Bastille Day, the major French civic holiday that rolls around every July 14, provides a convenient opportunity to reflect on our debts to French culture. I, for one, am a big Enlightenment fan, and I know that existentialism and deconstructionism have plenty of thankful adherents. But day to day, how can philosophy stack up against to the pleasures of the belly? And what's a more quintessential representation of French culture than its cuisine? I regret that I came late to French food. I was 25 before I ate in a proper French restaurant, 30 before I dined in the fabled cafes of France. I've tried hard to make up for lost time, but remain happy knowing that it will take years of eating even to begin to plumb the depth of France's great culinary tradition. That means innumerable great meals yet to be consumed in my efforts to taste - and learn - more of the Western world's premier cuisine.
My first proper French dinner came here in Chicago, at a little place called Le Cochonnet that used to occupy a storefront on Sheffield north of Newport. Appropriately, I was taken there by an older woman I was involved with, and I remember us enjoying the added Continental frisson in our roles as worldly instructress and dining naif. In French restaurants I first ate lamb, venison, mussels, snails, duck and, of course, pâté. I eagerly advanced to even more adventurous fare: rabbit, squab, miscellaneous organ meats.
As much as I have come to enjoy French food, I was troubled by lingering remains of the affliction, namely fear, that kept me from sampling it when I was younger. Like many Americans, I was thoroughly intimidated by France's culinary reputation. I quailed with anxiety: Wasn't French food too snooty? Too daunting? Too expensive?
When it comes to haute cuisine, the rarefied summit of French cooking, those qualities are certainly present in abundance. Here in Chicago, elite French establishments like Le Francais (in Wheeling, actually) and Everest work in the lofty French tradition, where the cooking, serving and eating of fantastically elaborate meals is an aesthetic experience of a very high order. This is serious dining. And that's what really got to me, as a young glutton, the seriousness of French cooking.
In my youthful ignorance, I didn't realize that corresponding to the costly heights of haute cuisine were the ground-level pleasures of French bistros and brasseries. I mistakenly thought the distinctions among French restaurants were between serious and more serious, expensive and more expensive. Part of this confusion resulted from a lack of definition between these different degrees of dining experience as they exist in Chicago. There are still a few casual French places in Chicago, ‡ la Marche and Brasserie Jo, where the hyper-chic rooms are a little out of whack with the purportedly casual bill of fare.
Making it to France made things clear. I learned that the vaunted anxiety-inducing attitude, such a familiar gullet-tightener in America's French restaurants, is not such a big deal at the tables of Paris. Despite the country's reputation for rudeness, I saw that the seriousness with which the French treated food and dining was worn comfortably, an integral part of common life. It entailed a respect for eating as pleasure that made every meal a profoundly happy event, whether I was scarfing breakfast croissants with my coffee in the corner zinc bar, or engaged in a four-hour prix fixe marathon. I was able to indulge my appetite for the exotic by sampling andouillette, a popular sausage made with hog entrails (loosely chopped, so you can appreciate the contours), and sea slugs, served oozing greenly from shells like miniature conchs.
For the most part, the French seriousness about food does not burden it with over-importance; rather, the French accept the value of food made from good ingredients prepared with care and attention as a given. I also realized that these qualities were, happily, becoming more common on the dining scene here in Chicago. I went to France an acolyte, expecting to be brought to my knees by the cooking. But I realized that there are plenty of restaurants here (and not just French restaurants) where those same values are on display every day.
Not long after I returned from France, a new wave of casual French places began appearing here that strove to capture the genuine character of real bistros, where the easy quality of food and the civilized informality of the environs are accepted as a matter of course. The star in this field is Bucktown's beloved Le Bouchon. Yes, it has dauntingly crisp white table clothes, but nothing on the regular menu costs more than $15, and the chef-proprietor likes to hang out in the corner near the kitchen, leaning on the bar and smoking while he chats with customers. (A sister restaurant is due to open soon across the street from Harpo Studios.) A few years later Bistrot Zinc opened on Southport, and although its classy back rooms are a little grand for truly casual French fare, the cozy front space - complete with takeout line - is a terrific Americanized version of the French street café. Cyrano's has brought a similar winning formula to River North. I'm a big fan of its lunch platter, on which a miniature assortment of courses are offered for $10.95. Of course, I'm always up for an event-meal at the big-ticket haute places, but it's joints like these where I can dine most happily, feeding my French jones on a regular - and affordable - basis.
(Doug Seibold)
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