The American Hamburger, à la Française
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010 • Paris, France
While lunching at the corner café three people next to me ordered the most popular dish in Paris -- the American Hamburger. In the last couple of years, the American Hamburger has invaded every café menu from the top of the Montmartre to the bottom of Parc Montsouris. As a café owner, if it's NOT on your menu, then you can be certain your "chiffre d'affaires" (gross receipts) will dwindle as your once-loyal clientele will take its business to the hipper spots.
It's an amusing thing to watch -- the French eating an American hamburger. The three burgers came open-faced on the plate: the bottom bun with a rarely cooked meat patty on one side, the top bun topped with lettuce, tomato and onion on the other and next to both was a pile of thin, crispy fries. It looked absolutely delicious.
One woman asked for the ketchup and another ordered a Coke. It all seemed normal, until they began to eat them. Then, the 'murder' took place.
With a fork in the left hand and a knife in the right, they each cut into his/her burger, first eating one side and then the other, or going back and forth. Occasionally they would spear a few fries and actually use their sharp steak knife to spread the ketchup on the fries, ever so gingerly.
They didn't notice my quiet chuckling, but while I was eating "Epaule d'agneau et flageolets" (lamb shoulder with beans), they were 'murdering' their poor burgers never understanding that one must join the two sides and eat all the parts together in order to get the full flavor. In my mind I could see holding a thick juicy hamburger from "Bud's Broiler" in New Orleans, trying to get my mouth around the whole thing while the juice runs down my hands and thinking what a perfect combination it all is and how the mess is all part of the 'culinary' experience (photo from http://speakhealth.org/).
I wondered if 'cool' Parisians eat them American style, but decided NO, I'd never seen it, and in fact, they would never feel comfortable picking up their food with their hands, except of course the acceptable things, such as bread (placed directly on the table, unless it is a formal meal in which bread plates are used), asparagus (only because King Louis XIV, who had gardeners grow asparagus in greenhouses so he could enjoy asparagus year round, did it!) and oysters (but only handled by the shell).
To all our French friends out there: Will someone PLEASE teach your compatriots how to eat an American hamburger the right way and make it acceptable in French etiquette, like Louis did for asparagus? HELP!
"Murder" may be taking place in Paris of more than just hamburgers. For sure, murder is in the mind of Cara Black, Paris' favorite murder mystery writer, who spends most of every waking moment considering just how to murder someone and where to dump the body.
Over a Vietnamese/Chinese dinner at one of those little hidden authentic spots in Paris' third Chinatown (where rues Au Maire and Volta cross, Chez Xu at number 9, 3rd), she proclaimed, "Paris isn't easy. It's a densely populated city and there aren't many places where one can dispose of a body and not be seen."
One might choke on such words, unless you understood that murder is simply in the mind of this creative writer whose protagonist Franco-American detective Aimée Leduc, has solved 10 murders in the City of Light and is in the throws of number 11...just where she won't yet reveal.
So, I thought about those mutilated burgers, and how one might mutilate a...well...I'll leave this up to your imagination, as I did to Cara's.
Cara will be telling you all about how to commit a murder (if not how to properly eat a hamburger) at her upcoming book signings:
Saturday, May 8th (Victory Day!) at 5 p.m. at La Grand Crimerie, 23, Rue Juliette Dodu, 10th (Métro Colonel Fabien) and next Tuesday evening, May 11th at 7 p.m. at the Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore, 22, rue Saint-Paul, 4th (Métro Saint-Paul).
Be there!
A la prochaine...
Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris
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P.S. Please note that the Parler Parlor French-English Conversation Group is closed for Victory Day, Saturday, May 8th. Visit http://www.parlerparlor.com for more information.
P.P.S. Scroll down to also note the upcoming Paris Poetry Workshop evening events that are open to the public...
