Of Toulouse, the Cathars and “McDo”.
30 May, 2010, Toulouse, France
Sitting on a prominent corner of the Capitole in Toulouse is McDonald’s, that universal guilty pleasure of the French. After the US, France is the largest consumer of Big Macs, fries and McNuggets. And let us not forget “un coca”. In my lengthy travels in Paris, I’ve often wondered why Ray Kroc‘s hellspawn is so popular with the French. Struggling to find an explanation, I’d go through a routinized list — it’s cheap, a “burger” and “frite” is a popular Parisian café option, you can bring the kids, and, in Paris at least, you can access wireless (“wi-fi”) for free without hassles.
But none of this captures the essence of the love affair between the French and their mistress — McDo. Today, as spitting rain came down on the twisting ancient streets of Toulouse, it came to me. It’s about complexity.
It’s simple. Or rather the “formule” at McDonald’s is simple. No matter if you are in the Marais or the Midi, you always know what you’re going to get. This in contrast to all the local knowledge required to navigate a meal at a café or bistro. Meals in France are a complex process — an arcane ritual. McDonald’s reduces all this to a few simple motions. Dinner becomes a “degustation” devoid of deep doctrine. A to-go theology.
It’s this universal nature, this crispy, deep-fried Catholicity, that parallels the actual fact of the country’s religious history. Thus Toulouse, as a centralizing, crusading, inquisitional force, adopts McDonald’s into its very heart. C’est comme ils faut.
I suspect there will be few signs of McDo in the wilds of Cathar country. The bizarre and obscure heretical traditions of the Cathars would seem immune to universalizing charms. Besides, the towns and hamlets are tiny — there’s no market for it. I wonder what the Perfect would have thought of McDonald’s. Not much. For one, many of them were vegetarians. And the fries at rotten Ronnies were never that good.
McDonald’s, in its deep corrupting influence on the physical world (nutritionally and naturally) seems an ideal confirmation of a dodgy demiurge. And like the Inquisitioners of old, seeks to eliminate or destroy all competitors. There can be only one.
Espousing a dualism that doesn’t go beyond diet or regular, McDonald’s is a gnostic nightmare. The basest of existence and pleasure wrapped in ready-made garbage. But until they start serving McNuggets at the top of Montségur, it’s safe to say that pockets of resistance, sparks of the One — the Pleroma, still inspire this country so passionate about its “pour emporter”.
And for this we can thank not the flawed French, but God himself.
Whatever that means…
June 15, 2010 at 3:42 pm |
Interesting, I didn’t know France liked McDonald’s so much. Might consider as well the change in population with the baby boomer population growing older, combined with the recession. In the US, the latter has helped out many mid-range ‘fast casual’ restaurants (Panera, Chipolte), along with gourmet groceries (Balducci’s), as people are still eating out, just at somewhat cheaper locations.
On a separate note, thought you might like these excerpts from Ray Crock’s autobiography, Grinding it Out, a pulpy book but a nice read. In the passage, he’s just stumbled upon the original McDonald’s and is in awe (p. 8-10):
In a bright yellow convertible sat a strawberry blond who looked like she had lost her way to the Brown Derby or the Paramount cafeteria. She was demolishing a hamburger and a bag of fries with a demure precision that was fascinating. Emboldened by curiosity, I approached her and said I was taking a traffic survey.
“If you don’t mind telling me, how often do you come here?” I asked.
“Anytime I am in the neighborhood,” she smiled. “And that’s as often as possible, because my boyfriend lives here.”
Whether she was teasing or being candid or simply using the mention of her boyfriend as a ploy to discourage this inquisitive middle-aged guy who might be a masher, I couldn’t tell, and I cared not at all. It was not her sex appeal but the obvious relish with which she devoured the hamburger that made my pulse begin to hammer with excitement. Her appetite was magnified for me by the many people in cars filled in the parking lot, and I could feel myself getting wound up like a pitcher with a no-hitter going…
[Talking to the McDonald's brothers that evening] I was fascinated by the simplicity and effectiveness of the system they described that night. Each step in producing the limited menu was stripped down to its essence and accomplished with minimum effort. They sold hamburgers and cheeseburgers only. The burgers were a tenth of a pound of meat, all fried the same way, for fifteen cents. You got a slice of cheese on it for four cents more. Soft drinks were ten cents, sixteen-ounce milk shakes were twenty cents, and coffee was a nickel…
Now, to most people, a french-fried potato is a pretty uninspiring object. It’s fodder, something to kill time between chewing bites of hamburger and swallows of milk shake. That’s your ordinary french fry. The McDonald’s french fry was in an entirely different league. They lavished attention on it. I didn’t know it then, but one day I would, too. The french fry would become almost sacrosanct for me, its preparation a ritual to be followed religiously.
June 15, 2010 at 3:59 pm |
Awesome. Think I have read excepts of this before, possibly in David Halberstam’s book The Fifties. The French fry as religious icon is certainly worthy of consideration. Veneration, even. In its diabolic immersion in un-holy liquid it somehow becomes purified, its slimy gray complexion transformed into a golden hue. In a baptism of oily hellfire, it is transformed. Eucharistically.
Amen. And pass the ketchup..
June 16, 2010 at 6:55 am |
I’m still trying to wrap my head around a McDonald’s full of French people. Apparently Dennis’s adventure in Paris wasn’t so far-fetched after all.