Results tagged rabbit from David Lebovitz

Someone recently asked me if people in Paris have started raising chickens in their backyard. I had to pause for a minute, and wanted to remind folks that Paris wasn’t Brooklyn, nor does anyone have – at least in my circles – a backyard in Paris. And if they did, they could afford a country house and would raise their chickens out there. But French people also don’t celebrate “the pig” with the same enthusiasm as the current craze in America, England, and other anglophone cultures.

There’s no overpraising meat, fat, or pork products; things like pâté, rosette (salami), saucisson sec, and even museau (head cheese) because in France, they’re all extremely common. Although things have changed a bit and nowadays, I would venture to say that many young folks would wrinkle their noses up at a plate of head cheese or tête de veau, and I was recently at a dinner party with a mix of French, Swiss, and Italian friends and everyone squirmed when the subject of consuming rabbit came up; I was the only one who said that I sometimes do eat it.

Continue Reading Fête de Charcuterie…

During the 1960s, when Paris going through a fit of modernization, it was decided that Les Halles, the grand market that had been in the center of Paris for over a thousand years (in various guises), was going to be finally torn down and the merchants would be moved to a place well outside of the perimeter of Paris.

Reasons given were that the old market lacked hygienic facilities and was creating traffic problems (this was when it was famously declared that Paris would become more car-friendly, and highways were built through, and under, the city) and the food merchants from Les Halles either went out of business or moved en masse to Rungis, which officially opened in 1969. The grand pavillon was cleared quickly, then the building was razed and the old market disappeared from the city forever.

The shopping mall that stands in its place now is a blight to Paris, and part of a long, undending conversation about what to do with the ugly error that was erected in its place; an underground shopping center which is avoided by most Parisians as much as possible.

Continue Reading Rungis…

Proving that just because you have good ingredients, doesn’t necessarily mean you can make them good. True, it’s harder to go wrong with stellar vegetables, seafood, and meat, but a recent dinner at L’Assiette proved that a little finesse, and seasoning, can transform decent ingredients into something pretty good. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case on a recent visit.

For many years, L’Assiette was the “go to” restaurant in Paris. When I worked at Chez Panisse, every cook who came here simply had to eat the cuisine of Lulu Rousseau, the beret-wearing woman who cooked simple food, and did it very well. The food came with a slightly hefty price tag which was mitigated by the good food on the plate. She sold the restaurant and I recently went back for a visit. The prices remain high, but what’s on the plate doesn’t exactly justify them

Continue Reading L’Assiette: The Little Restaurant That Could (or Should)…