Thin Crust, Light Sauce and Extra Fat, Please
Jun 12th, 2008 by Marilyn
One night on our Paris trip, we suddenly had the urge to give our expanding middles and narrowing arteries a break from buttery soup and emmenthal cheese. We were wiped that day, with tired feet and little will to scout the perfect bistro. In an odd turn of events, we were ready for any dinner whatever.
So we went with a near-the-hotel, easy choice, and that easy choice was pizza.
It took only a few moments to figure out we’d basically chosen the Olive Garden of France. Those place mats, those photos, that big, bold type. It was fun to translate their current promotions – “Les Salazzas!” was giving me a P’Zone vibe – and it was frighteningly easy, because in any language, marketing is marketing.
So, now we’re eating at the faux-Tuscan Jardin d’ Olive. In the St. Germain neighborhood even the chains are good, but still, I fully expected to see a bottomless salad and breadsticks. Which is not to say it was bad – I’m not sure bad food is technically legal in Paris – but the best we can say is that it was a great deal, and that was a welcome change, indeed.
What I did take away was the idea that around the world, pizza works in mysterious ways. Here, it was much more than a meat and cheese, pepper and onion platform – it provided a glorious trifecta of fat from distinctly un-American toppings: French ham, a baked egg and a puddle of smooth, chived creme fraiche.
It was so easy. In a restaurant full of blissfully Lipitor-free French families, it was a simple matter to say “Sure, bring me some eggs, cream, and meat on top of my cheese and sauce. Maybe some ice cream on the other half?”
I’m telling you this pizza came with a river of sunnyside-up and the absolute right to dip crust in creme fraiche. It came with a mixed-meal identity and tripped some pizza alarm that sleeps in all of us, the one that challenges your own beloved pie. I sometimes think there’s no bad pizza, only better pizza, and good ingredients tip the scale. My favorite Chicago deep dish, it tips the scales, all right – but deep dish comes with sausage, not eggs. And after munching an extra-fat pizza awash in runny yolks, I must speak to Lou about that.
That must have been delicious! My daughter is in Italy right now and she went on a truffle hunt and then got to eat a dinner served with truffles. She didn’t like them raw though. Cooked in something was better. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. They found lots of truffles or should I say the dog did! Expensive creatures.
I say yay for Tarte Flambee – it’s like pizza only better (I expect the hate mail to start now)
Yay Tarte Flambee is right – it is almost obscenely good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_flamb%C3%A9e
I like to say the Alsatian name just for fun – Flammekueche!
i can’t tell if i would love it or hate it…egg on my pizza??…but i’d give it a try!
(never met a pizza i didn’t like…well, except one w/green peppers!)
That sounds like the perfect brunch pizza — if there is such a thing as brunch pizza!