“I’ve already planned my first meal when I get home,” Melissa said when she arrived here back in September. “Chicken tacos. I’ve got it all figured out.” In fairness, she had spent the previous week not eating in Iceland, where food is apparently obscenely expensive. And I think that our refeeding bid over the following week was a fair success: éclairs, steaks, bread by the baguette–no one leaves Paris hungry if I can help it.
The thing is, she was still craving tacos when she left.
Shortly after I arrived, I went looking for scallions. I found something similar–little bulby white onions on long green stalks–but they’re much sharper tasting and, apparently, eating the dark green parts is a pretty bad idea. As I happen to have a recipe for excellent (and healthy!) Chinese-style steamed chicken, and it relies quite heavily on scallions, I looked pretty hard. I did find them once at the supermarket (in a tiny package for four euros labeled “Mini Leeks“) and once in the farmers’ market (the woman anxiously explained to me that these aren’t what I’m probably used to: you eat the whole thing, green parts and all), but that’s twice in more than eight months.
I’d call it a fluke if it were easier to find soy sauce.
I read a book recently about a girl who was fed up with living in England because everything was so dull and predictable to her; she would read lustfully about exotic places and their fascinatingly varied cultures, and dream of living there. When she moved to Barcelona, of course, the novelty shortly wore off, and what once was exotic became annoyingly commonplace.
I never realized until now just how cosmopolitan the U.S. really is.
It’s strange to be in a place where the dominant culture is so overtly dominant. Frenchness is celebrated–and imposed–with a zeal that is incredibly un-politically correct to my transplanted eyes…although Frenchness is so very cool that it took a while for me to notice the gaping void where arborio rice would normally be, or, say, salsa.
Food matters aside, France doesn’t feel indebted to immigration (past or present) the way that the U.S. does, and goes to great lengths to keep its culture as static as possible–like making sure that its language never evolves past, say, the time of Charlemagne. There is no “tossed salad” of people here; there’s not even a “melting pot,” since that implies that the end result is at least somewhat influenced by the original individual parts.
There is no pressure here to admire diversity or adapt to others’ way of doing things, which may have something to do with why tourists often feel so unwelcome (just “something”; not “everything”). It also, I am sure, contributes heavily to racial tensions in Paris, although there may be something to be said for the lack of hypocrisy. I mean: if you’re going to look down on a group of people, you might as well admit it. And “because they aren’t French” is, frankly, a better reason than “because they look different”–complicated, unfortunately, by the sad fact that “looking different” is often considered a bar to ever really “being French.”
Anyway, all that aside, I’m just as glad to be going to a Brazilian place for my bachelorette dinner, a Vietnamese-themed bar after that, and a cozy super-New England-y place for the rehearsal. Quiche is delicious, but I’m craving chicken tacos in the worst way; you know?