© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut, All rights reserved.

The post You know you live in Paris when…: Canal Saint Martin appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

A National Institute for Preventive Archeological Research (INRAP) spokesman called it “the most significant archeological find in Paris in the past 14 years, both for its size and its singularity.”

The discovery was made by accident when the Société du Grand Paris unearthed a wheel while conducting preliminary soil analysis for a new suburban rail line that would follow the ancient canal routes out to the northeast suburbs as part of the long-term Paris Métropole project.

The canal site, according to INRAP, was the resting place for 182 bicycles, 55 chairs, 51 caddies and 23 motorcycles and scooters. Urban biologists are also excited by the opportunity to drain the canal to conduct the dig since in the process it was discovered that 17 species of fish thrived in the murky water, including a carp weighing over 35 pounds (16 kilos) and a catfish measuring nearly 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Historians are hoping that the new find will provide clues to understanding the presence of a series of bicycle-related monuments unearthed in 1990 two miles further along the canal route in what is now Parc de la Villette. After 25 years of study, those monuments, collectively known as The Buried Bicycle (La Bicyclette Ensevelie), have retained much of their mystery.

Theories vary as to the meaning of the Scandinavian-sounding inscription “Claes Oldenburg Coosje Van Bruggen” found on the artefacts. While some surmise a link with the Viking invasions of the 9th century, others believe the site to be the work of a cult dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria who was to be executed on a spiked wheel that miraculously broke when she was placed on it. Joan of Arc claimed that Catherine told her to rid France of invaders.

The fact that the newly discovered bicycle cemetery is quite removed from The Buried Bicycle “raises more questions than it answers,” said INRAP’s chief cycle archeologist Dominique De Roue in an interview over coffee at the café and restaurant Hôtel du Nord. “But due to the scope of this extraordinary find some of those answers may now be within reach.”

Asked how the discovery of the bicycle cemetery compares with the well-arranged mass grave unearthed last winter under the Monoprix grocery store in the second arrondissement, De Roue said, “We were previously well aware that the Trinity Hospital had been on that site in the Middle Ages. So while the density of skeletons was unexpected, we were not surprised to find a burial site in the area. In this case, however, while we were aware of The Buried Bicycle and of anecdotal evidence of missing bicycles throughout the history of Paris, we had no conclusive evidence until now that Parisians had specifically designated a site for the burial of their two wheelers. We’re all very excited by the discovery.”

Unlike the medieval Trinity Hospital cemetery beneath the grocery store, which was visible only to specialists, the St Martin bicycle graveyard is an open excavation visible from the canal’s cobblestone sidewalk and metal bridges.

Adding to the macabre nature of the find, some of the bicycle cadavers have been so well preserved in the sediment that vultures, rarely seen in Pairs since the Franco-Prussian War, have appeared at the site.

Standing on the edge of the vast excavation site as a team of forensic archeologists worked below, Jean-Pierre Durcel, a professor at the Sorbonne and renowned expert on the 16th-century War of Locomotion, who is member of the dig’s scientific committee, said, “While it’s too early to speak definitively of any relation between this site and the War of Locomotion, there is a certain logic to it, given the location near Saint Louis Hospital, which was built soon after the end of the war period. The presence of a bicycle cemetery here would appear to confirm the hypothesis explored in my essay ‘Circular Lives: The Wheels of Monarchy, 1570-1610.’”

In that essay, Ducel seeks to explain why Henri III, unable to sooth tensions between velopedists and quadropedists, was assassinated in 1589, an event that brought an end to the Valois dynasty and temporarily halting dual-wheel development in France. His successor, Henri IV, was a 4-wheeler who eventually converted to bi-wheelism but was nevertheless assassinated in turn by a radical velopedist in 1610 while riding in a horse-drawn four-wheel “voiture” or vector.

Monique Guidon, a specialist on medieval executions, said over tea and cake at La Chambre aux Oiseaux, that the gravesite should rather be seen in relation with the presence nearby of the Gallows or Gibet of Montfaucon, once one of the most chilling sites in the countryside of Paris. The gallows were in use for some 350 years beginning in the late 12th century.

“They were just up the road from here,” she said. “It would have been reasonable to pass this way when wheeling criminals to the site of their execution. People have been calling this a ‘bicycle cemetery’ but it’s quite possible that the site contains a variety of wheeled vehicles and carts.”

A relationship between the cemetery and an as-yet-undated sign that was discovered in November during restoration of a piece of the city’s old ramparts is also being studied.

On a visit to the site before going to lunch at Les Enfants Perdus, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, declared the site “further evidence that bicycles have long been a part of the life of the city.” Noting that some of the bicycles appear to have been “tortured,” the mayor said, “We must honor those that came before us and continue to fight for the rights of non-motorized Parisians.”

She was referring to the twisted cadavers of some of the bicycles. Several firearms have also been discovered in the upper strata of the excavation, though archeologists warn that it is too early to draw conclusions as to their relationship with the bicycles, tortured or not.

Opposition leader Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet denounced Mayor Hidalgo’s “politicization of an archeological discovery.” “Parisians feel a lack of security,” she said before going to lunch at Philou, “and the mayor is only interested in re-interpreting history in such a way as to convince citizens that the fight against terrorism requires that bicycle lanes be extended.”

Radical leftist and extreme rightist parties both accused the government of timing the find to draw attention away from “the real problems confronting France” so as to promote a series of conference that will mark the Ile-de-France (Paris Region) Archeology Day on January 16. While some on the left said that the 9.5 million euros earmarked for the excavation would be better used to help house Syrian refugees fleeing the Israeli occupation, some on the right called for it to be used for better controls at the border between France and Turkey.

A forensic archeologist familiar with the dig, who requested anonymity due to the political nature of the discussion, acknowledged that some of the bicycles show signs of torture that may be related to political or cultural tensions of the time. He said that it was too early to know whether those tensions were local in nature or national or perhaps even international given that the site lies on a Roman trade route connecting Paris with what are now Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

Interpretation of the exact nature of the vast gravesite is further complicated by the presence in various strata of hundreds, perhaps thousands of recipients of what Georgio Manubrio, an Italian specialist on beverages from antiquity who is part of the INRAP team, said likely contained beer and wine.

Over coffee at Canaletto Caffè, Manubrio said, “Given the provenance of the amphorae and other recipients I’ve seen at the site Parisians at the time favored very poor quality beverages. I dare say that what they consumed at the time would be considered undrinkable today.”

“A bit like French coffee today,” he added.

Vélorution, an association militating against motorized vehicles (“Turn off your engines! Breath happiness!”) has begun daily demonstrations on the bridges overlooking the excavation site and as called for a massive demonstration on Sunday afternoon, when portions of Quai de Valmy and Quai de Jemmapes, the roads along the ancient canal, are closed to motorized traffic. To support their efforts, Vélorution will be holding a fundraising event at Le Comptoir Général following the demonstration.

A spokeswoman for district mayor of the 10th arrondissement said that an exploratory committee was being formed to study the possibility of obtaining UNESCO World Heritage Site listing for the bicycle cemetery, either in its own right or by requesting the extension of the listing of the banks of the Seine to the banks of the canal.

“The beauty and historical value of the site deserves protection,” she said.

The effort of district mayors to spearhead World Heritage recognition is not unprecedented as Delphine Bükli, district mayor of the 9th arrondissement, has recently sought UNESCO World Heritage status for the rooftops of Paris.

Asked if UNESCO listing of the bicycle cemetery might adversely affect future evolution of the area, the spokeswoman said, “We will not allow terrorists to affect the quality of life in the 10th arrondissement,” presumably referring not to UNESCO but to the November 2015 terrorist attacks which took place at Le Petit Cambodge and Le Carillon just 100 yards from bicycle cemetery excavation site.

District Mayor Rémi Féraud declared “The canal area will be ready for picnickers in the spring” before headed to have lunch at Haï Kaï.

Archeologist have been working at the dig for several days now and are currently in the process of removing the bicycle cadavers and remnants so that they can be studied under appropriate conditions using the latest scientific equipment. The company JCDecaux, a specialist in Jurrasic velopedes, has obtained the contract for doing DNA testing on the bicycles from that era.

It is as yet unclear as to where all of the bicycle cadavers would go after analysis, but Jean-Francois Decaux, co-CEO of the namesake group, said that by agreement with the City of Paris his company the remains of those showing no signs of torture from the era of its speciality will be placed on display at various locations in the city.

As to those showing signs of torture or from other periods in history, the City of Paris in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture would decide where they would be placed.

Reached by phone prior to her appearance on the Channel 2 8pm news, Fleur Pellerin, Minister of Culture and Communication, said, “Unfortunately my schedule as minister hasn’t allowed me to visit the excavation site. Nevertheless, I’m well aware that the bicycle cemetery is an important part not only of the history of Paris but of our national heritage and therefore I will do everything in my power to ensure that it is preserved digitally.”

The association Friends of the Carnavelet Museum is pleading in favor of bringing some of the remnants—tortured bicycles, beverage containers, possibly a firearm or two—to that museum, which is concerned with the history of Paris. However, the museum’s director, Valérie Guillaume, who also oversees the Catacombs, said over an early-evening pint at The Cork and Cavan that the Catacombs may be a more appropriate location to place the bicycle cadavers.

Archeologists were initially unable to identify an oddly shaped seat-like object at the gravesite.

But fresco specialists soon uncovered the words “Homme,” “Femme” and “Toile” on a supporting wall leading to the conclusion that the object is a toilet for cemetery workers, which apparently included women.

The owners of Le Polidor, Le Baron Rouge and other historical-minded eating and drinking establishments in Paris have offered to remove and restore the curious object at their own expense and to place on display in their own WC.

Said one business owner, who requested anonymity while negotiations are ongoing, “Though the modern technology of the hole in the ground is most practical and hygienic, we like the idea of adding a historical and retro element from a time, unimaginable as it may seem to us today, when woman actually dared to sit down to pee in a public water closet. Since I’m not a historian myself I don’t yet know how to properly clean it, but I’ve reached out to toilet specialists at the University of Nantes and will be working with them to develop instructions to ensure both proper use and proper maintenance. Some of our regular clients may resist using it, so we’ll continue to provide the modern alternative of the hole in the ground. Our international visitors will certainly get a kick out of it.”

While the excavation has been drawing numerous curiosity seekers and Instagrammers, some visitors to the neighborhood are clearly moved by the sight.

Sitting at a café table outside Chez Prune, 24-year-old Emilie Cuissard said, “To think that bicycles have died and even been tortured so close to the three bicycle shops in the neighborhood…”

Her eyes tearing as she rolled a cigarette, she said “It makes me proud to be a Parisian.”

* * *

Further information about the bicycle cemetery and the archeological dig see here.

Photos and text © 2016, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Macabre Bicycle Cemetery Discovered in Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

This evening I’m going out to the Vendeen countryside, south of the Loire near the Atlantic Coast, to embrace the new year with closest of friends.

“Are you going to make us those fat crepes again?” said my godchild when I told her I was coming. “They’re called pancakes,” I reminded her. Since I won’t be arriving until the evening I’m dispensed from helping to prepare tonight’s festivities, and in exchange I’ll be making pancakes in the morning. I’m bringing along some Cary’s Canadian maple syrup, hoping to pass it off as Gary’s.

I could have purchased my train ticket online but I like the sense of happy anticipation is buying it at the station. So I biked over to Gare de l’Est, the East Station. (This evening I’ll take the train southwest from the Montparnasse Station.)

I walked back and on the way, not far from the station, I visited the little garden square beside Saint Laurent Church. The exceedingly December weather has allowed it to remain green

and in flower.

It’s a hopeful garden square. The installations and plantings were done by people accompanied by Emmaüs Solidarité along with local volunteers, as is written on the sign.

Emmaus http://emmaus-france.org/ is an organization founded in France after the Second World War by Abbot Pierre (Henri Grouès) that aims to fight poverty and improve the conditions of those living in poverty while calling on the public and on government to act in solidarity with the poor.

We’ll be eating well this evening as we toast the new year, followed in the morning by pancakes, with much else in store for the weekend. Meanwhile, this charming little garden reminds passersby of the possibilities offered by peaceful earth. Rhubarb, for one.

It reminds us of the need for shelter.

It reminds us of the need for community, family and friends.

It reminds to build good

and better lives.

It reminds us that the needs of a man who would cultivate a small plot of earth,

the needs of a woman who would paint a shell

the needs of a child who would play in a city square,

and the needs of a man who would sleep in a public garden

are also our needs.

Beside the square, the church visible today is the third on this site. The first was built as part of a monastery dedicated to Saint Laurent in the 5th century. Saint Laurent was born in Spain then lived in Rome, where he helped the indigent. That was in the third century, before Christianity held sway in much of Europe, when the Roman authorities sought to diminish its appeal and get a hand on the expanding treasure of the early popes. Rather than see that treasure fall into the hands of the Roman authorities, Lauent distributed it to the poor. When asked to produce the papal riches he pointed to the poor and said, “There are the treasures of the Church.” His martyrdom involved being burned on a grill.

The current Saint Laurent Church was begun in the 15th century, with work on the flamboyant Gothic interior continuing for over 200 years .

Several men were praying in separate chapels. A woman in the welcome booth by the creche was moving her lips while reading a book. A woman was sleeping against a column. So was a man.

I emptied the change in my pocket into the collection box, selected a candle and lit it with the flame of another.

I’m not Catholic. I don’t pray. But as I placed the long thin candle in the holder my mind flickered between the man sleeping nearby, my departure this evening for a joyful New Year’s Eve, the pleasing continuity of renewing for 2016 my resolutions of 2015, plans to call family in the U.S. tonight, tomorrow’s pancakes and Friday evening’s Euromillion lottery.

I saw a scribe and decided to write this before leaving Paris to celebrate the new year.

Wishing a happy, healthy 2016 to all. Bonne année!

Gary Lee Kraut

Dec. 31, 2015

The post A Year Ends, A Year Begins in a Hopeful Little Paris Garden appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

That’s my motto when selecting restaurants for many visitors. And there’ve been a lot these past few weeks: friends, relatives, friends of friends, friends of relatives, classmates, fundraisers, writers doing research, travelers taking most excellent tours. We’ve had lunch together, dinner, we’ve been to wine bars, had picnics, stopped for pastries, chocolate, Bertillon sorbet.

“How do you/they stay so thin,” they ask, causing me to suck in my gut, “eating like this all the time?”

Now here’s a secret the food-bloggers won’t tell you: We don’t. At least I don’t.

Paris can be visited as a perpetual all-you-can-eat deluxe buffet but it’s lived as a city with countless venues for a shared meal or drink with friends, colleagues, clients and assorted visitors. Eating well implies choosing well, ordering well, buying well… enjoying good company. There is a form of Parisian self-control in matters of food and drink. One gets a hang of quickly enough. Spending two hours à table doesn’t mean consuming four times the amount of someone who sits for 30 minutes. And we actually eat at home sometimes. We have access to good fresh produce. We walk to shops. We do our 10,000 steps, including frequent staircases. We cook in our little kitchens. We may even exercise, gently.

However, there are times when some combination of visitors, work obligations, journalist events, birthday celebrations and ordinary social life lead me on an extended period of wining and dining. And no matter how much I protest when the dessert menu is handed out, there are quite a few crème brulées, moelleux au chocolat, pies and tarts placed on the table with an extra fork or spoon. “I’ll just have a little taste,” as my grandmother would say.

That period of indulgence can last a few days or a week or, with my most recent schedule of visitors, events and travelers on most excellent tours, a month. Indulgence, however, is not the same thing as overindulgence. Indulgence is a knowing pleasure. Overindulgence is loss of control. Admittedly, there’s a fine line of distinction at times.

A friend, in Paris for business, unsure of which side of the line we were on, said during our third straight high calorie wine-infused meal together, “My wife’s gonna kill me for putting on weight. I’m gonna tell her it’s your fault.”

If shared good living is my fault then guilty as charged. I don’t know what you’re during this afternoon, Scott, but I’m going for a run as soon as I finish this article.

10 Venues for Shared Good Living—Simple Food, Simply Good

What follows is a selection of simple, simply good restaurants and shops that have been on my eating trails of the past few weeks during this most recent bout of shared good living. It’s my food diary of the past few weeks, minus the less appealing, the less well served and the more gastronomic meals consumed along the way.

Simplicity is the theme, meaning relatively straightforward fare, meat and potatoes and the like yet unmistakably French. Some will call this restaurant fare “borrrrring,” others will call it “just what I was looking for.”

All are moderately priced, here meaning 25-50€ for 2 or 3 courses without beverages. All have good to excellent service. None require much, if any, advance reservation, though no harm calling ahead.

1. Le Sully
6 boulevard Henri IV, 4th arr. Metro Sully-Morland.
Tel. 01 42 72 94 80. Closed Sunday.

It’s easy to overlook this daytime café-brasserie (it closes at 8pm) because the intersection out front appears to be a place of transit only and not of pause. But here—between Ile Saint Louis and the Arsenal quarter of the Marais, between old blocks from the Bastille and a statue of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, between an equestrian center for the Republican Guard and the Center for information, documentation and exhibition for urban planning and architecture of Paris—Le Sully is a place with roots. The same family has operated it since 1917 and their roots still run deep into the Aveyron region of central France. Le Sully is old reliable when it comes to enjoying the café-brasserie experience in Paris thanks to the generous spirit of Robert and Dany Vidal and their son Romain and to their sense of quality. Le Sully proudly sports the government label Maitre-Restaurateur, which signifies that dishes are made in house essentially using fresh ingredients. Aubrac rump steak and other nice lunchtime brasserie fare, Languedoc wines. We linger into the afternoon.

2. La Poule au Pot
9 rue Vauvilliers, 1st arr. Metro Louvre-Rivoli
Tel. 01 42 36 32 96 Open 7pm-5am. Closed Mon.
Ever true the bistro tradition, Paul Racat has for 40 years now maintained this relaxed yet classy home for rustic bistro classics, attentively served, and an atmosphere of unpretentious chic that develops as the evening and the night move on. Come the later the better. Soupe gratinée à l’onion, blanquette de veau, white Sancerre. We linger into the night.

3. Boucherie Roulière
6 rue des Canettes, 6th arr. Metro Mabillon or Saint Germain des Près.
Tel. 01 84 15 04 47. Open daily.

Having long associated this street between Saint-Germain and Saint-Sulpice with creperies, pizzarias and pubs, I thought it a bit risky to head here for beef. But the risk paid off: the sliced rib just right, attentive service, elbow-to-elbow seating that offered up a mix of good cheer and Parisian sophistication. Mille feuilles de tomate et artichaut à l’huile de truffe; côte de boeuf, bone marrow and steak fries; Saint-Estèphe (Bordeaux).

4. 750g La Table
397 rue de Vaugirard, 15th arr. Metro Porte de Versailles.
Tel. 01 45 30 18 47. Open daily.

If I lived on the southwestern edge of the city or frequently attended trade shows at Porte de Versailles, I’d be happy to consider Damien Duquesne’s Table my neighborhood restaurant for good chicken, good beef, homey side dishes, much freshness, a judicious wine selection and friendly service. But I don’t, so I consider 750g La Table as a sign that no quarter is immune to honorable food and wine.

5. Les Petites Ecuries
40 rue des Petites Ecuries, 10 arr. Metro Château d’Eau or Bonne Nouvelle.
Tel. 01 48 24 02 90. Open daily.
Walking by on a sunny day, it was the sight of the pleasantly odd alcove lined with a living green wall that gave me pause for coffee. Though suspecting that the place might be too young and hip for the food or service to be anything but an afterthought, I nevertheless returned for dinner with a visiting friend the following evening. And good thing, too: my duck was delicious, my friend enjoyed his steak, we were kindly served and we barely noticed that we were among the oldest ones there.

6. Le Plomb de Cantal
3 rue de la Gaîté, 14th arr. Metro Edgar Quinet.
Open daily.
Why waste your waistline on the meat and potatoes at an ordinary greasy spoon when you can do some delicious gut-busting in this joyful restaurant in the Montparnasse quarter with Auvergne comfort food, from deep in the center of France? Sausage served with aligot (mashed potatoes with cheese and garlic) or truffade (sliced potatoes, cheese, garlic) is king here, but duck, tripes or beef are also options. Hearty salads as well. It’s simple, it’s delicious, it’s caloric, it’s cheerful, it’s Paris without needing to be hip or sophisticated. There’s an extension around the corner and another outlet across the city near metro Strasbourg-Saint Denis, but come evening the greatest joy is on aptly named theater- and restaurant-filled rue de la Gaîté.

7. Terminus Nord  
23 rue de Dunkerque, 10 arr. Metro Gare du Nord.
Open daily.

While the Auvergnats accompany their sausages with cheesy potatoes, brasseries of the north, wonderfully exemplified by this large and brassy restaurant across the street from Gare du Nord (the train station that links Paris with London, Lille, Brussels and Amsterdam), serve theirs with sauerkraut. But upon returning from Amsterdam (Café Loetje for lunch) we came here for the other specialties of northern brasseries: fish (cod, sea bass, salmon, sole) and seafood. A reminder that simple fare, simply good, isn’t just a beefy affair.

8. Le Village Ronsard
47 Ter Boulevard St Germain, 5th arr. Metro Maubert-Mutualité.
Tel. 01 43 25 07 95. Open daily.
There are many like it, but when in this quarter come lunchtime I’ve always felt comfortable at this perfectly, excellently ordinary café-brasserie in the Sesame Street of Paris market areas. Poulet-frites, steak-frites, salads, omelets, etc.

9. Fil’O’Fromage
12 rue Neuve Tolbiac, 13th arr. Metro Bibliothèque François Mitterrand or Quai de la Gare.
Tel. 01 53 79 13 35. Open 10am-7:30pm Mon.-Wed. 10am-10:30pm Thurs.-Sat. Closed Sunday.

Past the loud brasseries, the cavernous cafés and the undesirable restaurants that first assault the rare explorer of the new Rive Gauche quarter of the 13th arrondissement, Clément Chérif Boubrit (“I’m the Sheriff,” he says), philosopher, photographer, cheesemonger, oenologist, operates an off-beat wine and cheese shop and eatery where I recently organized a tasting for a group of eight bloggers/writers. Don’t worry, you needn’t be eight or even organized to enjoy the Sheriff’s approach to tasting wine, cheese and cold cuts vertically, horizontally, blindly or what the hell let’s just share-ingly.

10. My kitchen. Leftovers from last night’s party. Open 7/7, by invitation only.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris Restaurants: 10 Ways to Keep It Simple and Simply Good appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Paris – In a year during which the French calendar is highlighted with festivities and commemorations surrounding the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of France, 1944—from D-Day (June 6) to the Liberation of Paris (Aug. 25) to the Liberation of Strasbourg (Nov. 23)—the reopening of the Medem Yiddish Library 70 years ago this week, on October 14, 1944, was noted by few.

The date nevertheless resonates as a marker of the return of Jews from hiding in France and their first steps toward reclaiming an identity and a language that Nazism and its allies, including in France, sought to wipe out.

Though relatively small and discreet compared to the world’s major Yiddish centers in New York and in Israel, the Medem Library’s 30,000 volumes (of which 20,000 are in Yiddish) and 7500 recordings, along with the classes, workshops and events of the Paris Yiddish Center (together with the library they form a single entity) make this the largest Yiddish cultural center in Europe.

In 1939, at the outset of the Second World War, it was common to hear Yiddish in certain quarters of Paris, particularly in the 3rd, 4th, 10th and 11th arrondissements. Yiddish, the language that most unified European Jewry before the Holocaust, had been spoken among some families and communities in Paris since the liberating effect of the French Revolution began drawing Jews to the French capital. Its presence was increasingly seen and heard in the northeast quadrant of Paris after 1880s, when greater waves of Jewish immigration began arriving from the east, waves that would also reach the shores of North America.

Over coffee and chocolate rugelach with members of the administration and the staff in the center’s little café in Paris’s 10th arrondissement, Gilles Rozier, author, translator from Yiddish and the Medem Library’s director from 1994 until June 2014, outlined the history of the library and cultural center.

At the time of its founding in 1929, during the golden age of Yiddish artistic and literary creation and publication, the Medem Library was just one of a number of Yiddish libraries and centers in Paris. Each Jewish political party or religious movement, Rozier explained, had its own library which also served as a form of social and cultural center, a gathering place where there was often a soup kitchen for those in need. Neither Zionist nor religious, the Medem was created as the library of the Bund movement, a secular Jewish socialist movement that had developed in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and spread out from there, eventually brought to Paris by immigrants fleeing pogroms and unrest in Eastern Europe. The library was named for Vladamir Medem, one Bundism’s major theorists.

Though now officially apolitical, the Medem Library and Maison de la Culture Yiddish (or Paris Yiddish Center as it’s officially called in English) as an institution remains distinctly secular. It’s even open on Saturday, though closed on Friday.

Foreign Jews in France, already targets of anti-Semitism and anti-immigration sentiment during the economic downturn of the 1930s, were increasingly treated, legally, as outcasts once the German Occupation began in 1940, at which time the rights of French Jews were also progressively diminished. Two years later, both foreign and French Jews were being deported to concentration camps. Authorities closed the Medem Library in 1943 but not before many of its books had been hidden in the basement of the building that then housed the Medem Library at 110 rue Vieille du Temple in the Marais. About 76,000 of the 270-300,000 Jews living in France before the war were killed between 1940 and 1945.

Following the Liberation of Paris from German Occupation and the removal of the Vichy Government, the Medem Library reopened on October 14, 1944. It was a small but significant step in a return to normalcy for Jews in the capital.

The number of Yiddish speakers in Paris after the war nevertheless continued to wane. Pogroms in the Soviet Union, particularly in 1956 and 1968, saw a small influx of Jewish immigrants who brought along their personal libraries, including books in Yiddish, eventually resulting in an expansion of the Medem and other libraries then still in existence. Yet the number of Yiddish-speakers was in steep decline as younger generations no long learned the language of their parents or grandparents. During the same period, the arrival of Sephardic Jews from territories formerly controlled by France in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) meant that Yiddish, historically spoken by the Ashkenazi, was no longer the primary shared language of new Jewish arrivals in continental France.

That might have spelled the end of the Medem as a gathering place, as it did for other Yiddish libraries, but the 1970s brought with them an awareness of and desire to maintain contact with one’s roots. What was true for Breton and Basque, the languages and cultures of Brittany and Basque Country, respectively, was also true of Yiddish. Roots for Jews may also mean an attachment to prayer/the synagogue and/or to Zionism, but in the case of the Medem Library, one of whose pillars remained secularism, it was the language of pre-war European Jewry that brought people together. By the 1980s, with Yiddish classes in full swing, the Medem Library was becoming more a research library than a popular library.

By the 1990s, as other Yiddish libraries and institutions closed and publications ceased, the Medem was receiving some of their collections along with collections of citizens no longer capable of reading their parents’ or grandparents’ books.

Moved to its current location, it was less the books themselves that kept the Medem Library alive than the emphasis on learning Yiddish and the enjoyment and understanding of Yiddish culture (particularly klezmer, theater, song and cooking)—in short, on transmitting Yiddish heritage. Since 2002 the center has been called Maison de la Culture Yiddish – Bibliothèque Medem.

Asked if the center was associated with the Association for the Promotion of Foreign Languages in France, Fanny Barbaray, the center’s president, said that Yiddish couldn’t be considered a foreign language but was rather a “language of France” more comparable to Breton and Basque.

In the 85 years since its creation in 1929, the Medem Library has only had four directors: Kiva Vaisbrot, one of its founders, who assumed the position until 1979, Yitskhok Niborski, director from 1979 to 1994, Rozier, director from 1994 to June of this year, and Tal Hever-Chybowski, director since September.

The House of Yiddish Culture and Medem Library occupy 7000 square feet of the ground floor and basement of a building in the 10th arrondissement (near a nice little indoor food market). Only the ground floor is open to the public. Most of the books, recordings and documents are stored the basement, available for retrieval by the Medem’s librarian, Natalia Krynicka. A hallway exhibition space, three classrooms and a small café are open to the public, as are the reading room with membership to the library, the classroom for those registered and an 80-seat room where cultural activities and events are held.

Along with Yiddish classes for all levels, the center holds klezmer, dance, choral, theater and cooking workshops and has a choral group as well as programing for children. Concerts, readings, encounters with authors and film projections also take place. While Jews make up the vast majority of those taking Yiddish classes, Barbaray noted that there are a significant number of non-Jews in the klezmer workshops.

While visitors may encounter Yiddish speakers at any time at the center, its little Tshaynik Café especially becomes a Yiddish-speaking coffee klatch on Thursday from 2:30 to 4:30pm.

In addition to income derived though classes, workshops and membership, the center receives subsidies from the Paris region, DRAC Ile-de-France (a regional department of cultural affairs), the City of Paris, the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, the National Book Center, the Rothschild Foundation, the Rachel Ajzen and Léon Iagolnitzer Foundation, the L.A. Pincus Fund for Jewish Education in the Diaspora and the Unified Jewish Social Fund. The New York-based American Friends of the Medem Library also supports the center’s activities.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

Maison de la culture Yiddish – Bibilothèque Medem, 29 rue du Château-d’Eau, 10 arrondissement. www.yiddishweb.com. Tel. 01 47 00 14 00. Contact: mcy@yiddishweb.com. Metro République, Jacques-Bonsergent, Château-d’Eau.

Open Mon., Tues., Thurs. 1:30-6:30pm, Wed. and Sat. 2-5pm. Closed Friday, Sunday, French holidays and Yom Kippur.

For other articles about Jewish Paris on France Revisited see the March 2014 issue.

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* * *

There’s something about being a native English speaker that makes us want to connect with people sitting next to us in a foreign restaurant.

– Is that as good as it looks?
– Did I hear you say Boston?
– I just want to say that I love your bag!

That can be tricky business in places where we might not understand the code for “I know we’re nearly rubbing thighs but could you kindly just mind your own business?”

Not to worry, there are few codes, nor much in the way of a menu, at Matière à…, a delightful new restaurant in the canal quarter of Paris’s 10th arrondissement, where owner-chef Anthony Courteille plays host from behind the counter in his open kitchen to 14 guests at a single table (+ a 2-head in the corner).

I first met Mr. Courteille in 2011 when he was the executive chef at the Atelier Guy Martin, the cooking school of Guy Martin, chef at the venerable Le Grand Véfour and the force behind other culinary enterprises. He appeared in a France Revisited video when I took one of his classes. So there was no pretending that I could test this, his first restaurant adventure, anonymously. Instead I invited 13 friends and readers to join me.

Among the guests at the table that evening was Virginia-born, longtime Paris resident Allison Zinder, who teaches the culinary arts in schools, as well as privately. She held what I think of as the critic’s or student’s seat, the one closest to the kitchen, overlooking the chef’s shoulder. I asked her afterwards to send her opinion on the restaurant in less than 50 words: “Despite that open (tiny!) kitchen,” she wrote, “I found the atmosphere to be calm and luxurious and the food sublime: surprising yet harmonious flavors, home-made bread (so rare in Paris), and smooth, lovely wines chosen just for the meal. Bravo au chef!”

The trade-off for this bravo is a lack of choice on the menu. Those troubled by the thought of being limited to a fish dish and a poultry or meat dish for the main course or to the cheese plate or single dessert to end the meal would be better off seeking out longer menus. Also, if there are certain types of fish, poultry or meat that you refuse to eat then this might not be the place for you. Our group took the 4-course tasting menu, thereby eliminating the choice between main courses from the start since we got both.

The chef may be willing to accommodate with certain ingredients, as he did by transforming the announced crabmeat appetizer on our menu into a fresh salad for one in our party, but it’s best to come open to the possibilities. Of course, you can always come by to have a look at the menu to decide whether or not to enter on a given day (it changes daily), but with 16 seats (17 in a pinch), Matière à… may fill up with reservations before you pass by to case out the day’s menu.

Mr. Courteille’s cuisine is nevertheless quite recognizable, its ingredients spelled out on the menu, and there are no great risks to the willing appetite. Nothing is intended to shock or challenge your sense of what constitutes food. Our evening menu included a crabmeat (chair de torteau) appetizer, a spotted dogfish (roussette) fish course, a beef flank (hampe de boeuf) meat course, followed by cheese or strawberries, lemon cream and meringue for dessert. In our menu and in daily menus surveilled throughout the week, I found no search for novelty or an attempt to cook on the cusp of the latest food trends. Mr. Courteille’s dishes are graceful, polished and—take this as you will—French. It was as though we’d all been invited to a delicious meal in an elegant yet unpretentious home for dinner and each discreetly left 60€ (42€ for the tasting menu + wine) as a thank you.

I surveyed the group afterwards. One in our group lamented a less than exciting selection of cheese and another found the beef flank too flimsy but even they gave overall applause to the meal, the room and the atmosphere, as did we all. Our 14-guest restaurant review team therefore gives thumbs up all around.

In Paris it’s the rare new restaurant of late whose name isn’t readily understandable an international clientele, meaning by English speakers (e.g. a burger-heavy café at the next corner called American Kitchen). So hats off to Chef Anthony for calling his restaurant / chef’s table the untranslatable Matière à….

The ellipsis itself is used far more in French than in English to signal a continuation of thought in ways that the reader understands or that invite him to open his mind to the possibilities. With three little dots a timid “maybe we could get together tomorrow evening…” becomes an invitation for hanky-panky – unless of course you misunderstood…

Matière à generally means “grounds or matter or fodder for” and so is the lead-in to expressions such as matière à discuter = something to be discussed (matter for discussion), matière à rire = laughing matter; matière à réflexion = food for thought. For the purposes of this restaurant, the most appropriate translation may well be “Makes you want to…”

At a time when many new urban restaurants serve food for thought, for trend or for gullible hipsters or tourists rather than for enjoyment, it’s a rare pleasure to discover a restaurant that plays to a simple, un-convoluted sense of freshness, culinary skill and conviviality, leaving it to us and our tablemates—friends, perhaps strangers—to find common ground for discussion and for laughter.

Makes you want to… reserve.

* * *

Matière à…, Anthony Courteille’s chef’s table, 15 rue Marie et Louise, 10th arr. Tel. 09 83 07 37 85. Metro République or Jacques Bonsergent or Goncourt. Open weekdays 12-2:30pm and 7pm-1am. Saturday and Sunday 7pm-1am.

About 23 euros for three courses at lunch. A tasting menu of about 42-euro, served only in the evening, is comprised of 4 dishes: appetizer, fish/seafood, meat/fowl, cheese or dessert. A 3-course meal à la carte can be had at the same price, slightly larger portions, with a choice between the two main dishes. One can also select one or two courses. The wines selection, generally 25-40 euros, or by the glass, is easy-going and effective.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

Readers who would like to participate in upcoming Paris Revisited / France Revisited tastings, testings and other events can send a message to gary [at] francerevisited.com to get on the priority mailing list.

The post Paris Restaurant Review: Matière à…, A Harmonious Chef’s Table in the Canal Quarter appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You peruse the right magazines, or so they tell you.

You read the best travel sections, as though any of them knew what was going on in Paris.

You read the most up-to-date blogs, or so they want you to believe.

And still you don’t know that Le Comptoir Général, a bar and events space across the street from Canal Saint Martin, is among the hippest spaces in Paris this spring.

Not hip as in style or attitude, not age-related or attitude-bound or drug-induced. Commercial or non-commercial, doesn’t matter. This is the hip that money won’t buy and fashion won’t help you achieve. You’ve either got or you don’t.

By July it might still be a fine place to hang out for the evening but it’ll be old news, the kind you read about in those magazines and travel sections and blogs.

And please don’t expect me to actually describe the place to you or show pictures of what hip look like this spring or tell you what nights are best or take you by the hand to lead you down the dark alley that gets you there. Either you get or you don’t.

Either you’re in or you’re out.

Up to you.

Le Comptoir Général, 80 quai de Jemmapes, 10 arrondissement. Metro République or Jacques Bonsergent. http://www.lecomptoirgeneral.com/.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

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Even when historians speak of Alsace-Lorraine they’re mainly speaking of the former, since all of Alsace was included in that once-disputed region but only a part of Lorraine.

Furthermore, there isn’t much of the way of distinctive Lorraine cuisine to promote outside of the region. Even in Paris, the only mention of Lorraine that you’ll ever find on a menu is quiche Lorraine.

Unlike L’Alsace, a winning, cliché-heavy restaurant on the Champs-Elysées that does an excellent job of promoting Alsatian cuisine, the brasserie La Lorraine, off the Champs on Place des Ternes, ignores its namesake in favor of brassy, upscale Parisian brasserie fare. And along the street in front of Paris’s Gare de l’Est, the East Station, from where trains to Alsace and Lorraine depart, the brasserie La Strasbourgeoise (named for the capital of Alsace) is another good choice for Alsatian fare while Le Bistro Lorrain is a…. pizzeria.

Truth be told, there isn’t much in the way of Lorraine cuisine even within the region, where the harsh soil has allowed for little culinary fantasy beyond pork dishes, including the pork-and-cabbage stew/potée Lorraine, and the famous, bacon-enhanced quiche Lorraine. There’s a good amount of perch and trout from the rivers but no special fish dish that has left a mark outside of the region. And with all due respect for its wine (vin gris de Toul and Moselle), its local beer-making traditions, and its spring water from Vittel, none of those drinks is cause alone to travel, as satisfying as they may be.

Lorraine as a name remains unevocative in part due to the historical incongruence of its cities: there’s photogenic Nancy, marked by Renaissance flourish, 18th-century refinement, and Art Nouveau curves; there’s Metz, which brings together French classicism and German monumentalism; there’s Verdun, which calls to mind the horror and sacrifice of the trenches of WWI. Each of those worthy destinations (to be explored in future articles in the Northeast France section this site) is easily accessible from Paris. Since 2007 high-speed trains from Paris can rush a traveler to Nancy or Metz in 1:30 or to Verdun in 1:40, but it’s unlikely that the traveler will think of himself as going to Lorraine but rather to Nancy or Metz or Verdun.

Nevertheless, inside Paris’s Gare de l’Est the boutique En passant par la Lorraine… attempts to evoke an unevocative region with what little there is to unify it: the mirabelle plum and a 16th century folk song.

En passant par la Lorraine is the name of that song. It’s a little ditty about a woman passing through Lorraine in her clogs and it has given the shop its name and its kitsch little clogs for sale. The mirabelle plum has given it most everything else.

If visiting France anytime mid-August through September, be sure to put on your list of food experiences a trip to any market to pick up some mirabelles, sweet yellow-golden plums that are likely to come from Lorraine, which assures about 80% of the world production. Also keep an eye out for mirabelle tarts in the bakeries.

Since En passant par la Lorraine… doesn’t sell fresh produce, you won’t find any fresh mirabelles here, or even a mirabelle tart, but you will find most anything else imaginable one can do with mirabelles. You’ll find them in jams, in preserved terrines, in canned stews, in mustard, in soap, in biscuits, in chocolate, in candy, in liqueur, in beer, and in brandy.

Two other traditional dry cakes from the region decorate the colorful shelves in this shop, Madeleines de Commercy and Marcarons des Soeurs, along with regional beer and brandy (eaux-de-vie), jams and preserves made from other regional fruits (particularly blueberries/myrtilles), and various fruit-flavored bon-bons (notably bergamots de Nancy), all with a regional bent.

For heated and/or refrigerated regional fare, you’ll have to go across the street from the train station and one region to the east to the deli-caterer Schmid, which considers itself “The ambassador of Alsatian gastronomy in Paris since 1904.” There you’ll find the staples of Alsatian culinary regional identity: choucroute (sauerkraut, served with potatoes and a choice of sausages, bacon, and/or pork), kuglehopf (a molded cake with raisins), Munster cheese, and strudel. Though 400,000 of Lorraine’s Mirabelle trees are “protected” by the appellation “Mirabelle de Lorraine,” plums don’t stop at the regional border, so Schmid offers the aforementioned mirabelle tarts. Canal Saint-Martin, a 10-minute walk from here, is the place of choice for a picnic in the area.

Both Lorraine and Alsace are known for their Christmas markets, which begin around December 6, the Feast of Saint Nicolas. An alleged relic of Saint Nicolas, his phalanx, was brought from Italy in the late 11th century to the Lorraine town that now goes by the name Saint Nicolas de Port. Eventually Nick was named patron saint of Lorraine. It’s nevertheless neighboring Alsace, evocative as it is, that most highly promotes its Christmas markets. In December stalls selling Alsatian food and products are set up in front of Gare de l’Est, led by sausages, Gewürztraminers, and Rieslings.

Lorraine is far more discreet. So the shop En passant par la Lorraine… is your best bet for information—and at least some bon-bons—if curious about the region or before taking the train east. Chances are 50-50 that you’ll come across manager Jean-Paul Lacroix, himself an excellent ambassador from the region. He can tell you (in English) the history of these various products, such as how candy made from bergamot oranges from Sicily came to be used in a specialty of Nancy. If asked politely, he might even sing a little song, as he did for me: En passant par la Lorraine/Avec mes sabots… oh oh oh, avec mes sabots.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

Practical information

-Boutiques

En passant par la Lorraine… Gare de l’Est, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 40 35 47 80. Open Mon.-Sat. 7am-8pm. En passant… has other shops, all in the Lorraine region.

Schmid 76 boulevard de Strasbourg, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 46 07 89 74. Open Mon.-Fri. 9am-8pm, Sat. 8:30am-8pm.

-Restaurants

La Strasbourgeoise 5 rue du 8 mai 1945, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 42 05 20 02. Open daily noon to midnight.

L’Alsace 39 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th arr. Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tel 01 53 93 97 00.  Open 24/7.

La Lorraine 2 place des Ternes, 8th arr. Metro Ternes. Tel. 01 56 21 22 00. Open 7am-1am.

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