So where is the food? Obviously we are not starving to death, but where is all of the food? The open air markets and food faires are freaking amazing, but I am missing something somewhere...
Yesterday we lazed about the house until the urge to stock up for the weekend at the grocery store drove us from the place. Shopping at the major grocery stores in France is an occasionally fascinating venture. Most of the large stores are much like a Walmart or Target in the U.S. Pretty much you can equip an entire house from just one store, soup to nuts.
The odd thing is, there isn't a lot of different food, unless you want cookies or wine.
Lemme 'splain.
When we think of French food, images of complex, layered, intricate constructions come to mind. Exotic spices, ingredients, and wines all working together to make magic on the plate. Strangely, that's not the case. Markets here have lots of amazing product, but not a lot of selection. 6 basic cuts of beef, 10 basic cuts of pork, whole chickens, whole fish and a narrow but impressively fresh array of veggies. Combine that with a grudging 10 or so spices and herbs in fresh or dried form, there is a very limited palate to work from. But, there are all world class, even in the local grocery store.
I guess this trip has drastically changed the way I view my cooking. Does a great artist need 500 colours to paint with, or just 20 and the ability to combine them to his exact needs? Does a great writer need 234 characters in a book to make a masterpiece of literature, or just 2?(Im talking to you Dante, read Old Man and the Sea if they have it in the library in whatever circle of Hell you are in.)
My gnostic revelation is simple. That's it. Simple. Few ingredients, the best there are, combined with respect for what they represent can end in a glorious plate of food. I don't need 20 cuts of beef, 30 cuts of pork, 200 herbs and spices and 100 veggies to choose from at the Price Chopper. My food is getting lost in the noise. I need to settle back and listen to the ingredients I choose and stop trying to hide in the concert crowd.
French cooking is a skilled chamber group, my cooking has been a high school marching band playing, "Louie, Louie".
It's just that simple.
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