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Travel Piece by Ida Nasatir
Letter from Paris by Ida Nasatir, June
22, 1951
June 22, 1951—Ida Nasatir, "A
Letter from Paris," Southwestern Jewish Press, pages 4: Dear
Julia and Mac: Unless you have a first-rate dishwasher, or you like doing dishes
by hand by the hour, be glad you are an American hostess rather than a French
one. Having dinner at a French home tells why you never see a French dinner set
with less than 36 dinner plates. In France every vegetable is served
separately as a separate course, and on a separate plate. No guest's place
should ever be left without a plate. If there is going to be a wait between
courses, which frequently happens because eating is a serious matter here not
one to be galloped, a plate is put before every one, lest an awful moment arrive
when it occurs to somebody that a piece of French lace or Chinese embroidery is
a poor substitute for food. Therefore, in private homes and in restaurants,
plates are put before you to keep your mind quiet, even if they are quite cold
and the dish to come is hot; in the latter case they will be changed at the last
moment. In houses where there are enough servants this will be done by them,
otherwise the host exchanges laden hot plates for empty cold ones. With no extra
help in the kitchen to wash up between, it requires at least eighty-four plates
to give twelve people five courses at a Paris table. and thee are usually at
least six courses! In even quiet households "this business of the
plates" exists. The head of the household may have to serve soup to four
people; each place will have a plate, and the full one will be handed out by the
server's right hand while his left has to be stretched forth to receive the
empty one. To pile all four before the server would be quite shocking to French
notions; it would mean that three people waited from fifty seconds to two
minutes with NO plates before them, and that would be a dreary and inhospitable
series of moments. One cannot learn too soon and accept the axiom that
when one is at the table in France, food is the business at hand, and nothing
else, except plates matters. If there are three plates where one would
do, one knife and one fork suffices for three of our courses between the fish
and the cheese. If knives are scarce, napkins are lavish, being usually more
like young sheets. American visitors, fresh from their own servant problem,
ought to be deeply in sympathy with the housewife of France. They would be if
they were not even more deeply horrified by her kitchen. Fresh from white tiles,
glass vessels, constant hot water, ice cubes and cabinet cupboards, the American
woman looks with wonder, not unmixed with pity upon the dark cubbyhole which
plays the part of kitchen in the average middle-class Paris flat. It has brought
inconvenience to a high art. There are things about Paris kitchens which can
only be explained on the supposition that the devil is afraid of a happy home
life, and sees to it that architects shall work against it. But tiny kitchens
with double gas-rings and wee ovens seem to produce, like Aladdin's magic, an
endless succession of world famous food—all served on separate dishes.
Devotedly, Ida