If your only knowledge of France came from what you'd read in Saveur, heard in Piaf tunes, or seen in the impressionist/Robert Doisneau posters you bought for your college dorm room, you might get the wrong idea about the country. You might imagine Paris as a food/fashion/culture star orbited by a constellation of quaint milkmaid hamlets and fiercely-protected vineyards.
Confession: This weekend's trip to Mulhouse was really my first time hanging out anywhere in France. Really, I'm that fool who had romantic visions of what France would be. Nothing but grazing agneau, fromage farms, terroir overgrown with ancient grapes, boulangeries, bistrots and berets, Santé! A food mecca where I wouldn't have to explain why I needed to find the best choucroute in Alsace, or why I was interested in tracking down some of Christine Ferber's jams. I would find soulmates in the French; they would triple air-kiss me for my studied enthusiasm of la cuisine.
Clearly I'd read too much into the little explanatory placards at Murray's Cheese Shop. The France we visited was nothing like the bucolic Legoland fantasy I'd unwittingly built in my head. Seems so obvious now, but of course the French have their own versions of Jersey City, Dayton, Fresno -- cities that are not picturesque, that warrant only the briefest of mentions in travel guides; anti-destinations where normal people live everyday lives. These are the cities that probably cover the majority of the Western map. They're the kinds of places whose freaks fly to New York, Berlin, London, where they can live in exile among their own kind; but whose residents mostly stick around, leading the lives they know with the people they understand.
Mulhouse is one of those places. It's the largest city in the Haut-Rhin, the second largest in Alsace (next to Strasbourg). It used to be a huge textile manufacturer; while Europe's largest Peugeot factory is still here, you get the feeling that this is a bit of a drained city. There's a strong working class vibe. It's also an ethnically diverse town; the cars driving by blast florid Turkish pop and laid-back French hip-hop. The adolescent young men on the street look very much like the kids you might see cruising the Fulton Street mall, with higher waistlines and maybe a few more tucked shirts.
Mulhouse sits at the crossroads between Germany, Switzerland and France, just over the Rhine river. The historic city center is a pedestrian area, with somewhat rundown marzipan architecture, unruly, skinny cobblestone roads, and plenty of outdoor seating in the big Place de la Reunion. With all of the chain stores surrounding the plaza -- H&M, M&S, Monoprix, Kalida -- it feels a lot like Le Swiss Miss Galleria.
We rented bikes for the two days we were there from Locacycles at Mulhouse's train station -- at 5.20 Euros a day, it was the cheapest bike rental I've found so far. They were also the jenkiest bikes ever, nothing like the well-maintained steeds in Berlin and Copenhagen. The first one they gave me kept making these Psycho stabbing creaks, so I had to go back to the shop and exchange it. Marika was even less fortunate -- one of her pedals kept getting loose, even after we found an Allen wrench to crank it back on; on the second day, it fell off completely. The shop was run by a bunch of kids barely out of their teens who were very nice, but couldn't seem to be bothered to tune up their cycles. I guess when you're the only game in town, it's not that big of a deal. (Though technically they weren't the only game -- there was also Vélocité, a very cool-looking paid version of the Amsterdam white bikes, but they required the use of a French credit card.)
We did get to ride along a brief bike path by the river -- a pretty, if short, sojourn. Otherwise, there wasn't much town to see. We didn't get around to the zoo, the botanical gardens or the big car museum, and other than the nougat center of town, I can't say Mulhouse is much of a looker.
Also, Mulhouse didn't strike me as much of a food town. Maybe it's the Swiss-German influence. We did find one adorable little cheese shop in the Place de la Reunion with furry little curds in a variety of shapes and flavors:
I also found a local farmer's market where I got to try Alsace-grown Mirabelle plums for the first time. Yellow, sweet and speckled, they're the size of extra-meaty Washington cherries, with tiny little freestone pits. I can't say they were more transcendent than the local plums we get here in season, but they were quite cute.
Even this pâtisserie didn't inspire me to sample. We're so spoiled in New York. I thought, well, what's this place got on the display at Dean and Deluca, or Grandaisy, or Bouchon, or City Bakery? Nuthin.
The locals I talked to all seemed to give half-hearted restaurant recommendations -- none of my usual restaurant interrogation tactics worked because the people I talked to seemed surprisingly unenthused about food. In France! It was unexpected. For the two days we were in town, we decided to stick with the venue catering, which consisted of a cute apron-wearing couple laboring in the kitchen above the venue. It was pretty simple, large group-cooking fare -- runny red currant tarts, sausage-stuffed zucchini, chicken simmered in turmeric and coconut milk over red rice.
So my food dreams didn't really come true. I couldn't bring myself to try the choucroute with fish that's supposed to be a local specialty -- all of the restaurants we passed looked like tourist traps. But the Mulhouse audience was fantastic -- sophisticated listeners who clapped and laughed in all the appropriate places. It's always a pleasure to sing Charming Hostess songs to people who get it. And it's always a laugh hanging with the ChoHos. We were there for the music, and the music was happening, so I can't complain.
I haven't given up my dreams of France as food Eden. I'm sure the high temples of gastronomy will deliver when I finally pay them a visit. Can somebody please book me a French tour?
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