Paris: Not Hot And Spicy

By Rod Dreher • October 24, 2012, 4:59 PM

Look who we hung out with today in the Luxembourg Gardens: the Catholic blogger Amy Welborn and her two young boys. They’re spending a month in Paris too. Amy and I have been e-mail friends for 10 years, but only met today for the first time.

Julie, Amy, and I were comparing notes about our experiences in France. Over pizza from a takeaway place down the street, I complained that the French don’t do pizza well at all. Julie and Amy didn’t think it was so bad, but Amy did say that she likes strong, sharp, spicy flavors, and she just doesn’t find them in France. I agree, mostly. Julie and I went over to the Latin Quarter outpost of Maoz, the falafel chain, to get ourselves rebalanced from all this bread, butter, cheese, and chicken. I ladled the hottest sauce in the house onto my falafel, and kept going back for more. I think I scandalized the woman behind the counter by all the hot sauce I was eating. But I needed it.

After all that, I was talking to a French friend tonight who told me he had so much trouble getting proper mustard in the US. “Even French brands, they sell an export formula for the American market,” he said. “It’s weaker and blander than what we have here.”

So, I’m having a gastronomy question. If French mayonnaise and mustard are so much more flavorful than their US counterparts, but the US has much stronger tastes in other ways than the French (e.g., pizza), why is this the case? You can’t say the French like only mild food. You eat Maille Dijon mustard and it will blow your head off. But they like strong tastes in certain areas. Same with us Americans, don’t you think?

Does anybody have a unified theory of strong force and weak force in national gastronomical tastes? I would like to hear it.

Posted in A Sense of Place, Food, France. Tagged Amy Welborn, food, mustard, Paris, pizza, spicy.

37 Responses to Paris: Not Hot And Spicy

Bob Jones says:

October 24, 2012 at 5:24 pm

Most likely because the US has culinary influences from so many different parts of the world. The difference are the direct result of immigration and the people bringing their cooking and spicing traditions with them.

IN most European countries this isn’t the case. My experiences living in Germany were very similar. You had some great flavors when eating more traditional type German foods, but you had to make sure to go to truly “ethnic” restaurants or grocers to get Italian, Hungarian, Polish, or Turkish flavor profiles. However, in the US you can often find those same flavor profiles in a good sized standard grocery store, or you are familiar with them, because you had a Hungarian or Italian, or Polish grandmother somewhere along the way. Again, that is very typically American much more so that you find in Europe.
Telly says:

October 24, 2012 at 5:34 pm

Rod, this is off-topic but I must have this question answered: do they have soy milk in French supermarkets? Specifically the plain, light kind in the refrigerated cartons. Very useful to know ahead of time of going as you have inspired us to follow suit and rent an apartment in Paris!

PS: try the big butter madeleines in the cakes & cookies aisle. They’re nothing like the small pathetic ones you get at Starbucks here. It’s like biting into heaven. Skip the chocolate half-covered ones, the chocolate takes away from the butter goodness. Also try the galettes bretonnes (salty butter cookies), amazing.

[Note from Rod: You're coming to Paris? Wonderful! In what part of town will you be staying? I know they have soy milk at the big Monoprix on the rue de Rennes, but I'm not sure it's the kind you want. Julie said she will check for you when she's out and about today. -- RD]
Telly says:

October 24, 2012 at 5:35 pm

Darn can’t edit my comment, specifically the “Silk” brand
Nate says:

October 24, 2012 at 5:52 pm

Yep. Every time I’ve been to Europe, my homesickness has taken the form of cravings for spicy Mexican food.

Once I found a craptastic Mexican restaurant in Paris. Overpriced and, well, obviously run by les imposteurs.

(Cool that you chatted with Amy Welborn, btw.)
M_Young says:

October 24, 2012 at 6:32 pm

Well, the few times I had french pizza I liked it for

1) the generally thin crust and
2) the bottle of herb and garlic infused olive oil found at the tables

But if you really want some good stuff atop a flatbread in France, go get yourself some tarte flambée (though it won’t be spicy).

PS, don’t you people have jobs?
matt says:

October 24, 2012 at 6:44 pm

I thought alot about this living in Germany, which is also heat-averse. They have some sharp flavors: pickled things, radishes, some almost inedible smoked things. But spicy heat is a particular kind of sharp: less substantial, more ornamental, more versatile than things from the sour-sharp end of the spectrum. Notice that cuisines that use heat tend to include it in almost every dish (Indian, Szechuan, Thai, Mexican), and that good cosmopolitan chefs tend to incorporate some hot or spicy element into everything. This suggests to me that cuisines like French, while obviously truly magnificent, are just plain missing something from their palate– they don’t expect to find that hot kick on their plate, and they don’t understand it when they do. It is interesting that Creole cuisine is basically French, but add half a tablespoon of cayenne to the sauce. So I don’t think there’s something holistically anti-spice in French cooking. Just an accident of climate and path dependence, I guess.

Check out some suburban Moroccan and Algerian places for some real spice, I guess.
David Walbert says:

October 24, 2012 at 7:20 pm

I might argue that bland and highly spicy are two sides of the same coin, both simple and straightforward tastes. To some extent I think it has always been that way; in the 18th century European travelers actually complained about how strongly the food tasted. (That was true in part because the fruits and vegetables were grown in virgin soil, but also because we spiced everything pretty pungently.) Then When American food became so bland and industrial after the middle of the 19th century (for a pack of reasons), we lost what taste we had for complicated food. But we kept overcompensating for the blandness by piling on spicy condiments. Tabasco sauce, for example, was invented (and became popular) at the end of the 19th century when everyone from doctors to cooking school teachers was insistent that spicy food was bad for you, and likely immoral to boot. We’ve never been much for sitting back and thoughtfully deconstructing the layers of flavor in our food, either way.

Or I could say that our immigrant-fueled, go-go-go ADHD culture (and probably genes) are highly susceptible to the thrill of spice and strong flavors, while our worship of industrial might and our desire to rein in our baser instincts gave us the bland opposite.

Not that I’m being critical. I have been known to eat Chinese chili sauce with a spoon.
Matt says:

October 24, 2012 at 7:34 pm

For me, the fundamental quanta of taste in spice is the difference between capsaicin-hot (hot peppers) and ginger-hot. I have a very, very low tolerance for hot peppers – raw jalapenos cause me absolutely unbearable, agonizing, blistering pain – there’s absolutely nothing pleasant about them at all, and I have literally screamed like a wounded buffalo when accidentally ingesting one. However, I can eat ginger in any form all day long, and don’t perceive it as having any meaningful ‘heat’. I know a couple people who have exactly the opposite reaction – jalapenos are pleasantly tingly while ginger makes them gasp for air. I suspect there’s a complicated intersection of cultural culinary norms and how the individual’s tongue is wired.
pilgrim says:

October 24, 2012 at 7:46 pm

Good to see Amy! Have enjoyed her blog.
Gene Callahan says:

October 24, 2012 at 8:24 pm

I don’t think it is more complex that what you get used to, you tend to like. When I was a kid, nobody I knew dealt with hot peppers more than by sprinkling a few flakes on their pizza. But gradually we got used to them.
Fred says:

October 24, 2012 at 9:14 pm

All I know is that I shook a nice helping of Crystal Hot Sauce on my fried oyster po-boy this afternoon, and sat with it under a tree on Bayou St. John near City Park in New Orleans, cracked a Hopitoulas IPA, and watched my 3 year old daughter play along the shore with the ducks and turtles.

Then we took a nice walk under the live oaks to the sculpture garden behind the Museum of Art. October/November (and March/April) are heaven in Louisiana.
Greg says:

October 24, 2012 at 9:59 pm

My wife grew up in Paris. If you want pizza that’s as good as any you had when you lived in NYC, go to Pietro’s 12 Rue Mabillon. It’s delicious! As good, if not better, than any I have had in NYC or NJ where we live. My French in-laws love it too!
Elijah says:

October 25, 2012 at 7:42 am

Interesting. I never really thought about that before, but you are quite right: most of France is rather mild (not weak) with flavors. I did find plenty of spicier food in Provence, but even there it was more restrained than not.

If you think it’s bad in Paris, try living in Vienna! Spicy there means black pepper!

At least the Hungarians have hot and sweet paprika, and the hot is actually hot.
Andrea says:

October 25, 2012 at 8:56 am

I can’t stand spicy food and occasionally blame it all on my bland Scandinavian stomach. My second generation Swedish American grandmother cooked everything to the consistency of plain white rice, too bland for even the other members of the family. I don’t know if that’s typical of Scandinavian food or policy or unique to my family but I always tell Subway to leave off the jalapeños on my veggie sub and don’t eat spicy Mexican food. Guacamole is the only Mexican dish I really like.
Tom S says:

October 25, 2012 at 8:56 am

Could be the hot climate, hot spices relationship. Triggering sweat and all. Spain, Portugal, and Italy have cuisines that are more picquant than their northern European counterparts. Southern France, too.
Sam M says:

October 25, 2012 at 9:04 am

I think this is the difference between a flexible, generalist culture and a boutique culture. America does a lot of things serviceably well. There are a few real stand-outs, but these are generally only available to people with the time, money and inclination to seek them out. Regionally, you can expect great barbecue in certain areas, or great creole, but in the majority of places, things are usually pretty good but hardly ever great. And hardly ever horrible.

While foodies might despise this, there is some real value in it. Yeah, we can all make fun of Olive Garden,but it’s hardly as excerable as its critics say it is, and I bet Italian food in American suburbs is better than Italian food in a lot of boutique cultures.

The pinnacle of this, to date, would be Chipotle. Is it GREAT and AUTHENTIC… CUISINE? Probably not. Someone stuffy about Mexican fare will point out all the deficiencies. But it’s actually pretty good, and probably better than what you can get in Paris.

I guess you can’t get world class baguettes on every corner in Anytownn, USA, but if you want passable versions of nine different cuisines, the food capital of the world is very likely the American suburb. And as Rod’s repeated need for a break from French cuisine illustrates, there is something to be said for a break.

If you are imprisoned in a beautiful garden… it’s still a prison. We need to keep this in mind. A lot of cultures specialize. I think that if I were to take a car-based vacation for a weekend, I might want to go to Italy and experience a Ferrari. But life is not a vacation. To live my life, I actually need a very ho-hum minivan which is spectacular in exactly zero ways, and horrible in none. Which is exactly why it is so spectacular.

America. Awesome. Now pass the Pringles.
Caroline Nina in DC says:

October 25, 2012 at 9:56 am

Fred–Your post made me miss New Orleans so bad that I almost physically ached.

DC-area folks: I’ve lived here for 14 years and haven’t found good New Orleans food. Any suggestions?

Rod–it makes me so happy you met Amy Wellborn. All of life is mysterious and holy connection…
Ethan C. says:

October 25, 2012 at 9:56 am

What really blows my mind is history: the capsicum pepper family is a New World native — which means that before about the 17th century, nobody had hot-spicy food outside of America. Think about that. No spicy Indian food, Thai food, Nigerian food, no nothing if you weren’t an American Indian.

Peppers have taken over the world.
Tom S says:

October 25, 2012 at 10:06 am

Ethan C’s point is well taken. On the other hand, mustard, horseradish, and peppercorns were available. More sinus-clearing than long-lasting.
Sam M says:

October 25, 2012 at 10:34 am

“DC-area folks: I’ve lived here for 14 years and haven’t found good New Orleans food.”

The astonishing thing to me about DC, when I lived there, was the lack of a proper deli. I also lived in Baltimore for years. For all its Italian roots, it was a bad pizza town. I found that astonishing. I am not saying that you couldn’t find a good pie. What I mean is, a la Rod’s argument about great stuff available to most people around the corner, the average pizza joint that you might use for delivery was pretty lackluster.
Uncle Vanya says:

October 25, 2012 at 11:49 am

For your delectation. No one does French history quite like “Horrible Histories”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otnADq4Y0-A&feature=related

Uncle Vanya
Hector_St_Clare says:

October 25, 2012 at 12:01 pm

Re: Check out some suburban Moroccan and Algerian places for some real spice, I guess.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Moroccans and Algerians are much less integrated into French society than Indians and Pakistanis are in British society, or than Mexicans and Caribbeans are in American society. Which could be one reason why they haven’t contributed as much to mainstream cuisine.

In most ways, France is a much more racist country than the U.S., Britain, or most other European countries I can think of.
DS says:

October 25, 2012 at 12:37 pm

Hot peppers aren’t native to France, so the hide-bound French traditionalists don’t use them much.

Mustard is native to France, so you can find many varieties of moutarde, ranging from ultra-delicate to nose-hair-immolating.

The best option for hot is pizza places that have olive oil with peppers in the bottle to add some pique.

And I love the French style of pizza — small, thin, crispy, with a modest amount of amazing cheese. I also love American-style pizza, greasy and piled high with pepperoni and our kind of mozzarella. I think of them as unrelated dishes and thereby avoid cognitive dissonance.
J.J. Gonzalez says:

October 25, 2012 at 1:03 pm

It’s the wine. You don’t need spice if you have wine. And if you have spice, wine conceals the flavors. So it’s either/or… except for maybe Louisiana.
theBitterFig says:

October 25, 2012 at 3:08 pm

This doesn’t really address the ‘whys’ of regional culinary heat, but it doesn’t really surprise me, largely because of my mother. She hates chili-pepper hot, can’t stand it. However, she loves spicy mustard and wasabi. Just different tastes.

@ Ethan C.
Well, there are other forms of spicy. Black and white peppercorns have been widespread outside of the Americas for around 2000 years, and ginger can get pretty hot. I’m certain the food tasted quite different, though. And also a quibble, but probably the 16th century for the spreading of chilis (at least in India and various places with Portugese presense).
Telly says:

October 25, 2012 at 4:58 pm

Thanks, Rod! So what did Julie discover regarding the soy milk? I shall refresh this page incessantly until I have an answer haha.

I think that cooking with “hot” spices is a means of shielding the flavor of lousy food, it’s the lazy man’s way. From an evolutionary point of view though I think hot food is good to help ward off disease or something in tropical climates?

[Note: She didn't get to go out and check -- other things came up. Maybe tomorrow... -- RD]
Telly says:

October 25, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Oh, wrt where in Paris, dunno yet, have to plan it still (this is months in the future, but we’re excited.) I like the neighborhood you’re in, near the Jardin du Luxembourg. Maybe you could write a detailed post describing your methods for finding a place and all some time?
JonF says:

October 25, 2012 at 7:40 pm

Re: the food capital of the world is very likely the American suburb.

Huh? When you can find even more and better choices in a decent-sized American city? Within three miles of my house in Baltimore there are Italian, Greek, Mexican, Indian, Ethiopian, Polish, Afghan, Chinese, Lebanese, French, Japanese and Thai restaurants, of varying quality and authenticity of course. Are there suburbs where you can boast of that?

Re: before about the 17th century, nobody had hot-spicy food outside of America.

Nonsense. There may not have been New World peppers, but there certainly were black pepper, ginger, onion, garlic, thyme, cloves, cinnamon, and assorted other powerful flavors to spare the Old World from blandness. One of the chief motivations for Columbus was to find a new route to the Spice Isles after all.
RealSheree says:

October 25, 2012 at 7:52 pm

I lean toward heat, spice and tang. For that reason, I’ve never been as smitten with traditional French cooking as many foodies. I’m a fan of French country cooking, but the sauces and high-end stuff.

Mediterranean and Mexican are my favorites, but I love the heat of ginger, too.

I’ve found in my international travels that a good dose of salsa (even from a poor facsimile of Tex Mex) is necessary after a few days.

I keep a bottle of Tabasco sauce in my office refrigerator and find that Tabasco will repair many-a-bland-meal.
Lulu says:

October 25, 2012 at 9:48 pm

I’m glad to see the Columbian Exchange was brought up–the Smithsonian had an exhibit in 1992 called “Seeds of Change” that traced the New World foodstuffs that changed the world, and this hot spicy versus sharp flavor seems to follow the hot pepper trail.

But that doesn’t explain why, though, does it? Why potatoes=Ireland, tomatoes=Italy, or peppers (i.e., paprika)=Hungary?

(It’s not that simple, I know, but . . .)
David J. White says:

October 25, 2012 at 10:57 pm

Well, the few times I had french pizza I liked it for 1) the generally thin crust

And I love the French style of pizza — small, thin, crispy, with a modest amount of amazing cheese.

Man, am I the only one who doesn’t care for thin crust on a pizza? That’s the main objection I had to pizza in Italy, and why I said I’d take Pizza Hut over any pizza I had in Rome or Naples. But then, I’m the kind of person who figures that if I’m going to get one topping, I might as well get six.

Speaking of ethnic food abroad, when I was in Rome I had dinner one evening in a Chinese restaurant in Trastevere. The menu was in Chinese, English, and Italian, and it was interesting to see how the names of some Chinese dishes were rendered in Italian. Lo Mein noodles were “spaghetti”; Chinese dumplings were “gnocchi”. The waiter was Chinese but he spoke Italian, and I admit it felt a bit surreal to be chatting in Italian with a Chinese waiter (though, of course, it’s no more unnatural for a Chinese to speak Italian than to speak English). I had a very good Chinese meal. This being Italy, I also had a nice bottle of wine and a bottle of acqua minerale along with it.

As for spicy food, I’m like Andrea. my ethnic background is Irish and German and I grew up in the Midwest, so I was raised with very bland food. It’s hard to put spices in a jello mold! I often joke that in my mother’s kitchen, “spicy” meant that she looked at the pepper shaker when she was cooking. Black pepper was a rare and exotic spice for my mother. To this day, when I go to Indian restaurants, I often find that their “mildest” version is almost hotter than I can stand.

What really blows my mind is history: the capsicum pepper family is a New World native — which means that before about the 17th century, nobody had hot-spicy food outside of America. Think about that. No spicy Indian food, Thai food, Nigerian food, no nothing if you weren’t an American Indian.

Hmph. Yet another way in which Columbus has a lot to answer for.
Paul taylor says:

October 25, 2012 at 11:14 pm

Dear Rod,
There is marvelous pizza in Montmartre at Pomodoro (20 rue la Vieuville) on the climb to Sacre-Coeur. My wife, kids and I had a wonderful Spring evening there earlier this year. If you make it back to that neighborhood please check it out. Not Parisians though, some Italian transplants.
Paul
M_Young says:

October 26, 2012 at 2:44 am

“When you can find even more and better choices in a decent-sized American city? Within three miles of my house in Baltimore there are Italian, Greek, Mexican, Indian, Ethiopian, Polish, Afghan, Chinese, Lebanese, French, Japanese and Thai restaurants, of varying quality and authenticity of course. ”

No doubt decidedly mediocre. The immigrants that start restaurants in the US are generally not real cooks. The exception is the groups that we don’t have much immigration from anymore — we now have better and more varied Italian and Japanese food despite there being very little immigration from those countries. But those that do immigrate and start restaurants are actual professionals.

Further, it takes time to develop a unique cuisine. New Orleans is a great food town in part because it was left alone to work on its own cookery, rather than having foreigners impose theirs. Likewise, the Northwest has become a trendsetter because it had a relatively stable population of native-born folks, who thus had the ‘space’ to develop something truly original.
JonF says:

October 26, 2012 at 6:02 am

M-Young,

Maybe they are mediocre– I’ve only eaten at a fraction of the choices in this town, though to be sure poor restaurants tend to go out of business. But is there any reason to think they’d be one whit better in the suburbs? I’ve lived in suburbia and the same caveats apply there too.
Sam M says:

October 26, 2012 at 12:26 pm

JonF says he has a lot of choices within a three-mile radius in Baltimore. That’s great. But by my calculation, a circle with a radius of three miles covers about 30 square miles. He’re what you can find in the PARKING LOT of the first upscale American mall I could find online:

http://www.eastontowncenter.com/dining.aspx

Is any of it GREAT? I dunno. I bet at least some of it is. But none of it is inedible, most likely.

Seriously. Hit that link. That’s astonishing. Keep in mind that there are two pages. Take a look at them both.
Telly says:

October 26, 2012 at 2:27 pm

So what about that soy milk?

Here’s a place you MUST try: Chez Bebert

Best Couscous and atmosphere ever. Try the Couscous Bebert. You can put as much harissa on it as you like, if you like it hot.
Telly says:

October 29, 2012 at 6:06 pm

So, how was Chez Bebert? Any info on the Silk soy milk?

Thanks!

[Note from Rod: Bobosse comes on Wednesday; I have been looking around for soy milk for you, but I must tell you it doesn't look good. There is a health food store down the street, but I haven't looked there. It's where I bought that supercrappy German peanut butter, so I've not wanted to return. -- RD]