt Disney bring it to the New World on "It's a Small World" maiden voyage? No one really knows. It seems that the churro is steeped in mystery and that there is no real historical data on its migration from Spain to other Latin American countries. Complicating the matter still, my research on "churro" brought up, not the donut, but the famous spirally cinnamon horned Churro sheep. Coronado of Spain brought this sheep to the New World in 1540. How are the sheep and dough related? Could it be that one day in the second millennia the nomads who tended their sheep in the grasslands of Spain were inspired by their furry friends and then sprinkled fried bread with some sugar for a little afternoon treat?
Treats, afternoon or otherwise, seem to be a big problem with America's growing girth. If you look around your neighborhood you will not be able to find a proper restaurant. Chains notwithstanding, there simply are no restaurants. Everything is grab a quick bite strip mall of America. It is quick and convenient but void of any nutritional value and it is always too much. Perhaps this is a sort of American economizing. It is snake's logic; If I eat more at this meal, I won't need to eat again until next week, or at least until the next morning.
Going out to breakfast is yet another cultural oddity. How many other places in the world can you get a bottomless cup of coffee? It is certainly generous but can be also be quite dangerous. It requires one to risk flesh while performing the hand-over-the-cup maneuver to demonstrate to the over caffeinated waitress that you never have a second cup at home. And yet, she returns over and over again because her short-term memory has been completely obliterated by Folgers crystals. Eventually you give up and leave your cup filled to the brim splashing over the sides in an already black saucer.
Everything in the U.S. seems like too much. For example, when you order a margarita the waiter asks, "Grande?" while staring at you for an answer. You are waiting for another choice, but there isn't one and so finally you say, "Yes". Out comes a fish bowl of tequila with a big red bar straw aimlessly bobbing around the salty rim. For dinner you order an appetizer salad with salmon. As the waiter lowers it in front of you, you ask, "This is the appetizer size?" You eat it all because "it's only a salad" and then you order a piece of cheesecake that says it serves two when in fact it feeds six. After all that, and ten bowls of expanding tortilla chips, you leave the restaurant in a bloated food coma.
Dining gimmicks are also popular in the U.S. Restaurants will try thing to beat out their competitor. A French person would be amazed to learn that we often choose restaurants based on signage, balloons, or coupons. One night we dined at a Sushi restaurant in a coastal college town. My sushi-starved husband opted for the All-You-Can-Eat. The small print on the menu stated that you could eat as much sushi as you wanted but it must fall within a one-hour time frame. The clock starts as soon as you've been served your first plate and you can't order another plate until you've finished the one you have in front of you. You've paid $16 and you'll be damned if you don't get your money's worth so you eat and eat far past your usual intake, and all within an indigestible hour. So much for having a nice slow and relaxing meal with friends. Tick tock tick tock.
In France you cannot eat a meal in under two hours. To the French eating has never been about efficiency or gimmicks. The quality of the food is why you are there and everything dissolves around that, even reality. I have also experienced a few four-hour dinners here in France and I can tell you there wasn't a waiter/waitress coming over every two minutes... "Do you want to hear the specials? My name is Tommy/Suzy and I'll be your server today? Is everything O.K? How are we doing? Do you want to supersize that andouille sausage platter? I am going home right now, do you mind paying me? Instead you get, "Bonsoir Monsieur/Madame, aperitif? Have you chosen? Any wine? Dessert? Merci, Au revoir? It is relaxing and you leave sated. You walk out with stiff swollen legs from too many hours of sitting, but you have had a wonderful evening.
I will grant you that the French obsess about their food. They live to eat, but live to eat well. They would never consider having a snack instead of a multi-course meal with wine, good friends, family, and two hours lost on the clock. They don't nibble on the run, in the car, or grab-a-bite. In general you won't see people driving with large dripping hamburgers jammed part way in their mouth and a 55 oz. soda straw growing from their lips. It's just not done.
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