L'Hamburger - The Invasion Of Paris

Je voudrais un hamburger (zhuh voo dray uhn ahm burger)
Well I've been reading a lot about how hamburgers are popping up all over Paris. While I'm looking forward to eating the bread & cheeses of France (I could live on those 2 items alone), it's nice to know that they have burgers there if I want one, as I am not an adventurous eater, unlike my girlfriend who enjoys all types of food & is not afraid to try anything new.




Here is an excerp from an article in the International Herald Tribune by Jane Sigel:





Beginning a few years ago but picking up momentum in the past nine months, hamburgers and cheeseburgers have invaded the city. Anywhere tourists are likely to go this summer — in St.-Germain cafes, in fashion-world hangouts, even in restaurants run by three-star chefs — they are likely to find a juicy beef patty, almost invariably on a sesame seed bun. "It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even," said Hélène Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. "Eating with your hands, it's pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it." But as French chefs have embraced the quintessentially American food, they have also made it their own, incorporating Gallic flourishes like cornichons, fleur de sel and fresh thyme. These attempts to translate the burger, or maybe even improve it, strongly suggest that it is here to stay. "It's not just a fad," said Frédérick Grasser-Hermé, who, as consulting chef at the Champs-Élysées boîte Black Calvados, developed a burger made with wagyu beef and seasoned with what she calls a black ketchup of blackberries and black currants. "It's more than that. The burger has become gastronomic." Some of the most celebrated chefs in the city have taken up the challenge. Yannick Alléno, who earned a third Michelin star in 2007 for his precise, rarefied cuisine at Le Meurice, serves a thick, succulent hamburger at his casual restaurant, Le Dali. Alléno's baker, Frédéric Lalos, a winner of one of the country's fiercest cooking competitions, makes the buns. With smoked bacon, lettuce, dill pickles, mustard, mayonnaise and fries, the burger at Le Dali costs 35 euros, about $56.IT is not as if hamburgers were unknown in Paris. American restaurants here like Joe Allen have long served them. Grasser-Hermé ate her first in 1961 at the American Legion, 11 years before McDonald's unveiled its golden arches in France. But with few exceptions the local burgers were flat, overcooked and shunned even by American expatriates. HOW did the dripping, juicy hamburger come to be one of the signature dishes of Paris? For one thing, expatriate French chefs reinventing American classics in the United States made it safe for their countrymen to try it back home.

Mon Dieu! A $56 burger? I think I'll stick to my baguettes, my cheeses, & my croissants!