Paris on an Empty Stomach - France, Europe

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As a poor student struggling to combine those two equally expensive necessities called "partying" and "books", travelling was limited. From home to the pub, from the library to the pub, from the pub to home, from the pub to the library was about the extent of it. (Actually, rarely from the pub to the library - strike that.) I was excited, therefore, when a rich friend living in Paris sent me a return ticket to come and visit her for my birthday.

My friend was living in a house for - I kid you not - filles de bonnes familles (literally, girls from good, i.e. rich, families). Essentially this meant, as far as I could tell, that they were plagued with eating disorders. Some were Calvin Klein models (they were even skinnier than in the ads, and more depressed). Some were daughters of drummers in famous bands from the 1970s, some minor royalty and some "just rich". The only two things they had in common were: their possession of money and their aversion to food.

One thing that has to be said about me is that I don't have an aversion to food. It doesn't have to be posh food, or complicated food; the simplest ingredients combined in the most satisfying way are, in my opinion, the mark of an expert chef. So despite our student status, my roommates and I spent much time dreaming up cheap ways to fill our stomachs and please our palates with delicious pasta sauces, oven baked vegetables - and good wine.

Imagine my dismay, therefore, at the prospect of ten days in the gastronomical capital of the western world - with a group of anorexics. I had looked forward to chocolate profiteroles, creamy asparagus soups and rich meaty terrines. Thin tarte tatin, "steak frites" and cheesy fondue were all on my agenda, along with dark, barely runny, hot chocolate and healthy selections of full-body red wines. Instead, the filles de bonnes famille's a la carte menu consisted of boiled rice and the odd line of coke. Red wine was, to my relief, acceptable because despite being very high in calorie content, it also gets you drunk. For the most part, however, the girls drank straight vodka, on account of it being "pure".

The morning after my arrival, we went to L'Orangerie and saw Monet's Water Lillies, and round parts of the Louvre, where we also stopped for lunch: a small Caesar salad without dressing (what is a Caesar salad without dressing!). We then walked back to my friend's house to exercise off the calories. Given that we had to wear high heels in order to appear "small-bummed", this was quite a trial.

Getting ready to go out was a nightmare. I hadn't brought anything deemed posh enough, and for obvious reasons, hardly any of my friend's clothes fit me. We settled for something over a bottle of red wine and a small snack of crackers and cottage cheese. We set off, light-headed from the wine and the lack of food. At the club entrance, my friend instructed me to look "rich and bitchy", the latter of which I managed just fine. It's easy to look bitchy when you're hungry.

The club was trendy, no doubt about that. So trendy in fact, that nobody looked at each other for fear of appearing to find other people interesting. Still, I didn't mind, clearly being the least fashionable person there. The absence of attention gave me leeway to dance my socks off, funky girls from good families shaking their underweight booties around me.

The next day was mostly spent asleep. I woke up craving a double whopper with extra cheese and a king size chocolate milkshake. I kept quiet about this however, as I felt fairly convinced that my environment was hostile to Burger King. When in Rome and all that.

We went out to a cutting edge eatery/nightclub the following evening. To my amazement, we trooped up to the front of the enormous queue, smiled and were let in. (Correction: this had nothing to do with me smiling. My friend had obviously been to the place before and spent obscene amounts of money.) It felt like we were on Sex and the City, except I wasn't as cool as any of those four, and Carrie et al do tend to eat well. Everyone ordered tomato and mozzarella salad, and I, for fear of looking like a slob, followed suit. We sat at the table, eating the tomatoes but not the mozzarella, discussing the merits of rocket vs ruccola, and eying skinny women jealously. (I say we, by this point I was becoming slightly brainwashed, as well as physically weak from lack of food.)

We danced and danced. To be fair, we had an excellent time. On the way home my friend was even drunk enough to go for a chicken panini dunked in mayonnaise. She didn't eat hers, but that didn't stop me. Bliss.

The following morning was spent nursing hangovers in a sun-bed on the Champs Elysees, where apparently "all the stars go". Not cheap, I assure you. We met for lunch (salads) with some of the other girls before going to see the Notre Dame, and for ice cream in the Marais. I have a photo, in fact, of the six of us holding ice creams - two of us actually ate them. Sitting, chatting we started on peanuts. Upon spotting this, one of the girls announced that five peanuts equals 100 calories. All hands on their way to the bowl froze in mid-air, while I mumbled something about "healthy fat". The poor girl who had bought the peanuts was shaken. Fatty food, the ultimate crime, how could she have been so stupid?

In the evening we went for sushi and discussed dieting techniques - protein diets, cabbage diets, grapefruit diets and so on. I got the feeling, however, that actually going on a diet involved too much food for these girls. "Don't Eat" seemed to be their real message. I have always liked sushi, and find it to be the ideal meal: it tastes great, it is filling and it "feels" healthy. With these girls, though, there was a constant ongoing competition to see who was fullest at any given time. If you were the first to say, "Oh God, I'm such a pig, I've had three whole maki rolls", you'd win. Needless to say, this competition passed me by. I lost. What a shame.

After a week of this, I was slimmer, marginally cooler - having learnt to look like a bitch and not look at other people, certainly more knowledgeable on the fat content of various foods. But, I was also hungry. I hate being hungry. Food is so good. Being hungry in Paris - the city of lights, the city of love, the city of killer grub - is just plain wrong.

The moral of the story is: Go to Paris, GO! Beautiful! Amazing! Magnificent! Just don't hang out with any anorexics. I plan to return sometime with the gourmet of my choice and treat my palate for a full week.

Postscript
On day seven, I snuck out for a kebab with one of the CK models, and came back to her room and watched old black and white Marlon Brando movies. My fondest memory of Paris and I think maybe hers too.

 

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