Fake Your Way to Frenchness on Bastille day
Fake Your Way to Frenchness on Bastille Day
You cannot talk like them, you cannot dress like them, and you cannot woo zee women like them, but on Bastille Day you can at least drink like a Frenchman.
By Matthew DeBord
It goes without saying that Americans have a love-hate relationship with the French. On the plus side, they helped us win the Revolution. Furthermore, the Statue of Liberty is a French chick, a gift from the citizens of Gaul to their American confrères.
But returning-tourist lore is rich with tracksuited Yankee yokels grousing about how they were mistreated by some greasy Gauloises-puffing waiter at that Left Bank sidewalk café. Why, oh why, they moan, can't the French be more like us?
Maybe they should be, but on at least one day, every American should require himself to be more like them. Bastille Day (July 14) is the Gallic equivalent of the Fourth of July -- a day on which the French celebrate the storming of an infamous prison in Paris, the event that launched their own revolution. If there's one day each year when Americans could do well to chuck their cultural contempt when it comes to the French, this is it.
Of course, it ain't easy being French. Fortunately, the drinking part is a cinch, and it doesn't even involve wine. Because the national quaff of France is not, as most believe, bistro plonk. It is an anise-flavored liqueur with a decidedly decadent, borderline dangerous lineage. It is pastis, and if you want to be French for a day, it's your slurp.
In New York, your task is made easier by Provence, a 15-year-old southern French Soho standby whose owner, Michel Jean, a native of Marseilles, is cordially referred to by his staff as "Mr. Pastis." Enter the restaurant through its quaint blue facade and you discover a scene straight out of Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Fully a quarter of the place is occupied by the bar, and fully a third of the bar is decorated with Provence's pastis lineup.
Jean dresses in a Frenchified version of American prep: a blue check shirt, chinos, loafers. His dark hair curls lushly in the way that only French guys seem to be able to get their lush dark hair to curl. Reading glasses dangling from his teeth, he negotiates his pastis stocks like a schoolmaster ushering prize pupils into an auditorium for a talent show. Pastis, it's obvious, is France for him.
Assisted by his general manager, Christophe Descarpentres, Jean walks Wine Spectator through the pastis selections. There are literally dozens of version of pastis available in France, but only a few brands are imported into the United States for sale at restaurants and bars.
The most well-known among these is probably Pernod, an industrial-strength pastis regarded with mild derision by Jean and Descarpentres. "It's for Americans," both maintain. Now, it's not that these gentlemen hate their adopted country -- they clearly don't -- but they love France, and they're not going to mince mots when it comes to the national drink. The verdict on Pernod? "For cooking, not for drinking." End of discussion.
On to the real deal: Ricard, the most popular pastis in France, and Casanis, a more authentic Marseilles style, only recently imported. There is also a less culinary Pernod brand called Pastis 51 that with Ricard and Casanis forms the Big Three of French pastis.
Next, Duval, a Ricard competitor that sees a lot of action in Parisian cafés. Descarpentres also narrates an assortment of more obscure pastis labels. Jean eventually hauls out an ancient bottle of Pernod ("I don't know how old," he admits, with a shrug). The men rib each other about cracking it open during Provence's annual Bastille Day pétanque tournament -- an opportunity for restaurant staffers to pit themselves against each other in the bocce-like national pastime of pastis-sipping citizens of southern France.
Together, Jean and Descarpentres demonstrate the correct pastis protocol. First the ice -- but not very much. "In France," Jean quips, "they ask you if you want one ice cube or two." He spoons four or five into a glass. Next, a splash of Ricard, maybe two fingers' worth. Then, the water, poured -- naturellement -- from a silver Ricard pitcher. (Pastis-brand water pitchers, like heavy ashtrays emblazoned with liquor labels, are reliable features of the French brasserie landscape.) The liquid instantly clouds to a milky white color -- the thrilling alchemy of pastis, and at least half the fun.
Then come the cocktails. "It's true," Descarpentres remarks. "Even in France we do cocktails." At Provence, there are three: the Tomate, pastis mixed with grenadine; the Perroquet, pastis mixed with mint liqueur; and the Mauresque, pastis mixed with almond syrup.
We discuss whom each is designed for and decide that the refreshing Perroquet is for little boys, the fruity Tomate for little girls, and the soothing Mauresque for "grown men." Everyone at Provence is partial to the Mauresque. If you want to come off as a properly tricolored Bastille Day celebrant, go for the Mauresque. You will be rewarded with hearty Gallic guffaws and nicotine-stained grins all around.
Lest a sunny southern French mood overtake the afternoon and plunge us rapidly, à la Casablanca, into spontaneous renditions of "The Marseillaise," the darker side of pastis is the next realm to be explored -- because pastis is the toned-down latter-day offspring of absinthe, that hypnotic green wormwood extract made famous by the pleasure-questing decadents of the Belle Epoque.
Banned because of wormwood's hazardous side effects (convulsions, hallucinations, rapturous esthetic visions), absinthe morphed into pastis so that the French thirst for anise-flavored drinks would not go unslaked. Pernod producer Pernod-Fils, in fact, was an absinthe maker for a hundred years before the beverage was outlawed. (To obtain the definitive lowdown on absinthe, check out Barnaby Conrad's Absinthe: History in a Bottle, from Chronicle Books.)
Modern-day absinthe remains a cultish, contraband beverage, but it has undergone a revival. There are entire websites, with gauzy, evocative names -- "The Chapel Perilous," for example, to be found on www.sepulchritude.com -- and swirling Art Nouveau graphics, devoted to tracking down and obsessively evaluating the controversial elixir.
Today's absinthe now accounts for a minor component of the overall pastis market. Jean and Descarpentres joke that their bar brand, Absente -- which is a variation on the French for "absence" -- does indeed have something missing: "The absinthe itself!" both report, chuckling. "Really more of a marketing gimmick," Jean says.
Tradition dictates that pastis be drunk with tapas-style nibbles of food, le pizzas and such. Two plates of these disappear in a hurry. Frenchman after Frenchman strolls into the bar. If the scene at Provence, round about two on a Tuesday afternoon, is any indication, pastis-drinking is an indispensable introduction to the barhopping mores of French masculinity.
An expat advertising executive from Lyons -- in New York for more than a decade, but determined to enjoy a relaxing Parisian-tempoed lunch -- details his affection for Ricard. The chef, Descarpentres, and Jean each enjoy a Mauresque. Having tasted through half a dozen different pastis options, Wine Spectator settles on Casanis as its new brand of choice. Out come the Marlboro Lights. A cheerful bonhomie overtakes us all. At Provence, it's clear, you can become French in a hurry. And you don't need the excuse of a holiday, because here, every day is Bastille Day.
A Disputatious Guide to Pastis
Pernod
The biggest brand of pastis available in the United States is also the least highly regarded among the crew at Provence, New York's pastis playground. A disturbing yellow-green out of the bottle, it remains sallow after interacting with the ice and water. Anise aromas are edgier, and there's a distinct menthol edge to the flavor. The French describe the taste as "medicinal." We describe it as cloying.
Drink Pernod if: Your aspirations to Gallic impostorship are limited to viewing reruns of Julia Child.
Ricard
France's most popular brand of pastis. Dry, light, and refreshing, but also quite compact. Clouds -- or "louches," if you're part of the absinthe crowd -- to an appealing raincloud white. "Straightforward," agree the fellas at Provence's bar. Not as rich or lush as Casanis, and possessed of a longer afterburn. Preferred as a mixer. The pastis of the masses.
Drink Ricard if: You really want to fool the French, without coming off as some kind of snooty connoisseur.
Pastis 51 (not currently available in the U.S.)
The Gallic drinking man's Pernod. Closer to Ricard in appearance and flavor. Clouds to a much more appealing white, kind of like the fog that might overhang Paris in an Atget photograph.
Drink Pastis 51 if: You're in France.
Duval
Ricard's huskier rival: Richard Burton to Ricard's Lawrence Olivier. Clouds not to a milk-white but to a pale mocha-brown. Suggests earth more than sky, soil more than heaven. The anise aroma and flavor is thicker, less ethereal or smooth, with a harsher edge.
Drink Duval if: You favor Armangnac over Cognac, Bourbon over Scotch, Burgundy over Bordeaux, olive oil over butter, Kermit Lynch over Auberon Waugh, a thick moustache and old barrels over a Hermes tie and new oak.
Casanis
A more authentic pastis, produced in Marseilles and only recently exported to the United States. The thinking man's pastis. A full anise bouquet, rich with licorice, prefaces a billowy clouding once the water hits. The wicked ancestorship of absinthe is alluded to by the very slightest greenish tinge at the edges. Dee-lish.
Drink Casanis if: You aspire to the avant-garde, dig Yasmina Reza and Oliver Assayas, or want to push the envelope of your phony Frenchness. Might be too much for most garden-variety frauds to handle.
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Provence
38 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
Telephone: (212) 475-7500
How to eat like a Frenchman
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