Who asked for SuperSize?

A loyal reader suggested this topic last December but it took a recent meal at L’Antre Amis, a place I really love, to push me to write about the subject. What happened was simple; the beef was simply too much for a single portion, so I hustled it off in my handy-dandy Ziploc bag and feasted that night on ½ the portion.

My reader suggested that it’s both a new and spreading problem; which she has encountered at the Table d’Eugene, Spring, Jeanne A., Les Papilles and the Machon d’Henri. She says that on her recent visit to Paris “we ordered wine by the glass, went easy on the bread basket, declined dessert and still returned to our hotel feeling like gavaged geese.” That’s too bad.

Worse is a note I found from my beloved wife of 50 years that said there were places I’d taken her she was either not going back to or would insist on a couple of entrees only, (as we both frequently do in the US because of the impossibility of finishing a starter and main, forget the dessert), rejecting the mandatory 3-course “menu.” These places were not shabby, unknown dives – they were Dessirier, Chez Georges and Le Regalade St. Honore. Ouch.

I’ve crowed for years about the fact that the low incidence of obesity in France was contributed to by their sensible portion sizes; so why are they messing with success. Is it because customers, mainly American I suspect, although there’s a French guy I know who gripes too, complain they’re not getting enough food; or a sense that they must justify their raising the menu and carte prices, they must deliver more calories; or because like so many other fads in French cooking, once one or two guys do something, everyone feels impelled to jump in.

I feel a little like those cartoon characters in the New Yorker who carry signs saying “REPENT” because of the chefs, owners and restaurateurs keep piling on the food, we’ll all go blimpy. At 18, I liked nothing better than scarfing down a couple of dozen oysters at the old Union Oyster House and then eating all of that spilling-over-the-plate slice of roast beef at Durgin Park in Faneuil Hall, Boston, but I’m not 18 any more.

Where you can eat superbly but they have to cut back on the beef portion:

L’Antre Amis
9, rue Bouchut in the 15th, ((Metro: Sevres-Lecourbe)
T: 01.45.67.15.65
Closed weekends
Menu-carte 32 E.

 

Comments

[wellfedfred]

Interesting post. This may be just another wave that will splash and retreat. Driving through France in the early 70's, we were impressed with the feeling of complete abundance in the dining rooms of Messieurs Bocuse, Pic, Troisgros, Vergé and others of blessed memory. And the entire dining room was wheeled to one's table at dessert time! Then the 80's brought a drastically sparing approach: tiny portions, no butter, no cream, no flour - as if every 40 years a nostalgie pour le rationnement overwhelmed the country. And on and on and on. Was not thrilled with the more recent "discovery" of the wonderful uses of formerly discarded fishes and cheaper cuts of beef with no concomitant reduction of prices.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

As a charter member of the Ziploc Lunch Bunch, I applaud your post. Of late, the standard three course format is frequently expanded to 5, 6 or more courses, often ending with multiple desserts. If one dines out only once a week, this size meal may be appropriate. But for the visitor who dines out twice a day, 7 days a week, large portions are not a favor. One can get a feeling for a chef's talent, focus and range as well, and indeed I think better, with small portions where taste buds remain alert and the appetite not sated until the last bite.

Mae West was wrong. Too much of a good thing is not wonderful.