From Paris to London (III): undersea travels, cheese and sweet wine

Many people know there is a submarine tunnel that bridges Paris and London, few people I know have actually merged into the darkness of the earth to come out again in the light of the surface. Here is the website for the booking: Eurostar

Already Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) planned to excavate a dugout to reach an elusive bartender, for his unsuitable thirst. Because of the available technologies, the plan was abandoned and the enterprise to the cold ice-cream of Russia brought to a sad end a glorious moment for continental Europe. Despite his arrogance and his final defeats, in Italy Napoleon is praised as an hero and he is the last Emperor we addressed with his baptism name.

Napoleon on the imperial throne by Ingres

The day after the flamboyant wedding, still dizzy by the cling of toasts and by the night's raids in the metro, my French days regrettably expired, so that I had to leave behind myself the majestic splendor of Paris, for the more put-together charm of London. It is incredible how two so close towns developed such different souls. Paris, the home of French Revolution, seems a city made by giants. London, the place that hosts one of the more ancient monarchies of the world, is a practical city, thought for commerce and adapted to tourism. Perhaps for this metaphysical reason the tunnel under the Channel is so peculiar: it has to bridge two mind-dimensions.

LeRoy Neiman: even the Beatles may look like workaholic yuppies.

Moreover, that's possibly why London is a city which encourages evasion, as in Peter Pan with flying skills, in Sherlock Holmes with opium, in Dickens with countryside trips. On the other side, Paris, though drenched in danger, works as a magnet for people coming from all over the fair nation: Paris sucks your energies and your wealth out, and spits what remains of you like Pinocchio's whale, such as in L'education sentimentale by Flaubert or Les illusions perdues by Balzac.

When fairy powder makes your flee-dreams come true.

Luckily the shark whale is not hominivorous (a men eater),
he prefers krill and plankton.

What I found fascinating was the duty free: the train that runs under the sea is treated as an airplane. Your suitcases are scanned and your physical body as well. I was lucky to spend only 50€, because of the low season: we were in early december. This unexpected duty-free consented me to find luxury food-goods: a truly finest selection for gourmets. A couple of affluent and eccentric British citizens in a totally unconcerned manner spent a sensible fortune. I felt luckier having an allocated budged. I came out with two gems: a cœur Neufchâtel (pronounced as if the f was silent), an fromage artisanl from Haute-Normandie. It has the typical shape of a heart and it is a product provided with the Appellation d'origine contrôllée, which means it has a specific certification of reliability, as for Parmigiano in comparison with the unfair Parmesan. The second choice was a fine bottle of a sweet dessert wine, whose indication allowed the drinker to spouse it with cheeses as well: it was a Sauternes of the winemaker Calvet, as sort of guarantee in itself.

My host could not restrain himself: he is a cheese lover
and more importantly an unstoppable cheese eater:
the soft heart of the heart, pardon the word pun, as beyond
my descriptive ability.

Porcini mushrooms are very cheeky and they asked
to be immortalized next the Sauternes. An excellent risotto
completed our dinner, along with a mixed salad.

My voyage under the sea level was intense and quick. The tunnel is darker than oblivion, but the train in extremely comfortable. I was actually wishing to find a porthole in the tunnel structure to observe the abyss, but I guess it would have been seriously too dangerous. Another astonishing surprise was the high quality of the train cafe. I had some pain perdu with cheese inside...unbelievable:

While eating it all the sorrow of life were washed away like timid waves
onto the face of a sea-rock. The recipe is very easy, the result so intense!

Finally, we came out again to see the stars, E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle (Dante, Inferno, XXXIV, 139).

In London, I rejoiced two incredible friends of mine. Harriet who is from London: we met during my Erasmus in Edinburgh and then she came to Bologna as an Erasmus as well. It was shocking when, after almost two years, our friendship had to find a new balance, based on distance. Fabriz, her boyfriend, comes from the hatred Modena (jokes) and despite he is an engineer, he also has an exceptionally versatile and humanist side: he is very attentive to nuances of life and languages, he is phenomenally sarcastic, and he wishes to pinch the typical British calm with it. While waiting for Harriet at St Pancras international station, I found a pink piano, that someone was playing particularly well, and above all a stationary shop that I recommend to all paper lovers: Paperchase

The following day, the only full day in London, it was Sunday, so we strolled around, particularly going to Hampstead park, a huge estate full of wild life (huge squirrels), swans, woods and promenades paths: it would be difficult (and somehow against privacy) to evoke back all the topics we went through, nonetheless I recall I learned a new word "daunting".

Since that departure I am planning to go back to London and visit my friends unsuccessfully, but perhaps this July I shall succeed. In the meanwhile I keep looking the pictures I took, sighing

A Mondrian-esque tree

The skyline fo the City

Eating time: voracious and plump. Shouldn't you be hibernating?

VIP squirrels: time to run away from photos

Why not? More cheese! And cherry tomatoes
on La maison du monde saucer, bought in Bologna,
but you can find it here

AND MY WEDDING CAPTAL TRIP CAN BE DECLARED CONCLUDED. 

Paris at night (II)

Paris at night, between Prevert and Eluard et Les Marmites volantes

Found on the ground in Edinburgh: a pleasent omen!

It takes time to recollect ideas about Paris. Paris is indeed a beautiful city, even despite the horrendous and puerile tourism that in the last forty years has made European capitals richer, but depriving monuments and works of art of those specific qualities called surprise, uniqueness, typicality. When I first strolled in Paris, having Hugo, Maupassant and Balzac whispering in my head, I did not allowed myself to take silly pictures, save one perhaps, taken at the base of the Tour Eiffel when its lights suddenly gleamed in the chill evening. The iron monument was like a sward of fire daunting the skies. If I wish to see pictures of Paris, I can scroll some of the one thousand Facebook albums that pollute the ether (along with those of Barcelona, London and Venice). I usually prefer more intimate shots, such as tiny details, experimented dishes, momentary impressions.

What always makes a great deal of difference are the people: the friends, the family, the lover. Under this perspective, Paris has been magic especially for the wedding that gathered together strangers, foreigners, and friends in a melange quite difficult to describe. It came to my mind a notorious poem of Jacques Prevert. I am particularly keen on this poem, since a girl I fancied in high school made me discover this poet. Afterwards, we ended up sharing no form of human relationship, but I like to keep these memories, because it would be unreal and unfair to reject all trophies of a shipwreck. This poem is beguiling cause with only three matches the poet is able to enclose the mysterious fascination of Paris and his romantic time with a woman in a short time. So Paris merely becomes the chance that makes love possible, the night represents occasion we have to size: the city is an empty container of dreams. It is up to us to remind what we think we had seen at the light of fading matches. Hence memory reworks the clay of experience to give back a more coherent picture.

Jaques Prevert and his inseparable cigarette

Paris at night Trois allumettes, une à une allumées dans la nuit La première pour voir ton visage tout entier La seconde pour voir tes yeux La dernière pour voir ta bouche Et l'obscurité toute entière pour me rappeler tout cela En te serrant dans mes bras.

English translation Three matches one by one struck in the night The first to see your face in its entirety The second to see your eyes The last to see your mouth And the darkness all around to remind me of all these As I hold you in my arms.

Bride and groom were a new dawn when you would have expected a sunset. Possibly it was from the times of Elenoire d’Aquitaine that such a beautiful woman was married with a prestigious foreigner. The groom was indeed not the king of England, BUT his ancestors include some brave and revolutionary admirals who sympathised for Napoleon: unfortunately I have to keep secret his name but i can show a painting. Moreover, the wedding witnesses gave touching speeches, especially Fabrizio the only gentlemen I know able to keep alive within himself tradition and innovation!

Eleanor of Aquitaine (XII century)

Napoleon's admiral in southern Italy, hung by Horatio Nelson 1799,
braking the agreement (picture below):

On the culinary side, I have to confess a great debacle, that will come clear in a while: the wedding buffet was sensational, simple and rich as few events in life can actually be. The food had been sumptuously chosen. It was a double homage paid to the groom who is Italian and to bride who is French. So the menu included tapenade on crostini, but mini feuilletés au pesto. Creudités de saison, what in Italy we usually call pinzimonio, and soupes de couleur en verrines. The main course was veau mijoté that is to say a veal stew, flavoured by cinnamon and pears, but there was also some barely cooked like a risotto with pulses or legumes and Parmigiano. Finally, a gâteau aux amandes et citron, a citrus salad, and a brownie concluded the wedding meal. Unfortuntely, I have a few original shots of the buffet...hunger moved my attention far from my rational control! If in the future it might happen that you come across les marmites volantes in Paris, feel free to write me back your impressions: http://www.marmitesvolantes.com/

warm sups in small cups	Tapenade of almonds and olives
morcels of goodness	pinzimonio

An original moment of my dish during the dinner

To sum up, because of the low light in the room, because I was very impatient to taste all of these delicatessens, ultimately because I wrongly thought official photographers would have immortalized the buffet as well, I wasn’t able to bring back home too many pictures of the original banquet. Here, for the readers of Apicious' Epigones, I wish to reproduce only a third of it. My sister is coming to visit me in Edinburgh and I’ll welcome her with croissants in the morning and this super-lunch tomorrow. I hope she will enjoy this little remake:

• Artichaut et poivron grillé en huile from Peckhams [just go and get them!
• Hamon Serrano direcly from Malaga, from where my sister was flying [the only intruder]
• Veau mijoté aux pommes Gala Pane et cannelle [tender, sweet, refined]
• Pain Français from Peter's Yard [French bread is ravishing]
• Gâteau aux amandes et citron bio [a Sardinian recipe] 

Platter of starters	Personal portion
The French stew with apples	The lemon and almonds cake

As always, I used organic eggs for the spongy cake with lemon and almonds. And these eggs reminded me of another French poet, a surrealist, one of the finest to be utterly precise. Paul Eluard has a stile, which can be compared with the impossible geometries of Escher.

The poet in his fourties	Maurits Cornelius Escher, Relativity (1953)

I find this poem seducing since it works as a Russian doll. From the tiniest initial detail of the anonymous street in Paris to the revolutionary ending of the bird that is capable to knock over the entire town, all is enclosed chained in a vortex of unstoppable dynamism, a sort of atomic effect:

Dans Paris Dans Paris il y a une rue; Dans cette rue il y a une maison; Dans cette maison il y a un escalier; Dans cet escalier il y a une chambre; Dans cette chambre il y a une table; Sur cette table il y a un tapis; Sur ce tapis il y a une cage; Dans cette cage il y a un nid; Dans ce nid il y a un œuf, Dans cet œuf il y a un oiseau. L'oiseau renversa l'œuf; L'œuf renversa le nid; Le nid renversa la cage; La cage renversa le tapis; Le tapis renversa la table; La table renversa la chambre; La chambre renversa l'escalier; L'escalier renversa la maison; la maison renversa la rue; la rue renversa la ville de Paris.

English Translation In Paris, there is a street; in that street, there is a house; in that house, there is a staircase; on that staircase, there is a room; in that room, there is a table; on that table, there is a cloth; on that cloth, there is a cage; in that cage, there is a nest; in that nest, there is an egg; in that egg, there is a bird; The bird knocked the egg over; the egg knocked the nest over; the nest knocked the cage over; the cage knocked the cloth over; the cloth knocked the table over; the table knocked the room over; the room knocked the staircase over; the staircase knocked the house over; the house knocked the street over; the street knocked the town of Paris over.

Paris is indeed a bit like that: there is that kind of never-ending fizzy dimension of the spirit, at least in the centre, that enables you to feel yourself enormous and small, part of the all though insignificant, lost though massive. All the Parisian guests at the wedding were indeed all splendid, even the guy who, once drunk attempted to kiss me on a cheek, despite the disapprobation peek of his girlfriend and my total embarrassment: it is not true at all that Parisians have their nose in the air. French people are great! They are close to the Italians but with a different skill in taking with irony themselves seriously. Seriously, vive la France, down with stereotypes!

Eugene Delacroix, La liberté guidant le peuple

My further step has been London: the end of my marital trip. Aftr London I shall develop in detail some of the recipes I could only name: the olive tapenade, the apple stew and the lemon and almond cake.

to be continued...