Great Chefs In The Metro?

I know this sounds rather wacky, because that was my first thought too!  But, Paris is Paris and never fails to come up with unheard of events and activities to dazzle you in sometimes strange but enjoyable ways.

Fortunately this seemingly weird festivity took place a week before the attacks, because I doubt that I, let alone many others would have gone.

The Parisian subway may have lots of nostalgia for any of us who have lived here or visited.  Stolen kisses when I was younger, accordion musicians in the cars, and some really lovely orchestras you pause to hear in the connecting halls at Châtelet.

After a while you can identify the lines by the smells and sounds alone, like burned rubber on line 4, and the screeching wheels taking curves,  on lines 3 and 10.  Some of the stations like Réaumur Sebastopol can reek of stale urine, but never enticing smells of delicious foods to twitch your nose as soon as you get off the trains.

Most of us see it as a rather smelly, often littered, usually very crowded and in general not a place you want to hang around for any length of time, other than getting from one place to the other!

So when something comes around that sounds like a pleasant and interesting event in the subways of Paris, it does catch me off guard. At first I thought it was a joke, as if I just couldn’t comprehend how that was possible.  Cooking in the metro, you’ve  got to  be kidding!

Even more weird is that the idea apparently was cooked up by none other than  by the RATP(Reseau Association Transport Parisien).  Are they trying to make the metro a more sophisticated place, one of entertaining fantasies, or interesting and stimulating experiences other than being sandwiched in like sardines, or worse if you are female grappled by a pervert?

That includes two incidences of overt sexual exhibition that happened to me, the most recent last year!  Frankly I have started to take the bus much more often, which is generally a more civil crowd, but not always.

This chefs in the metro has been an annual affair for 7 years, and frankly I was astounded that I had never heard of it before.  Here I was thinking I know most of the time what is going on in Paris and yet I have already missed out on six past occasions?

This year, it was taking place at the metro stop Miromesnil, which is in the center of the banking and business district of Paris serving lines 9 and 13.  It took me 4o minutes to get there first on line 4, then switching to line 9.

Just upon exciting the platform, I was taken back by the funny sight of a  kitchen, replete with everything but the kitchen sink, looking quite out of place in front of two escalators.  Long tables with stools were set at each end of the stand for lucky participants selected either by registering on facebook or by the luck of the draw, like this young boy helped along by his dad.

I could have kicked myself for missing out on Tuesday’s program, where chef Patrick Berton from  a famous restaurant in Burgundy, the Relais Bernard Loisseau was doing accompaniments for ris de veau(veal sweetbreads), one of my favourite delicacies.

I made it to the Wednesday afternoon demonstration by Parisian  chef Nina Metayer who is head pastry chef at Jean Francois Piège.   She had demonstrated several versions of madeleines at noon and now was doing cream puffs, which ended up  going through the basics, rather than anything novel.

I hung around the edges, near the cooking stand which was roped off; thinking that I would have a better view, but it was a bad choice as I was never offered a number for the prize drawing, nor able to taste any of the samples passed out.

Near my feet, I saw a slowly evolving pool of water, (actually a common sight in the metro) coming from behind a wall where helpers were seen carrying back  plastic plates.  It apparently was coming from a rigged up  “sink” connected to the water faucet built in the subway  walls, used in hosing down the platforms at night.

Thursday, I was determined to have at least a  chance of winning a prize, so I made sure to place myself in front of where they were passing out numbers  in hopes of either participating in the event or have the chance of winning a basket full of gourmet treats.

Well luck was with me, because I held a winning number that allowed me to sit at the tasting tables.  We were presented a tray and asked to identify five samples of “typical” Greek cuisine, with pita bread on the side. 

I am pretty knowledgable about those sort of things, but not when some of the dishes were deliberately disguised to render it practically unidentifiable.   Chef Mavrommatis has an excellent restaurant and delicatessen, which I used to frequent more when I lived in the fifth arrondissement.

I missed identifying the  ”eggplant” literally smothered in cinnamon, and the zucchini and fennel, cooked to smithereens that did not taste nor resemble either vegetable.   Others I identified without problems, and though I did not walk off with the best prize, I enjoyed the late afternoon snack and ended up happily carrying home a  2016 restaurant guide and two cooking magazines.

The only fracas I saw was a mean spirited “security” man verbally harass a poor lady with a large dog, who had flopped down around her feet, posing no risk whatsoever, accept to the guard’s canine prejudice.   After a heated exchange, he was finally put in his place by the other security guard who had to intervene and calm him down.

I hope this event will be put on again this year, but with security guards more interested in scoping out dangerous looking spectators, rather than an innocent dog.