Paris vacation VI – in praise of … vegetables?

The title of today’s post is a little ironic.  We’re back in Philadelphia and for our first meal after coming home, I prepared a roasted dorade (sea bream) accompanied by corn on the cob, coleslaw, and a green salad for desert. As my true love and I were both enjoying dinner and fighting jet lag, we both realized how good the vegetables tasted. Most of the restaurants we visited would prefer to ignore the entire class of food called vegetables, unless (a) they are in a salad or (b) you consider fried potatoes to be vegetables.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve already written about some stunning salads that we had in Paris, the bread is better than anyplace in the world, the cheese is stunning, the fish and meat can be out of this world but vegetables don’t really seem to be part of the equation. In another post I wrote about my efforts to duplicate the sauce at a steakhouse we visited a couple of trips ago. We made a pilgrimage back to Le Relais de l’Entrecôte and had a wonderful time, but look at the picture.  The closest thing to a vegetable here is the tarragon in the sauce.

A quick diversion on steak names. The French have different names for serving steak than Americans. Since I don’t remember eating steak in the U.K., I can’t tell whether it is simply a language thing or not.  The most common steak is entrecôte, which is ribeye but cut thinner than any steak I’ve ever seen in the U.S. – usually no more than 1/2″ thick.  When you order steak et frites, that’s what you get. 

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Here’s another one. A few days ago I raved about the cassoulet at L’Auberge Pyrénées Cévennes. Frankly, this was one of the most delicious meals I had on our trip. Deep, rich, complex, filling. And except for any tomatoes that were used in the sauce, utterly without vegetable content.

There were, however, lots of beans, just as there are always lots of fries on the plate whenever any beef is served. It’s as if starches or legumes are the proper accompaniment for a main course, not zucchini or eggplant or asparagus.  Those might be available as appetizers (entrèes in French) or side dishes.  This is a little curious to me because the markets are loaded with fresh vegetables, so it isn’t as though the ingredients aren’t available. It just seems to be how they approach constructing the main course (plat) at dinner.

When you do get vegetables, it is usually as a garnish to add a little color to the plate.  In the evening of our final night in Paris, we ate at Moulin Vert, a nice seafood place a few blocks from the hotel.  My true love ordered a grilled dorade (sea bream) and it arrived with just a touch of spinach to add some color to the lemon butter sauce. It was delicious, I’m told, but didn’t really constitute a vegetable side dish.

So while we’ll miss Paris, biting into some fresh New Jersey corn was most welcome on return.  By the way, those small pieces on the top are for our parrots, Sam and Alex, and I’ll be writing about them soon.