Saturday, June 14, 2008

I'm Moving to France!

I'm not moving to France...yet. Every four years, around election time, some celebrity will inform the nation (even though nobody asked them) that if a certain somebody wins the election they are moving to France. To which I say, "Bon voyage, and say hi to Johnny Depp for me."

If I ever get so fed up with America that I decide to move to France, it won't be for political reasons, it will be for the crepes. This video of an egg, cheese, and ham crepe shows the stunning (and embarrassing) difference between our fast food, and theirs.

Next time you queue up (that's how they say "line up" over there) for one of those limp, warmed over, drive-thru breakfast wraps, ask yourself why can't we have this instead?


photo (c) Flickr user Al Ianni

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so with you on that...oh darn Susan Sarondon is going to move...100 bucks says she won't sell her homes here and be gone forever. What a hypocrite! Argh!

Anonymous said...

Why are they speaking Spanish?

Chef John said...

It's just a guess, but I think they were Spanish. I believe Paris recently started allowing tourists from other European countries to visit. :-)

Anonymous said...

It says the video is no longer available.

So not only can we not have the ham and cheese crepes, now we can't even see them either. *cry*

Chef John said...

try again, that is usually just a very temporary Youtube thing.

dandelion said...

OMG I want one of those crepe makers! Do you know where I can get one fairly cheep? It doesn't have to make one quite that big! THX for posting this. :)

Anonymous said...

Oh yay! You were right. Those look SOOOO much better than our yucky stuff here. mmmmmmmm

Chef John said...

here you go...$141
http://www.acitydiscount.com/Tibos-Electric-French-Crepe-Home-Grill-Griddle-CEBPB2.0.25375.1.1.htm?PPCID=10&link=Cooking-Equipment

hkfreak said...

Well...most cultures have at least one pancake foodstuff. It's also common to see street vendors serving these in Thailand, Indonesia, China...Brasil...etc.

Anonymous said...

... and Vancouver...

Unknown said...

Nice video...And by their accents I'd say they're from Colombia.

jitterbugh said...

There's a little cafe fast-food-like Crepe restaurant at Pier 39 in San Francisco...MMMM...can pick your filling, from savory to dessert. They even have a Nutella crepe lol, my son picked that once. I tend to go for the type in this video, or chicken, & mushroom, etc. Looks tasty :). Crepes was one of the first meals I learned to make while young, I took french in high school and a French student stayed with us for a summer. They are quite easy to make, don't really need a crepe maker but that does look fun!!! I have a small crepe maker but it's the dipping kind ;). Sorry, crepes make me wordy! And I keep hoping the crepe place in SF will become a chain!

Unknown said...

I study at the Sorbonne University and I live in Paris, and I definately agree that the food in France is amazing. We have crepes practically every day after class (because they're practically the cheapest thing you can get and great on a cold winters day). It's true that if you want fatty food, the only places you can go in Paris are Anglosaxon places, like English/American/Canadian pubs, or American fast food joints.

Chef John said...

Yeah, except for the pates, sausages, cheeses, croissants, and aoili, it must be tough to find fatty food in Paris! ;-)

Anonymous said...

I miss Paris gave it there to eat so much. The video is super, it makes fun to read here.

Anonymous said...

Ohhh, how i wish i could have one of those. they look sooo good!

Anonymous said...

But you said something about France... these guys are speaking Spanish. I don't get it.

Chef John said...

this is in Paris. I'm guessing they are speaking Spanish, because they are Spanish.

Anonymous said...

you can hear the crepesman say bonjour ^^

Diane said...

Yum!
I live in toronto, canada and I just got back from an event called 'taste of the danforth' one of the venders there was making strawberry/chocolate/ice cream crepes for five bucks. They were using a smaller version of this.

That looks so good ^^

Diane said...

here's my video of them :]
http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503261140#/video/video.php?v=35229356140

An Ng. said...

Can I say "Hot pocket!"? :-)

Anonymous said...

Actually, I'm pretty sure the people recording the crepe making process were Colombian tourists.:)

eunice said...

hello Chef John and many thanks for your wonderfully engaging videos. someone a few comments back noted how many cultures seem to have "pancake" recipes and brought back memories of Turkey and eating gozleme. i think it's a more elastic dough and possibly more difficult to make.

have you ever made them before? any thoughts on producing a future video with them featured? they're super yummy!!!

thank you

Anonymous said...

Mannn,

I know this place, just right next to the tour eifel and the japonese cultural center :)

Nicolas

Anonymous said...

John,

These guys are italian. and you should try the crepes with nutella (choclate hazlenut creme) hmmm lovely

Cynthia in the French Alps said...

Hey, everyone, this is a fun blog. I'll have to start checking it out now that I've found it. If anyone is interested in French (specifically French Alps) recipes, I experiment cooking at home (in the French Alps) and video tape my experiments. If they work, I put the recipes and videos on my blog. These are usually recipes that you can't find in English cookbooks since there isn't an English cookbook on Savoie (Savoy) regional recipes in print that I've found. A bientot, Cynthia in the French Alps

Anonymous said...

Danged French Artistry!!

Even their street foods are mesmerizing ang high class!!

Anonymous said...

Nice Video Link Chef!

There is also a Chinese version of this, a type of breakfast crepe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iOi_Asqn0A

Jack Parker said...

Holy Crepe! (Hey, 29 comments in and nobody said it!) I've lived in Prague, Czech Republic (my favorite), Ireland, Germany, Italy, Africa and the West Indies. What I miss from every one of those countries are the sidewalk food vendors like this. Now I live in Minneapolis. While I like the cold (I call it "free air-conditioning") and it's a very diverse place, we don't have vendors like this. It's sad, really.

William Doublet said...

Hi,
First of all, John, I just discovered your website and I love it!
I just wanna add a comment to this video...
The Crepes are originally from Brittany province (Bretagne), where I come from. Yep, we created them, and we are proud of it!
Originally the "Crepes Bretonnes", as they are called, are always sweet, made from white wheat flour. You can add sugar, jam, ice cream, chocolate, anything sweet that you like.
The salty ones, made with black wheat flour (farine de ble noir), are called "Galettes Bretonnes". Yeah, we also created those :) You can add ham, cheese, egg, sausage... well, basically anything you like as well. They are easy to recognize because their color is brown, not yellow.
Well, I guess that's it for now. I will go on and check more recipes ;)
Have a nice day!!!
William

Unknown said...

I'm so with you on that! France has better cuisine, bar none! And I swear they have beverage fountains everywhere!

Brett Rodgers said...

That looks so good all I wanna do is sit down at a restaurant booth seating and eating all those crepes.

Anonymous said...

Hmm....

I didn't realize you can just crack an egg on the crepe like that. I am going to try doing that tomorrow with some crepes and see how it works out for me.

A decade ago I had seen "egg roll" vendors in Calcutta, India do it like that, but it didn't occur to me that it would work on the crepe too. Those street vendors in Calcutta had an impeccable sense of timing, when I tried that at home, I made a god awful mess.

BTW -Chef John - I want to thank you, I followed your recipe for crepes today and it worked superbly.

My wife's 98 year old grandmother is in hospital recovering from a hip fracture and she hates the food there. I made her crepe today like you showed on youtube and I filled with strawberry , bananas and cream cheese, and she loved it!

It has been a pretty sucky Christmas for her and the crepe perked her up quite a bit.

Thanks again... your website is awesome and so are you.

Happy New Year dude.

ps. I too wish one could go out and get crepes on the street corner like that.

pps. In my mind - I live in Paris with the words of Peter Sarsted's song "where do you go to my lovely" playing in the background. It usually makes the morning pilgrimage to BK to get their bk wrap tolerable.

Unknown said...

If this was in America, the crepe would be wrapped in a paper sleeve, then some aluminum foil, then put in a polystyrene container, then put inside a plastic bag with a plastic knife and fork and a stack of a dozen or so napkins added to it before being handed to the customer.