CREPES IN PARIS

Standing next to me in an overcrowded metro recently was a  young boy eating his after-school snack. As the train lurched to a stop, he bumped into me and in the process transferred some of the chocolate that covered his face on to my new Parisian coat. With a sheepish grin, the young gamin stuffed the last big morsel of crepe into his already full mouth, then tried to say: "Excusez-moi, Madame." His intent was clear, but the phrase was lost in a mouthful of French delight. It was difficult to be angry in the face of such pleasure and besides, chocolate accidents  are to be expected in France in February. It is, after all, crepe month -  le mois des crêpes.

The origins of the modern-day festivities are linked to the Christian observance of Candlemas, celebrated on February 2. Tradition has it that in 492 A.D. the Pope offered the Italian version of crepes (crespelle) to the faithful who had come to Rome to celebrate the holiday. The origin of crepes is lost in antiquity, but archaeologists have discovered perfectly-preserved Stone Age pancakes, and third-century Greek writer Athenaeus in The Deipnosophists gives a recipe for crepes very similar to modern versions.

Crepes, in various forms, can be found in almost all countries under many different names. In France, crepes are a speciality of the region of Brittany, where hearty dark buckwheat crepes - also known as galettes - are traditionally filled with ham and cheese, topped by an egg and accompanied by Breton cider. From the Paris region comes one of the country's most well-known desserts: Crêpes Suzette - very thin, light pancakes served flaming in a mixture of liqueurs, usually orange flavored. Crêpes Suzette are so famous, in fact, that their name needs no English translation - a Crêpe Suzette is a Crepe Suzette. (Click here to see British comedian Kenneth Williams sing the very funny Ma Crêpe Suzette - an English song composed entirely of French words.) 

Creperies in Paris first appeared in the streets surrounding the Gare Montparnasse - the station where the trains from Brittany arrive. It was there that I tasted my first crepe - not a flaming Crêpe Suzette, but rather a simple, jam-filled crepe, topped with sugar. Anatole France, the French author and poet, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1921, could have been describing my first crepes (yes, I had more than one) when he wrote: 

"...sprinkled with sugar and eaten hot, they form an exquisite dish.  They have a golden hue and are tempting to eat. Thin and transparent like muslin, their edges are trimmed to resemble fine lace."  

Crepes make quick, inexpensive snacks that can be purchased from street vendors all over Paris. Their speciality seems to be crepes filled with Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut spread that European kids and adults love - in the same way that Americans love peanut butter.  Nutella is probably what the young man in the metro smeared on my coat.

For a more authentic and less messy lunch or dinner, here are three of my favorite creperies. They are all in or near our neighborhood in the Marais, but that will just give you another reason to visit this great part of Paris. At each restaurant, I had a crêpe complête - a buckwheat crepe filled with ham and gruyere cheese, topped with a sunny-side-up egg. In the interest of good journalism, I also sampled (okay ate entirely and then licked my fingers afterward) a simple lemon and sugar crepe, a butter and honey crepe, and a chocolate crepe with pears and vanilla ice cream.  Crepes are best accompanied by Breton cider so I had that too - but only one bowl at each place.

Crêperie Bretonne, near the Place de la Bastille, has great crepes.  Walk through the blue doors and you'll feel like you're in Brittany. If you have a good imagination, the sound of passing cars becomes the murmur of ocean waves. The decor is authentic Breton and so are the crepes - rich and flavorful and earthy. Prices are very reasonable and there is a good selection of ciders. The dessert crepes are so good that you'll have a hard time choosing, but chances are you'll love whatever you pick.

Breizh Cafe sits on a sunny corner in the heart of the Marais. The decor is simple, the staff is friendly and the crepes are authentically Breton. (The original Brezh Cafe is located by the sea in Cancale.) At Breizh Cafe, the crepe itself takes center stage with buckwheat crepes that are dark and strong tasting. The ingredients are very fresh and there is a good variety of ciders that you can buy by the bowl or in larger pitchers. Their dessert crepes, made from a lighter wheat flour, range from the traditional jam and sugar crepes to the delicious chocolate, pear and ice cream crepe, which I shared with a friend (honestly).

Crêperie Suzette has a lighter buckwheat batter than the other two, but the edges are nice and crispy; the fillings are fresh; and egg is perfectly cooked, meaning a yolk that runs deliciously over the ham and cheese with a white that is firm and moist. There is a lunchtime menu of 11 euros that includes a main dish crepe, a dessert crepe and coffee. It's a small, convivial place and is usually crowded, but there's an upstairs room with a little more elbow room.

If you want to try your hand at crepes at home, they are easy to make. For a good basic explanation and recipes, click here. Bon appetit!

For more photos, click here.            


(Travel Oyster and I were featured in a Paris newsletter last week.  Click here to read about us in Parler Paris Nouvellettre.)

                                           A bientôt,                                                                

                                              Geraldine

Crêperie Bretonne                         
67, rue de Charonne (11th)
Tél: 01 43 55 62 29
Briezh Cafe
109, rue Vieille du Temple (3rd)
Tél: 01 42 72 13 77                                 
Crêperie Suzette
4 Rue des Francs Bourgeois (4th)Tél: 01 42 72 46 16

                                                                     

                                                

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Paris
France

Bretagne - A Land of Extremes

Paris is wonderful, but every once in a while, one has the urge to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. That opportunity presented itself last week in connection with some translation work I did for ELI - The Extreme Light Infrastructure European Project. 

My small part of this huge scientific undertaking to study laser-matter interaction involved translating three songs from French into English.  The songs are part of a program for children to help them understand what ELI is.  First line -   Have you seen ELI?   ELI is light dazzling by.   It's not Shakespeare, but you have to imagine it sung to a great reggae beat with a whole band behind it.  Click here if you want to know more about ELI , which as one of my songs says:

Questions matter, gives answers.

A tour de force to fight cancer....

Nuclear waste he's gonna reverse,

He's understanding the universe.

The recording of the songs was done in a studio in Auray in southern Brittany and I was there to help with any last minute English emergencies. It was also a great opportunity to visit one of the most beautiful and mystical parts of France.  Just three hours from Paris by TGV, France's high-speed trains,  Auray is very close to Vannes with its many half-timbered houses as well as to the inland sea of the Golfe du Morbihan and the menhirs of Carnac.

Joined by a good friend from Paris in a zippy little red rental car, in two days we saw it all:  the rugged seacoast with its 18 foot tides, the islands, the ports, the salt flats, the lost byways, the castles and the megaliths and dolmans  of Carnac.  We drank Breton cider and ate fish soup, oysters, clams and kouign amann, the sinfully rich butter cake of Brittany. (Click here for a recipe and article.)  

The day we went to Carnac was misty  and blustery - perfect weather for viewing the mysterious Neolithic megaliths that date to about 4,000 b.c.   Even if you have seen photos, nothing prepares you for the sight of thousands of enormous standing stones, arranged from smallest to largest marching up a hillside in perfectly-aligned rows.

Why did these pre-Celtic people over a period of perhaps 2,000 years move and align stones that in some cases weighed many tons? Local tradition says the megaliths are Roman soldiers turned to stone.  A romantic notion, but difficult to achieve, even with magic since the megaliths were in place long before the Romans arrived.  Many theories have been proposed - a giant calendar, a seismic indicator to predict earthquakes, a religious monument.  There is some evidence to support another theory  that  the alignments were built  to study the sun, moon, planets and stars.  

If so, then one of the great achievements of the ancient world, older even than the pyramids, was the work of dedicated scientists not unlike those I worked with on the ELI project. The tools of the Neolithic people were less sophisticated, but like their modern counterparts, they tackled seemingly impossible problems in their desire to push back the frontiers of knowledge. 

To see my other photos of  Brittany, click here.

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Oysters in Paris

Imagine this. You're standing looking out of sunny classical French windows overlooking a park in the apartment of good friends. A table, (come to the table) say your friends. You turn and see plates of beautiful fresh oysters topped with lemon wedges. A bottle of crisp Entre Deux-Mers wine waits to be opened.  It's a perfect Sunday in Paris.

In France more than 143,000 tons of oysters are produced and eaten every year. It may take only about three seconds to swallow an oyster, but it takes three to four years to raise one.  Like wine, oysters have different flavors depending on the region where they are raised. Oysters are rich in iron and low in calories and are purported to have strong aphrodisiac effects. The Greeks, who ate their oysters dipped in honey, tell how Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty who gave birth to Eros,  emerged from the ocean on the shell of an oyster.  The Romans knew her as Venus and she is depicted here in Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

About 98 percent of all oysters consumed in France are a variety known as creuses. The native oyster is the l'huître plate including the Belon, probably the best known variety. The native oyster fell victim to a more robust Portuguese creuses that made its way into France in the late 1880s. In the 1970s these Portuguese oysters succumbed to a virus and were replaced by a Japanese variety. Today most of the stock in France is a Japanese variety imported from Canada. The legendary Belon oyster of Brittany still exists, but they are fewer in number.  

Many years ago, we took a trip to Brittany.  It was the beginning of November and most hotels were about to close for the season.  For that reason, rooms were available in a charming hotel named Chez Melanie in the town of Riec-sur-Belon. 

At the time, I was reading a great book by John McPhee called A Roomful of Hovings.  The title story is about Thomas Hoving, the then director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  According to McPhee, Hoving used to come to Paris on buying trips for the museum.  To keep his mission a secret, the director would stay in a cheap hotel on the Boul'Mich, but every night he would eat Belon oysters washed down with champaigne.  

Could Belon oysters have any connection to Riec-sur-Belon  The next day I asked the hotel owner: "Do you have oysters around here?"  (Asking that is like going to the Champaigne region and asking if they have champaigne.) "Mais oui," came the incredulous reply. Needless to say, we dined that night on quantities of Belon oysters!  We couldn't afford the champagne.

Cheers!

A bientôt,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

To see more photos, click here