Monday, October 8, 2007

Sandwich, Drink, Dessert

In French "le menu" is not the entire listing of a restaurant's offerings, it's a preselected list you can choose from all for a set price. In American terms, it's like a combo meal. In nice restaurants, you often choose an appetizer (what, in French, is the "entree"), the main course, and a dessert.

The sandwich shops where I sometimes eat lunch also have a menu, or sometimes they call it a "formule," or formula. But there, you choose a sandwich, a drink, and dessert.

This always strikes me as interesting because in the US, our combo meals at lunch are usually a sandwich, drink, and chips or some other kind of savory side dish (potato salad, pasta salad, slaw, etc.). But here, you don't eat chips or potato salad, you eat dessert. Does this speak to some kind of French affinity for the sweet, even at lunch?

Today, I had a sandwich, a soda, and a delicious chocolate tart -- a very dense and rich chocolate cake. But I couldn't eat it all because it was too big. So I took it with me, something which the French don't tend to do (there is no "doggie bag" tradition here). It reminded me of "the great mi-cuit abduction" of last summer when Ellen's mother, Kay, took her molten chocolate cake with her from the restaurant where we were eating. Some things are just too good to leave behind, especially the sweets.

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