Le Camion Qui Fume

credit Eric Tenin

PARIS — An artisanal taco truck has come to Paris. The Cantine California started parking here in April, the latest in a recent American culinary invasion that includes chefs at top restaurants; trendy menu items like cheesecake, bagels and bloody Marys; and notions like chalking the names of farmers on the walls of restaurants.

In France, there is still a widespread belief that the daily diet in the United States consists of grossly large servings of fast food. But in Paris, American food is suddenly being seen as more than just restauration rapide. Among young Parisians, there is currently no greater praise for cuisine than “très Brooklyn,” a term that signifies a particularly cool combination of informality, creativity and quality.

All three of those traits come together in the American food trucks that have just opened here, including Cantine California, which sells tacos stuffed with organic meat (still a rarity in France), and a hugely popular burger truck called Le Camion Qui Fume (The Smoking Truck), owned by Kristin Frederick, a California native who graduated from culinary school here.

“I got every kind of push-back,” said Ms. Frederick, 31. “People said: ‘The French will never eat on the street. The French will never eat with their hands. They will never pay good money for food from a truck.’ ” (Her burger with fries costs 10 euros, about $13.)

“And, ‘You will never get permission from the authorities.’ ”

But Ms. Frederick did, and so the scarf-wearing hipsters were lining up at her truck on a recent Sunday evening. As vintage clothing shops propped open their doors nearby and two young men strummed guitars outside a gallery, the smell of onions caramelizing wafted out over the cobblestones.

It could have been Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Los Angeles, but the truck was parked at the north end of the Canal St.-Martin on the Right Bank

“It’s against my religion to wait for a burger,” said Guillaume Farges, who was near the front of the line, which began to form at 5:30 p.m., though the truck would not open until 7. “But for this one, I make an exception.”

American chefs are at the helm of some of Paris’s hippest restaurants, like Daniel Rose of Spring, Kevin O’Donnell of L’Office and Braden Perkins of Verjus. And the city’s collective crush on high-end hamburgers continues: Parisians are paying 29 euros, or just over $36, for the popular burger at Ralph’s, the Hamptons-Wyoming-chic restaurant in the palatial Ralph Lauren store.

“Younger Parisians are really into the New York food scene and the California lifestyle,” said Jordan Feilders, 28, who started Cantine California in March. “There’s a good trans-Atlantic food vibe going on Twitter and Facebook.”

Mr. Feilders was raised in France, but his family has roots in Canada and the United States, and he was living in Los Angeles before moving back to Paris last year to inaugurate the truck. From the start, he said, his vision included stylish visuals, American cupcakes and fresh tortillas.

The truck is chocolate brown and decorated with bright phrases like “Fresh Cut Fries” and “Real Cheese.” In designing it, Mr. Feilders said, he chose for it to “speak” in English.

“We drive by the Louvre every day,” Mr. Feilders said. “And I imagine the kings and queens of France looking out the window, thinking, What the heck was that?”

Many Parisians have never eaten a soft taco, much less one stuffed with succulent pork carnitas and chipotles in adobo — which, along with the masa harina for the tacos, Mr. Feilders imports directly from Mexico.

For other ingredients, instead of shopping at Rungis, the enormous wholesale market outside Paris that caters to chefs, he has cultivated direct relationships with suppliers, like a cooperative in the Poitou-Charentes region that distributes certified organic beef and pork, and a mill in the Rhône-Alpes that sells the organic flour that goes into his cupcakes. (The cream cheese for the frosting, however, is Philadelphia brand.)

After rejecting many brioche and baguette variations as burger buns, he found one with the right combination of lightness, mildness and chew at a bakery that caters to Muslims. This Tunisian “Ramadan bread” also has sesame seeds on top, just like a proper American bun. And to get the right texture for the burger itself, he grinds in an additional measure of fat, creating a patty much juicier than the normal French ground-beef mixture.

Find the entire article from the NY Times <here>

Cantine California

Twitter: @CantineCali

Un food truck à Paris, a little piece of America on a corner near you.

https://www.cantinecalifornia.com

Le Camion Qui Fume

Twitter: @LeCamionQuiFume

Camion burger à Paris

https://www.lecamionquifume.com