They Ain't Got No Fried Chicken Here Boy

Walter Agnew Moore II
6 November 2001, Northern France

Now obviously if you are in France smoking like a 19th century factory chimney and walking miles every day between various governmental offices to get your bus pass or some other vital document stamped, you burn calories. You must eat, and you must eat well.

We've all heard about French Cuisine, but just what the heck is it?

Well, the basic item is the baguette. This is not food but rather a fashion item-- everyone walks down the street with a baguette. It is a major faux pas, or as the French would say, a mistake, to actually eat your baguette. They are meant to be carried, to balance one's weight much as a squirrel's tail is said to do-- like the squirrel, the nimble Frenchman can change his trajectory mid-leap by shifting the trusty baguette from hand to hand.

There is Fancy French Food. You will never eat this either. It is so highly priced that only visiting German Industrialists and Texas Lottery Winners are found in the restaurants. The Germans are the ones speaking quietly in French and receiving courteous service, the Texans are the ones yelling in an obscure dialect of English as they eat food laced with the waiters' spit.

The basic French item meant to be consumed by the masses is the Croque-Monsieur, the prime hangover food. Greasy toasted bread with Emmental cheese and ham. The Croque-Madame includes a fried egg because Madame ovulates. Following that logic, I dare not think what else may be in the Croque-Monsieur.

Maybe that's why the French all eat at McDonald's. "McDo" is wildly popular here. It is always packed... with French people. They have meal deals here that are monuments to gluttony.

For night-time food, you go to the little Moroccan kebab joints that alternate with the bars. The French asked the Moroccans to immigrate here so that they could be assured of food when they go staggering out of the bar in the wee hours. The Moroccans oblige with various selections of spicy greasy meat.

The most bizarre places are the "American" ones. If you are a home-sick American, these are the worst. The food is often quite good, but it is a strange French idea of what John Wayne would have eaten if he were from Paris.

I was in a local place, the "Texas" or some such name, purported to be Tex-Mex cuisine. Anything but. Now, it was really good, but it was Cuban food cooked French style.

It was worth the price of admission to be in a tex-mex place where two white guys who looked like Asterix and Obelix were busting their butts doing all the work while the one Hispanic guy lounged around the bar in a suit smoking a cigarette.