Valentine's Day Book - Paris: The Secret History

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Are you heading for your first stage in Paris, hoping to absorb the great city's ethos and most of all, its great food culture or perhaps you are going for a romantic weekend in the City of Love? What you need is Andrew Hussey's Paris: The Secret History (Bloomsbury 2006). Hussey is a professor and writer, with frequent contributions to the UK's The Statesman. Why is Paris the City of Love? Hussey takes a close look at the love story of Abelard and Heloise from the 1100s that becames popular among intellectuals a century later: The legend was to become a favored fable of the Renaissance, mainly on the grounds that Abelard himself was the very model of a thinker torn between a passion for truth and the truth of his passion. (p.59) It is a poignent love story in which a philospher falls in love with his student. The days passed in love making and "lovers' chatter". Meanwhile, Abelard's scholarly work went into a dramatic and public decline (kisses far outnumbered reasoned words', as he put it). (p. 60) In a chapter entitled "The Age of Contempt" he writes about the close connection of cuisine to politics, culture and art: Restaurants quickly became an integral part of political life. This was confirmed as a tradition in 1791, when the leaders of the Revolution drafted the Constitution in a restaurant called Chez Meot, hosted by the former cook of the prince de Conde. Politics also meant fashion: the restaurant Les Trois Freres Provencaux, which was known to be frequented by Bonaparte in the 1800s, was visited by tourists and Parisians alike, and saw its taking go up to 15,000 francs a day. In contrast, in the Latin Quarter, where whole streets were given over to cafes and restaurants, it was possible to be fed for les than a franc: at Viot's or Flicoteaux's. A five-course meal was on offer at Chez Dufour on the rue Moliere for 1 franc 80 centimes (the best place to get a taste of such establishments in contemporary Paris is either the bouillon Chartier near Folies-Bergere – a bouillon was a cheap kind of chop-house – or, at the other end of the scale, Laperouse on the Left Bank). (p. 251) Andrew writes that normal French of the period at black bread and greasy soups; Paris was the exception. Some of the very early cafes still exist in Paris today, like The Cafe Procope, which dates back to the 1660s, was one of the first to introduce coffee to Parisians, who were known for their alcoholic tastes. Andrew warns against going to The Procope now It would soon become famous as the cradle of Enlightenment coffee-drinking, attracting figures such as Voltaire, Rouseau, and Jean-Francois Marmontel, and indeed, after several changes of address, now stands in the rue de L'Ancienne Comedie flogging over-priced steak-frites to tourists on the back of this heritage. (p. 164) Paris starts with the history of the earliest settlement and finishes with the present day scene. It explains the pride and power of this beautiful city with a scholar's eye to detail. It is a wonderful book to put you in the mood for a voyage of discovery or love. Book details: Publisher Amazon.com Library of Congress Other reviews: Times Literary Supplement Guardian Independent International Herald Tribune TIME New York Times Philadelphia Inquirer Previous articles: [Cookbook reviews --complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef