Calder - Paris express : simple food from the city of style

PARIS EXPRESS
SIMPLE FOOD FROM THE CITY OF STYLE
LAURA CALDER

Photography by Ancua Iordchescu

This book is dedicated with great admiration and affection to my long-time Parisian friends,

The Mooneys

(Chris Mooney, Clara Young, Tybalt, Zola, and Sigovia).

Like nobody else, theyve taught me over the years how Paris truly is a moveable feast, and that its magic can be recreated anywhere if you put your mind to it.

I must confess right up front that theres a bit of a double entendre to the title, Paris Express. Although this is indeed a collection of easy recipes that dont take hours to prepare, its not remotely trying to be the next 15-minute cookbook. Rather, its an attempt to capture the spirit of Paris dining and to transport there in a jiffy any home cook whos longing to get into a Paris state of minda place of breeziness, insouciance, whimsy, beauty, and delight frankly, to a place where time slows down a bit. Ive written this book for myself as much as for anyone else.

Allow me to backtrack. The truth of the matter is that I did, in fact, start in on this book thinking it would be a fast French food sort of deal. But as I went along, it struck me that it was all feeling a bit phony. I realized I dont actually know anyone in France who considers speed a priority when it comes to food. (Look how long those people are prepared to queue up just to buy a baguette!) Even when I asked Paris friends for quick and easy recipes, their idea of what quick might mean ranged from 15 minutes to three hours. Then it dawned on me: this is why Paris is my city! Somehow it manages to be a big, civilized metropolis and still feel like a carefree village brimming over with all the time and beauty in the world. No wonder it draws me like a magnet.

And so, I changed my tune. If this book was going to be true to my experience of cooking and eating in Paris, I couldnt with any conscience stand behind it cracking a whip. Id make sure the recipes were quick and/or easy, but it would be unfair to make that the point, because, from a French perspective (and from mine), it isnt. After all, if youre happy where you are (for example, in the kitchen) and with what youre doing (for example, cooking dinner), then why would you be in a great hurry to get it all over with? Therein lies the greatest gulf between the attitude towards food in France and that in most other places.

Ive been repeating myself for years, and Ill say it again: what really sets a place like Paris apart is not so much what people eat as it is their approach to eating in general. Dining in Paris, indeed anywhere in France, truly is a cultural phenomenon. People understand how eating well every day is key to living a good life. They are no more likely to run about town stark naked on the pretext that they didnt have time to get dressed in the morning than they are not to dine properly because the day had got away on them. They simply do it. (And by they I mean virtually everyone, not just a handful of foodies.) Commonly, in fact, theyll dine for hours on end. This is their idea of a good time, of life as it should be lived!

This attitude towards eating is, of course, all part of something greater, what the French call lart de vivre, the art of living, which is practically in their DNA. If they fix their hair before heading out to the dry cleaners, its not because theyre vain; its because they consider it a social responsibility to make themselves respectfully presentable to all those other people out in the world who are going to have to look at them. If they bother with their pleases and thank yous more than most of the rest of us, this is not excessive formality, but rather a practice considered essential to the good health of the soul, not to mention the essential grease that keeps the wheels of society turning. That same motivation is behind the French insistence on eating well and in style. And, incidentally, its not that they have more time for this business than the rest of us; they make the time because, to them, these things matter.

Its not everywhere in the world where such niceties are considered, in fact, priorities. For those of us elsewhere, it can take some determination and extra effort to uphold such standards. But its worth it because it makes the world a better place, it makes life more interesting to live, and it makes us happier, better-functioning people.

And so, in the end, this has not turned out to be the book about speed that it was initially intended to be. Instead, what it sets out to encourageor one might say to expressis a way of creating for ourselves, however much we fight the clock, a richer life around the table, which inevitably ripples out into the wider world.

I have the great good luck when Im in Paris of being surrounded by an unusually high number of excellent home cooks. I more or less live and breathe dinner parties when Im there, and I find the level of creativity around me unrivalled. Theres probably a notion in the outside world that in France people spend all their livelong days cooking and then eating coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon and les flottantes. Those classics are certainly still very much in circulation, but the modern palate is curious: more and more new flavours from around the world are making their way onto the plate, and Parisian cooking has become increasingly playful, light, and inspired since my early days in the city. Besides, the home cooks whose company I keep are adventurous and experimental sorts.

This will explain why some recipes in this book may not strike you as being overwhelmingly French. A few are more reflective of the non-French influences in the city, which in their own way make Parisian cuisine unique. Obviously North African flavours are ubiquitous in France. Japanese food is much more prevalent than Chinese in Paris. Scandinavian flavours are a trend at the time of writing. Influences such as these, layered on top of the firm foundations of French cooking, make for a lively food scene, and thats the one I hope I have capturedwhats alive and thriving right now, not something ripped from a history book.

The recipes in Paris Express were all collected in Paris, mostly made for me by friends and relished in situ. Whenever I make them, Im taken right back to that city and to the good times Ive had cooking and eating there. Whether youve visited Paris yourself or merely dreamed of going, I hope these recipes will have the same positive teleporting effect on you, and inspire simple, spontaneous Parisian-style feasts in happy company.

Im hard pressed to come up with a speedier first course than this one. This beautiful and refreshing summer soup should be served in small portions, as its quite rich. Having said that, if you want to make it more substantial still for a main-course lunch, a spoonful of well-seasoned crabmeat on top of each portion wont go amiss.