As I have a penchant for invigorating unfashionable subjects in my books, it only seems natural to continue in this vein in the blog. Thankfully, my work has never been described as sexy. That is certainly a cheap word for it takes merely a Victoria’s Secret catalog to fulfill its promises. If art is sexy (which is not the same thing as being about sex, which art almost necessarily is, at some level) we’ve all gone to the dogs of consumerism and might as well dress our oeuvre in slinky lingerie. It’s hard to imagine a novel corseted into a merriwidow but stranger twists on the book have made themselves manifest; I am referring, of course, to the Kindle.
Therefore, fearing not the Odd, nor the Unsexy, nor even the Ugly, I shall make a journalistic foray into le Golden Food.
Le Golden Food? C’est quoi?
Le Golden Food is actually the name of a fast food restaurant on the Blvd de la Villette, but I use it as a metonym of sorts referring to the all-night eateries, usually Turkish or Tunisian-run, that pepper Paris. Le Golden Food comes at you fast (served in under five), cheap (all dishes under ten euros), and spicy (pili-pili pepper prevails); moreover the serving size is man-sized. Remember the “Manwhich” back in the 70s? That Sloppy Joe out of a Hunt’s can servicing lumberjacks on coffee break? Picture a Manwhich on a plate with a fried egg sitting astride it and an equally mannish portion of fries, all doused in Tabasco. Et voilà – le Golden Food! More or less.
Hitting the Parisian pavés to search for McDoudou
Some years ago I discovered a Golden Food haven called McDoudou in the Goutte d’or, Paris’ Little Africa. This Senegalese offshoot of the Golden Arches offered heaping plates of Yassa Chicken flavoured with lime and onions, but also an assortment burgers including Le Yellow McDoudou, a kind of Big Mack with two, quick fried eggs sunny side up. It dripped a golden yellow sauce and one could only dig in with the help of a plastic fork and knife. I went in search of McDoudou Sunday but found the Goutte d’Or so tremendously changed, so bulldozered down that the streets were no longer quite recognizable. I looked high and low – down the rue Myrha and up the rue Léon — but no luck. Either I was hopelessly disoriented by the facelift or McDoudou simply no longer existed. This latter possibility affected me; though I am by no means a proponent of fast food, part of me cheered on its Davids. The grinning Goliaths with their revolting clowns and happy meals would win out, but the McDoudous fed the hungry with stick-to-the-ribs meals and offered a mint tea on occasion. At least to a passing Nazarene, like myself.
Saw these blue hats on the way…
MacBeni by Night
Inside MacBeni’s
Continuing on down the Blvd de la Chapelle I happened on MacBeni’s. In a former incarnation this Golden Food outlet was known as MacDavid and served kosher hamburgers. Today it fries them up halal. I spoke to the cook, Hamid, for just a moment.
“So what is the MacBeni specialty?”
“Les Chickens.”
“What exactly are les Chickens?”
“It’s a hamburger poulet.”
“Right, like a McChicken,” I try to pin him down.
“Chicken, meat, lots of meat, beef.”
“I see,” I said, as it dawned on me that the word chicken could signify anything at MacBeni’s where meaning is on the loose and the food is fast. I notice an item on the menu called Le Hummer but immediately lost all courage to inquire.
“Les beaux yeux, Madame, les beaux yeux,” said the chef, getting fresh all of a sudden.
“Les yeux bleus, Monsieur, les yeux bleus,” said I coolly. Then shuffled off down the Blvd de la Chapelle to search out the next Golden Food option. Two blocks further I reached Paris Fried Chicken where I was greeted by the owner and the owner’s friend.
“So you do fried chicken and curries too?” I take a look at their smorgesbord of about twenty options, including three curries (chicken, beef, vegetable) and different types of hamburgers whose photos featured in a neon lit portrait gallery. Of particular interest were Le Boursin Cheese and Le Quatro, a galloping four-steak pile up upon which two eggs ride horseback. There was also an assortment of “menus” for extra hungry Muslim lumberjacks, including “le Menu Bun’s” which consisted of any dish on the menu: steaks, kebabs, eggs, fried chicken, burgers, curries, chicken tika etc, inside a colossal bun, and served with fries. Plus a Fanta soda.
The owner replied: “We take the original Kentucky recipe, yes? (I nod in anticipation) And add some hot pepper to it – that’s what our customers expect – then we use a traditional cooking method.” I admired his euphemism for deep fry, as if he learned all this from his Gran.
By then it was four in the afternoon. There were about five seated customers, all men, all wearing a fez type cap, all leaning over half-picked plates of Golden Food.
“So is the fried chicken mildly hot or really hot?”
“Quite.”
“Are you Indian?”
“Pakistani,” corrected the owner’s friend. He was leaning on the counter near the cash register. “But it’s the same thing,” he quickly added, referring me back to England’s colonial endeavor and the eventual break up in 1947
“I’ll have a vegetable curry,” I ventured. “That’ll be take away.” I wasn’t hungry but felt I should taste what this was all about. Being a good journalist, after all, requires a solid stomach.
“Only have spinach today, Madame,” warned the owner, pointing to a deep pan of Popeye fuel — dark green spinach mush. He didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about his vegetarian offering and I suspect vegetarians didn’t often soft-shoe the premises.
“Make that a chicken curry then,” I said taking his hint.
Chicken curry from P.F.C — alas too spicy to eat.
With my purchase in an orange plastic bag, I headed out; McDoudou’s – if indeed it still existed – was now far behind me as I crossed the threshold of the nineteenth arrondissement. I lamented my inability to pinpoint the object of my original investigation, and yet I was discovering other eateries of interest. Why not continue on? Eventually I happened upon un fast with a glaring red sign: Mondial Chicken (World-Wide Chicken), a halal eatery on the rue de Meaux.
Like MacBeni’s, Mondial Chicken has a take-out window. It was through this guichet that I queried my interlocutor, the chef.
“Can I ask you why this is called Mondial Chicken?” The chef looked a bit embarrassed by my forthright question; it came without preamble, admittedly, but I didn’t expect it to cause discomfort. I wanted to get to the bottom of this “chicken business”: why chicken and not poulet, for one; and secondly, why is chicken such a ubiquitous option?
The chef was unfortunately unable to clarify. He became evasive and muttered something about serving chicken sandwiches. I noticed there were baking sheets of dried out looking pizza and that various vittles had just been plunged into the fryers – all very golden. I had to come up with my own conclusions on the chicken issue. Maybe the choice to use the English word was really more a rejection of the French word, which simply did not have the same reach. The message seemed to be: We are globalites and we eat chicken. Certainly poultry demonstrates a higher degree of flexibility than other meats in that it can be cooked in a variety of ways including the “traditional manner.” Might then its adaptability explain its success in the Golden Food arena?
“May I take a picture of your restaurant?”
My request was declined. Things were getting a bit racy all of us sudden. Did he really take me for a spy, sent on a mission by some Golden Food competitor? I bade him goodbye and looked at my watch. I had to pick my son up from school: time was running out.
My last stop was on the Blvd de la Villette where I found myself neck to neck, well almost, with the owner of the original LE GOLDEN FOOD! I got down to business.
“Please, could you explain to me why you call this restaurant Le Golden Food?” The moment of truth, within my grasp!
“Golden, that means doré,” he offered after a moment of reflection.
“Yes, yes, it does! But why doré? Does this refer to French fries, you know… to their color?” The owner knit his brows and grew pensive. He shook his head to let me know I didn’t have it right. Suddenly his face lit up and I could tell he had fished up the answer.
“Cheeseburgers,” he said.
“Cheeseburgers? You mean because of the yellow processed cheese?”
“Cheeseburgers,” he repeated. He had a crooked little smile, both bemused and surprised. I thought he might go on to elucidate the revelation but instead he lit up a cigarette and pulled out his cell phone. Like the others, he was a man of few words.
On the way back home I bumped into the “Nothing but Happiness” truck.