Recollections: An Indian Picnic in Paris

Contrary to my prior posts about some of the frustrations of adjusting to life in France, not every story in Paris is bad. Sometimes you have a moment of kismet that restores your faith in this city and its people a little bit.

I was at the top of the park at sacré coeur — tired, sweaty, and hungry. I had been walking around for a few hours before I climbed all the steps to the top. I sat down on an empty bench to rest and wallow in some existentialism for a bit.

Shortly after, a family of 3 people sat down next to me — a wife, her husband, and her mother in law. I was immediately childishly huffy and disappointed to have to share my bench. Why my bench? Go sit somewhere else!

I was aloof, doing the weird urban human thing where there are others in close proximity to you but you pretend they don’t exist. Out of their little cart, they started to pull out a veritable picnic.

At the scent of their food, my stomach growled to remind me that it had been a few hours since I ate. I also desperately needed to find a toilet. Common sense was telling me to leave and find a café, but the smell of their food was so fragrant and wonderful that I seemed rooted to the park bench.

Tentatively I asked the woman beside me, “Is that biryani?”. She replied, “No, it’s tamarind rice.” She seemed surprised that I was familiar with South Indian cuisine and quickly offered me some to try, being gracious and saying that I needn’t finish it if I didn’t like it. I devoured the first batch.

Seeing how quickly I finished the food, the mother in law raced to refill my plate, apologizing profusely for having used dried curry leaves instead of fresh ones. I ate the second batch as quickly as the first. They politely rebuffed my admiration, proclaiming, “Oh this dish? We just made this because it’s quick and easy to throw together.” (Later I looked up the recipe, it requires several hours and many spices. So much for quick and easy!).

Over the tamarind rice, we chatted about life in France. Her family had recently moved from Singapore because of her husband’s job relocation and her husband’s mother was visiting them. She was having the difficulty that everyone does when they first move to France — dealing with administrative bores and the language barrier. I nodded my head in sympathy, having dealt with all that myself. We commiserated about the moving pains.

By now, the mother in law insisted that I finish the last of the rice so that they “didn’t have to carry it around.” She was clearly happy that someone in this foreign country was not only willing to try her food, but really happy to eat it too. Asian moms, all the same: always trying to stuff/force-feed their children, children-in-law, and now — me!

I was more than happy to oblige. French food is lovely but you can only eat it for so long before you crave something with spice and big flavor. Plus, these people were prepared: we had food, drinks, cutlery, and some dessert. I felt bad to intrude but the joy of eating good home-made Indian food put any inkling of courtesy to rest.

So here we were, two sets of foreigners, both taking a break at the sacre-coeur with a nice view of Paris and sharing our French experiences. Finally, having finished eaten and talked at some length, it was time to part ways. We wished each other well.

Afterwards, I asked my Indian classmates about the dish, and one of them gave me my own tamarind paste to recreate it. Of course it was not as good as what the kind auntie/mother-in-law had prepared, but making it and eating it always brings back good memories.