patio 1828, “inner court open to the sky,” from Sp. patio probably from O.Prov. patu, pati “untilled land, communal pasture,” from L. pactum “agreement”. Another theory traces the Sp. word to L. patere “to lie open.” Meaning “paved and enclosed terrace beside a building” first recorded 1941.Maybe it’s because Texas has over 250 days of sun per year, maybe it’s the Spanish and thus European influence of patios, maybe I’m just a creature of my generation, but the street-side café culture was one of the biggest shrugs of my Paris trip. They existed in profusion, you couldn’t turn a corner without tripping over one, they were just as charming as you imagined they might be.
In Texas we call it patio-dining. The only major difference is the enclosure, otherwise I’d been dining in ‘street-side cafés’ all my life. We just call them different things. And I think in some ways, patios are superior. You’re not actually right
next to the street. On some days, the Paris traffic was so gridlocked on the streets, the car exhaust fumes sucked out all the oxygen. I can’t imagine trying to eat through that. My sister worried that the local cars were in poor condition, since we never saw the local version of a Jiffy Lube or Brake Center. “How good are their brakes? What keeps them from jumping the curb and running everyone down?”
I figured that since the traffic was so incredibly stop and go, there was no real distance to gather up speed, so the cars’ brakes were not overly stressed.
Maybe.
Being close to the street certainly has its downside.
A few years back, an ex-coworker very reluctantly accompanied her husband when his job transferred him to Paris. Trying to get into a good mood about the move, they ate at a street-side café. Unfortunately, just as they began to eat, a small pigeon alighted in the road and promptly got run over by a car. The dying bird twitched in the street next to their table all through their meal.
It was an omen, she was sure.
Now we couldn’t actually dine
outside during our rainy Paris sojourn, mind you (jaundiced glance at sister). But that first night in Paris, we managed it for dinner.
We found a charming café near the Pantheon whose main waiter was so effusive in his greeting and welcome that he made you wonder about the score on their last health inspection. He so rapidly switched between English, French and Spanish that we had a hard time keeping up with him.
Now people have been saying that the French and Italians are slim due to all the exercise they get walking up and down streets and stairs. I most heartily agree.
Our hotel had an elevator. This was a requirement for my sister. In searching for our hotel, “chaming” and “quaint” and “19th century” were buzzwords I looked for that warned me that a hotel might not have an elevator. But our hotel did have one. I guess you could call it that. I called it a glorified dumb waiter. It could just fit me and my suitcase if I shoved the suitcase in, got in in front of it and lay on top of my upright suitcase so the door could close. You were so uncomfortable, you didn’t have time to be claustrophobic.
Luckily for me, I only rode the elevator twice, when I arrived with my suitcase and when I left with my suitcase. We were only on the 2nd floor (1st floor European), but the very narrow, low-grade rising winding staircase could only fit one person abreast and certainly wasn’t wide enough for a suitcase. I considered it a challenge to climb every single day I came home from a long day of walking (my sister had no such compunctions. She rode it every single day back up to our room).
So I definitely see French people staying in great shape by doing this daily. However, I must disagree about someone’s post that the food portions are small in France/Europe.
OK, we’re at this charming street-side café our first night in Paris. The night is fine, the moonlight fierce
Pantheon on the walk back to our hotel
and we’re dining
al fresco - on metal chairs
- on slanting pavement, so I had to balance on the edge of the chair all evening.
I wanted to order something light. I leaned over to my sister’s French friend and whispered, “How do you say soup in French?”
“Soup.” He grinned.
*sigh*
Anyway, I ordered a crepe first, then after it arrived – the first one I ever had – I decided not to order anything more. The thing was the size of a large dinner plate. I couldn’t believe this massive slab of food was a typical or single serving!!
This was not an isolated example.
Hot dogs were not in the hand-sized buns like in the U.S., they were extra long – what we called “foot longs” - in long baguettes, covered in cheese and toasted. The snails I ordered in a restaurant could have fed 3 people. Sandwiches were in the form of what are called hoagies/sub sandwiches here in the States. Fried potatoes were heaped in a pile next to a
monsieur .
The smallest or most ‘normal’ servings I saw was when I ate a Royale with Cheese at the McDonald’s on the Champs Elysees. (don’t look at me like that. It was the only place we could afford on that street).
The deluxe potatoes came with a ‘special sauce’ that looks like mayonnaise a la
Pulp Fiction.
Still, I’m impressed that the French stay so slim with such portion sizes, the crowded McDonald’s restaurants, pastry and chocolate shops AND their biggest food passion.
You read about tulip-mania the 17th century Netherlands. People going mad for tulips. In the late 20th century it was exotic coffee at Starbucks in the U.S.. Now London was mad for Starbucks. There was one on every street corner, sometimes across the same street from each other!!
In Paris it was gelato.
Gelato – Italy’s version of ice-cream.
Paris was mad for gelato. There were gelato stands on every street, even the little bodegas and delis had a gelato cart. Every day, I saw people walking around eating cones or cups of gelato.
Normally I’m a chauvinist when I travel. I want to experience the country and its traditions and culture, so I’m basically,
“I didn’t fly 3000 miles to eat Tex Mex food in Paris.”
“No, I don’t want to stop on the bridge and listen to a jazz band. We’re Americans, we invented jazz. If I want to listen to jazz, it’s better at home.”
And
“No, I don’t want Italian ice cream. I’ll eat that when I go to Italy.”
I tend to want to eat and experience things like the locals but not if it includes eating food I could easily find at home or a different country, ya know?
I did listen to and give a tip to an old guy on the Pont de Artes bridge who, early one morning, was playing an accordion. The music wafting over the Seine was every clichéd soundtrack about France and Paris you’d ever heard. I loved it.
