Le Maille Jaune

Okay, so the title of this entry is a terrible play on words, but I couldn't resist. You see, usually at this time I would be going on and on about the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey worn by the leader of the Tour de France. We get a little nutsy around here when the Tour begins, in past years watching live and subsequent re-broadcasts of each day's stage as many as four times a day. But after so many doping scandals the past few years, and so many hours spent defending riders who I'm now not even certain deserved defending, I just can't seem to get as excited as usual about this year's race. As Dave Stoller says in the 1979 classic "Breaking Away," one of my all-time favorite movies and certainly the greatest film about cycling ever made, "Everybody cheats, papa. I just didn't know it."

So allow me to talk about mustard instead, as in Maille, the French maker of moutarde since the mid-eighteenth century. This way, at least the yellow part stays the same.

I've never heard of mustard being used as a bellwether for a great civilization, but after a week in Paris, I now firmly believe it should rank right up there with democracy and literature and art. No offense to Voltaire and Moliere, or even Edith Piaf, but I really had an epiphany about this as we strolled around Place de la Madeleine. I'll explain.

After attending the wedding in Athens last Saturday, we flew to Paris (via Easy Jet, where, in exchange for cheap fares, passengers must rush the gate for a seat as if one were storming the Bastille) for a few days of non-hundred degree temperatures. We got them. Not only was Paris much cooler than sizzling Athens, it was downright cold. It felt like November. According to Parisians we spoke with this has been a really unseasonably cool summer.

So as we huddled for warmth inside Sacre Coeur, with 7,000 of our closest tourist friends, we decided that we should abandon any hopes of walking around Montmartre, which is really a lot like Plaka in Athens anyway--too many trinket shops and too many bad paintings for sale, and instead find a good steak frites place for lunch. In Paris, this is not very difficult. In fact, one could probably close one's eyes, spin three times in a circle, walk a thousand feet in any direction, and still walk right into a good steak frites place. (Don't even get me started about moule frites places in France. While most four-year-olds are content with pizza, Alexandra loves, more than anything, a good pot of mussels and fries.)

So after lunch we strolled around the neighborhood, mostly trying to avoid being outside. And after paying 90 euros for a sweater, something I didn't dream on packing in July, we came upon the mustard shop.

Maille. This company has been making mustard since before Marie Antoinette lost her head. They were making mustard before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and before Mozart ever thought of writing a requiem. In their little shops around Paris all they sell is the yellow stuff. Mustard, mustard, and more mustard. It would be something out of a John Cleese Monty Python sketch if it weren't the real deal.

For me, the irony is that I've never actually been a great lover of mustard. I grew up on Long Island, where no self-respecting McDonalds would ever dream of putting mustard on a hamburger. Imagine the shock when I went off to college and realized that, in fact, most McDonalds put both ketchup and mustard on their burgers. The horror, the horror! But as I've gotten older, I've warmed a bit. I know it's a more refined and acquired taste to the red stuff. I get it now.

Now in America, we have specialty shops. Cheese shops only sell cheese, right? But I'm talking mustard, folks. A shop that only sells one tiny little product. And I haven't even gotten to the best part yet.

So we're looking around this cute little mustard shop, trying to find a size and package that could be carried onto an airplane in this post-9/11 world, when a French woman walks in. She takes out what looks like a worn little honey jug from her bag and hands it to the clerk. The clerk then reaches for the middle handle of what looks like three beer taps and pulls the lever...and out pours fresh mustard.

Mustard on tap. Think about it for a little bit. Ponder the ramifications, especially in a world increasingly out of touch with culture and beauty and simplicity. We make fun of the French for so many things, and rarely credit them for all that is so right. Paris is the most beautiful city on earth (with apologies to a friend of ours who once argued that Washington was "probably close"), and there's nothing like taking a stroll around the Palais Royal, with its incredible allée of trees, or watching impeccably dressed children float sailboats at the Jardin du Luxembourg, or eating mussels in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. (And whether it's winter or summer, drinking the richest hot chocolate in the world at Angelina, on the rue de Rivoli is absolutely de rigueur.)

Don't get me wrong: most tourists will still flock to see the I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre first, as we always do ourselves. But from now on, I'll always have Maille.

Happy Bastille day!



Matt