“A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.”
-Mark Twain, ‘A Tramp Abroad’
“Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish.”
-Henry Miller
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It’s strange the everyday things you find yourself wanting when they stop being everyday things. For the past 3 years, I’ve found myself wanting every single day.
Cool Ranch flavor Doritos. Arby’s Beef & Cheddar. Sour cream. New York style cheesecake. Welch’s grape jelly that tastes like purple.
You know, American food.
Olivier is frequently on the look out for American grocery stores & restaurants in a never-ending effort to keep me & my food cravings under control.
One of the first “American” restaurants I had tried in Paris was the Indiana Café, which claims to be a Tex-Mex restaurant.
Of course, Indiana & Tex-Mex have absolutely nothing to with one another, but let’s just humor them.
Anyway, it seemed like a decent place. Nothing too bizarre on the menu & nothing too French. It might appease my Yank-related cravings. I ordered a chicken breast sandwich, which believe it or not, isn’t something that is easy to find in Paris.
The only problem was, it had a fucking fried egg on it. Something I haven’t figured out about “American” style sandwiches & pizzas in France – they often have a fucking egg slapped on top of it. I would love to know how this myth began that led European restaurateurs to believe that we want a damn egg plopped on everything. If you know or have any clever theories, please enlighten me. If it were bacon, I would understand, but…fucking eggs?
So, it turned out that while Indiana Café did not completely suck, I was still determined to find better.
Fast forward a bit. Olivier & I are humming along on the autoroute during a summer vacation. I’m playing with the iPod & conducting my usual copilot duties when I see something so incredible that I began salivating as soon as I laid eyes upon it. Its colossal white horns loomed in the horizon, a flaming crimson light radiated behind them, calling to me.
I knew that I had found what I’d been looking for.
That’s right. The Buffalo Grill.
We went inside & what I saw was magnificent – real booths inside a normal-sized restaurant rather than a bunch of tiny tables squeezed together in a space the size of my bedroom. I wouldn’t be elbowed by strangers in here, I could bounce around in my booth, basking in the child-like joy of actually having personal space while I ate some American style food, without any damn eggs.
Ok…so it’s a little different. They’re not going to give you any A-1 for your steak, but there is a shallot sauce that’s pretty good & the Roquefort sauce isn’t too bad.
Oh, & if you want a baked potato with your steak, well…your screwed. The art of the baked potato hasn’t really made its way over here yet. I’m working on it.
Really, the only problem I ever seem to have here is with the ketchup. Now, keep in mind, the rest of the world does not share the American need for ketchup. (I will likely elaborate on this later, in another post) It is not as readily available in every restaurant like it is in the states. There aren’t ketchup bottles on the tables. It’s usually there if you ask for it, but you have to ask. Usually, when we go to the Buffalo Grill, there might be an instance of threatening to gore a waiter with my dessert spoon after he ignores my repeated requests for ketchup, but really, it’s a minor inconvenience.
All around the interior of the place are wooden sculptures of Native Americans, photos & drawings of Buffalo Bill & his Wild West shows. I’ve only recently been informed that “Buffalo Grill” is a play on Buffalo Bill’s name. I actually hadn’t made that connection, as Buffalo Grill seemed to me like a pretty normal name for a steak house. No matter what the reason for the name, it’s a hell of a lot better than “Indiana”, which to me suggests that they serve sacks of corn & James Dean memorabilia.
Oh…& just one more thing – I won’t be home tonight, as I’ll likely be shanking a skinny French waiter with a shiv I’ve made from a Buffalo Grill spoon.
A family portrait taken after our first waiter shanking incident.
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[tags]American, food, French, Paris, Indiana Café, Buffalo Grill, restaurant, ketchup, eggs, waiter, humor, France, Europe[/tags]
Dude! They do the egg on every American sandwich thing here in Iceland too. I want to find the guy who started that rumor and shiv him too. Except for the weird fact that I’ve actually started to enjoy it… What does that say about me?
Homing in on the food fetishes:
–I only eat French fries as a foundation for the catsup. Put in your order now for a giant plastic bottle, I’m on my way in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
–the only thing I ever wanted over there that raised eyebrows and caused wrinkles was almond butter. Sounds like a nut grinder should be added to the imported loose freight inventory.
–I like the shiv idea, you should market it and add special shiv cases since we can no longer walk around with sharp, pointy things in the aftermath of 9/11–we might bomb someone with them.
–I LOVE the post-shiv incident art work. May I please have a copy for my scrapbook. Please, please, please…
You are so funny! Don’t stop sending out those Dispatches from S-en-B or wherever you call home!
Since when is a fried egg an “American Style” anything? and “American Cheese”? SICK! However, I do like me a cafe Americano thankyouverymuch. But given it’s Latin wording, I think they meant the Southern ones. Frack. Home of the cheese, land of the eggs. Fabulous.
I can tell you that the Buffalo Grill is not what it used to be. I should know because my Uncle Micheal (whom lived for 25 years in Northern California) went back to France and opened up the Buffalo Grill. It was his until he finaly retired whern he turned 70 and sold the place off about 8 years ago.
on a trip back about 6 years ago i went in and it was not the same, from portion size to the quality of the beef it was not the same.
When i my uncle owned the place i can tell you he would order his Ketchup straight from a distributor for Heinz Ketchup form Pennsylvenia USA. But the new ownership did not want to spend the extra money on american made ketchup.
Strange! Bernard Cornwell, resident in the US for 20 years, maintains that for food to be truly American, it must have melted cheese on it. I’m not sure where the fired egg thing came from.
I remember sitting at a bistro in Nimes many years ago as an American woman, accompanied by two grizzling little kids, screamed (actually screamed) at a waiter “Ketchup! Ketchup! Don’t you have any ketchup fer chrissakes?” so mayne M. Twain was right!
I can remember when I was in Northern Ireland, I would order fries. They had ketchup packets at the cash register, so I would pay for my fries and then grab a handful of ketchup packets.
After about a month, I ordered fries and forgot the ketchup, so I went back to grab some ketchup and the woman at the register told me “Hey, you have to pay for those.” And of course I responded with “No I don’t, these are ketchup packets.” And she said “Yeah, they’re 15 cents each.” I was thinking about screaming “KETCHUP IS A GOD GIVEN RIGHT YOU POTATO EATING WENCH” but then I remembered the weird look that the cashiers would give me all of those times when I was basically shoplifting ketchup in front of them.
[…] My first Halloween in France, Olivier & I were living in Paris. We decided to go out to dinner & a movie. I had almost forgotten that it was actually October 31st. There wasn’t a sign of Halloween anywhere. After the movie, we ran across the street to a “Tex-Mex” restaurant called Indiana. […]