French "Fooding": Young and Hungry

By MOIRA CHAMBERS in Paris Last night marked the return of "Fooding" in Paris after a summer tour that included stops in Marseilles, Montpellier, and Nantes. A packed event, many were turned away, as space was limited in a tiny courtyard ablaze with cigarette and barbeque smoke. For those not in the know, "Fooding" is a term coined in 1999 by two French journalists, Emmanuel Rubin of FigaroScope and Alexandre Cammas of Nova Magazine. With the pleasure that many of the younger French generation take in English, the neologism combines “food” and “feeling”. And the motto on their website reads, “taste of the époque.” Indeed for these young French food lovers, great food is not just technical execution, but the spirit of the meal, the chef, and the place in which it is eaten. Whether you use it as a verb or noun, Fooding holds a certain je ne sais quoi for many a French urban hipster around the country. This may have something to do with the fact that the light buffet meal (including wine and dessert) is 100% gratis. However, since “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” the catch is that you must go to the website three (3) days in advance to get the secret password in order to enter. So I carefully went to the site in advance and found the password: “Longtime referred to as the back leg, the gigot is actually the rear of the lamb.” Naively, I wrote this down. In fact, I even memorized the phrase, but I am sure I was the only one. Just showing up was enough, and the chaos at the front door was too great for such verbose password control. The Fooding trend clearly reflects a growing rejection of formalism in old school French cuisine: think of it as counter-Terroir and counter-Tradition. For instance, one eats a Fooding meal eaten standing up and with disposable utensils — how very un-French!. Moreover, menus tend mix in world cuisines rather than stay French. One way to look at Fooding is perhaps as a French food take on "worldbeat" music. Having gone to last night's Paris feast, I have to confess up-front: it was not very fun. Smoke aside (still rather de rigeur in France), the venue was smelly and so cramped that it was almost impossible to get food. Ages seemed to be late 20s for the most part. The last straw for me was the meal itself: last night featured lamb: gigot d'agneau au citron confit et romarin and a brochette with a Middle Eastern marinade served with a Cabernet d'Anjou. Another way to look at Fooding is as a French take on comfort food. Clearly, one objective is to make good cooking accessible -- in a country where American-style fast food is making definite inroads. To counter such influcences, Fooding's website makes at least one recipe per food event available online. And Fooding is lining up some heavyweight corporate partners who are clearly not within the McDonald's: Fooding's website has heavy-hitting sponsors, including San Pellegrino, Ikea, the French Ministry of Culture, and an array of French wine and meat suppliers. I'm not giving up on Fooding after only one disappointing meal-event. Those of you in Paris this October 17th, can catch the next standing (not "session") at R., at 6-8, rue de la Cavalerie in the 15th arrondissement. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. (Paris), but get there early. Oh, and don’t forget the secret password. If they're really going for international exoticism, I'm going to recommend that great password whispered throught a great old Robert Redford movie, The Hot Rock: "Afghanistan banana-stand." Previous articles by Moira Chambers: Alain Senderens: The Next Revolution? Arrests for Attempted Bombings of Ducasse's Ostape Technorati Tags: superchefblog, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, France, Paris, Fooding --> back to superchefblog