Exploring Urban Ecology in in Metz (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
As my husband Laurent and I drove through innumerable tiny tunnels in the mountains to get to Metz, France from the area around Saarbrucke, Germany, I looked forward in anticipation to visiting this town where water is king.
Metz is built on a series of islands in the Seille and Moselle Rivers. As we drove into town, mist rose off the canals to make it look like Amsterdam in winter. It is appropriate for Metz to look like another European city, since it has been an axe of exchange among cultures and countries for centuries.
Metz has been a European city for three thousand years, and it is sagely constructing its future with its neighbors with the SAAR-LOR-LUX industrial complex oriented towards electronics, information technology, and communication. “Lux” refers to Luxembourg and “Saar” refers to Saarbrucke, Germany. (Brucke means “bridge” in German and Saar refers to the river that the bridge crosses – German is a very logical language).
The European orientation of Metz affects not only industry, but cultural institutions as well as our “balades” through Metz would prove. Before launching into the gastronomic delights that Metz offers its visitors, I have to explain what the French word “balade” means.
To serve as a point of comparison, in the United States when we walk for our health, we often do it by huffing and puffing on a treadmill at a club while profusely sweating. The French prefer long, tranquil walks during which they can learn about culture and history as they appreciate nature. What I have just described is a “balade” and not a “promenade.”
Metz has attained its great balade status with the outstanding management of its natural environment. Urban ecology was pioneered in Metz by professor Jean-Marie Pelt. Pelt’s theory helped create the European Institute of Ecology according to Un Grand Week-end a Metz by Sylvie Becker and Francis Kochert. Grassy parks, canal and riverside walks, and the pedestrian-only city center invite balade after balade in this three thousand-year-old European town.
On the way to our cousins’ home in Metz, we drove by the Porte des Allemands (the Germans’ Gate or Doorway). I chuckled when I remembered how I asked our cousin’s mother, “Why do they call it the ‘Porte des Allemands’?”
She replied, “The Germans come here quite a bit for long term stays, so we gave them their own door.” My husband Laurent and I laughed at this response, but I knew there was a lot of pain and suffering behind the remark.
When the Third Reich took over the Lorraine in the Second World War, for example, not only did they invade, but they stayed. One day children were taught in French and the next day in German. Moreover, children were immediately reprimanded for speaking French and not German in school. Children learned German Gothic lettering and German-style architecture appeared along the fashionable Avenue Foch.
I was impressed with our cousin’s mother for being so European as to say, “The past is water under the bridge. Let’s build a European future.”
The real story of the Porte des Allemands is that it is a remnant of a medieval era fortified wall that was built between (1230-1480) on the Seille River. The entry gets its name from its proximity to the order of the Frères Hospitaliers de Notre-Dame-des-Allemands, which belonged to the larger order of the Teutonic Knights.
When we arrived at our cousins’ apartment, we climbed the five flights of stairs to their beautifully decorated apartment and prepared for a languorous Saturday lunch. We started with cocktails. Laurent had an orange-flavored bitter liqueur added to his beer. That looked tempting, but I had an anise-flavored pastis more typical of the Riviera than Metz that made the cold day full of sunshine for me.
For lunch we had two decadent pastries filled with cheese and ham. One was a tourte Vosgienne made with ham and an egg-cream custard-like filling called La Migaine. “La Migaine” is one of those Lorraine in-group words that Lorraine dwellers use to confuse Parisians and protect all their gastronomical goodies for themselves.
The other tourte from Lorraine had a lattice-work crust decoration that made it almost too good to eat. It was full of sweet flavored ham and melting, savory cheese. Of course, I had a few slices of that, too.
Our cousin prepared the most magnificent cheese platter I have ever been offered in France. She must have had fifteen different kinds of cheese on her plateau, which included a perfectly ripe camembert, Brie de Meaux, Morbier, two kinds of Gouda, Emmenthal, and a creamy Italian cheese whose name I have forgotten. Our cousin served a biting Roquefort on its own dish, and I could almost feel the cool side of the caves where the cheese is cured.
I had a coffee and wanted to go to sleep under the table. However, when in France, you must balade for a few hours after a meal like this to help you digest your food.
We took a two-hour walk around Metz. We walked along the Quai de Régates, where you can even rent boats for evening dinner cruises to loll along the Moselle and Seille Rivers as you quaff some mirabelle (yellow plum) eau-de-vie.
The Temple Neuf (Protestant Church) came into view at the tip of yet another island in the Moselle River. The Temple Neuf was built between 1901 and 1904 during one of Germany’s many annexations of France. The citizens of Metz have an uneasy relationship with the Temple Neuf as it represents German militarism and lacks French finesse in it architectural style.
French and Japanese finesse is manifest in the architecture of the Centre Pompidou-Metz. The Centre-Pompidou Metz features selected works from Europe’s largest collection of modern art – the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who studied with American architect Frank Gehry, and the French architect Jean de Gastines have created a flexible interior and exterior space that can easily host temporary exhibits of modern and contemporary art, dance, music, cinema, theater, and workshops for children and teens.
The building itself interested me more than the art during our visit. The Centre Pompidou – Metz is built on the space that formerly housed the Roman ampitheatre. The architects render homage to this space’s history by featuring tiered outdoor benches that can be used for watching theatre, dance, opera, and movies.
Inside wide open spaces allow for viewing of the art and for hosting the fundraiser cocktail parties that the arts need to survive even in countries that subsidize the arts like France. There were so many people visiting the Centre Pompidou-Metz the weekend that we were there that I could only do two floors.
I know I should enjoy modern art for its aesthetic value, but I end up laughing at much of it. I think many modern artists play jokes with their art such as Man Ray’s Man Sleeping and a Bancusi severed head that was on display.
After a one hour nap, we walked from downtown to the Esplanade. The Esplanade used to be a military grounds and now is a vast rectangle bordered by trees that overlooks the canal and Mont Saint-Quentin. Saint –Pierre-des-Nonnains, the oldest church in France is located at the top of the Mont. It was built in the fourth century.
I did not think there were religious edifices older than the Baptistery of Saint-Jean in Poitiers or the crypt at the Abbaye of Jouarree with its stunning Merovingian Wall, but ancient Metz was constantly unveiling her mysteries to me.
Our corner table at the La Guinguette Restaurant on the Esplanade had a stellar view on St. Pierre-aux-Nonnains, which is illuminated at night making its pure yellow stone shimmer.
La Guinguette is a cute name for restaurant, which recalls the little restaurants and dancing halls that dotted the Marne River in the nineteenth century called “guinguettes.” La Guinguette in Metz serves the theater and movie crowd.
On the way to the restaurant, our cousins showed us the Arsenal built under Napoleon III (1808 - 1873) that has been turned into an acoustically perfect musical mecca for all genres of music. They have season tickets to the Arsenal concert series and walk to and from their apartment to enjoy the shows. I suspect that La Guinguette is their après-spectacle dinner spot.
Everyone ordered scallops and risotto except me. I had a rable de lapin farci au cavier d’aubergines with a side of two pankoufles. Translated into English this savory dish is rabbit saddle stuffed with eggplant caviar and braised in wine sauce. The Pankoufle is a kind of potato pancake that reminded me of a Jewish latke.
In fact, I would say that a pankoufle is an upscale latke. It is a thick pancake made with grated potatoes, grated onions, parsley, and some flour maybe to hold everything together. I had two of them to soak up the wine sauce from the braised rabbit.
The pankoufle reveals an aspect of Metz’s history that is not so well known today. The Jews have been present in Metz since the Middle Ages, and Metz was the center of an important center of rabbinical studies at that time.
Another important religious group that was present in Metz was the Huguenots, the French Protestants who followed the way of either Luther or Calvin. In 1570, almost half of the population of Metz had become Calvinist according to Un Grand Week-end à Metz, which became problematic when the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV in 1570. The Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598 by Henri IV to guarantee religious freedom in France.
When they no longer had religious protection, the French Huguenots emigrated en masse to tolerant cities such as Berlin. According to Un Grand Week-end à Metz by Sylvie Becker and Francois Kochert, the Huguenots of Metz led by pastor David Ancillon were especially active in the economic and cultural development of the capital of Brandenburg.
All of France suffered when the talented Huguenots emigrated abroad, but Metz seems to have recovered its élan better than other French towns. On the balade back to the hotel, I thought of how ravishing the buildings looked with their soft, almost coy illumination.
I slept like a baby that night, because we had to get ready for more gustatory delights the next day!
I started the meal off with another pastis. I like the refreshing taste that that anise-flavored drink leaves in my mouth. Our cousin made another beautiful hors-d’oeuvre tray with fresh vegetables. I ate more than my share of those wonderfully sweet French radishes that are not spicy like their American cousins.
For lunch starters, we had green asparagus tips with unctuous, spicy mayonnaise and foie gras. I had not eaten foie gras for seven years and felt like I was being re-initiated all over again to that silky, smooth, textured substance that melts in your mouth.
Then, we ate what our cousins normally eat as their Christmas Eve dinner: Morilles à la crème. Morilles are the cone-shaped mushrooms with a sponge-like texture that you can find in the abundant forests around Metz. Our cousin's husband prepared the morilles in cream sauce in a buttery and crumbly pastry shells. The pastry shells tasted just great as the mushrooms, but more crumbly. The mushrooms reminded me of a tender, juicy steak.
For dessert, our cousin served a five-berry fruit salad with as much Chantilly (whipped cream) as you wanted. Coffee followed and then it was time to balader.
We walked along the canal, which the French rather scientifically a “plan d’eau.” Our first stop along our balade Saint Etienne Cathedral. The cathedral was built over three centuries from 1220 to 1522 and features the flamboyant Gothic style with its characteristic pointy, flame-like window arches.
The pure yellow stone used to build the cathedral invites touch. When we arrived in the doorway, I placed my forehead into the cold, humid stone and inhaled what is for me the perfume of real France. According the Un Grand Week-end à Metz, the cathedral’s architect Pierre Perrat (circa 14th century) made a pact with the devil to build France’s most beautiful cathedral. When he died, Perrat was not buried, but encased in one of the cathedral walls.
From the cathedral, we walked to the house where Rabelais lived in exile from France. Rabelais wrote a rather snarky book called simply The Third Book here, too. His former home is located at the corner of the streets named de la Jurue and de l’enfer ( the street of hell). I wonder if that street name gave him any ideas for The Fourth Book.
From Rabelais’s house, we walked to the Place Saint Louis with its comfy feeling arcaded walkways. This area took on the name Place Saint Louis in 1707 according to Un Grand Week-end à Metz, but it has been in existence since the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, the area was called the “place de change” for its banking activities carried out by Germans and Jews. I laughed when I saw a restaurant named La Migaine – I hoped they served some very creamy quiche Lorraine pies in there.
After another quick nap, we set out for dinner at the Le Toqué Restaurant on Metz’s rue Taison. This whole street is cute, because it is devoted to the Graouilly. “Graouilly” is another Lorraine word designed to keep Parisians in the dark about what is being talked about.
“Graouilly” is Lorraine-speak for “dragon.” All the store signs suspended over the streets feature a dragon in them. The Lorraine legend says that Metz’s first bishop Saint Clément (third century C.E.) killed the graouilly that represented the pagan faith. The people of Lorraine demonstrate their subtle sense of humor when they joke about the graouilly.
When I first came to Metz, the newspapers were reporting that excavations for an underground parking garage had to be stopped, so a team of archaeologists could be called in to examine the graouilly bones. Since I was a Parisian at the time, I had no idea what a graouilly was; Lorraine-speak worked that day when the American Parisian, asked herself, “I wonder what era those bones are from?”
Now, I am somewhat in the know for the meaning of graouilly and la migaine at least.
Quiche was not on the menu for the evening though; that is lunch food. We began our meal in this cozy, little restaurant with Kir. The Kir was made with Bourgogne-aligote and black currant liqueur. I had not had one in seven years and it tasted just fine on a cold, drizzly night in Metz.
We began our meal with an appetite teaser soup made of butter, cream, and mushrooms. It was hard to keep track of what everyone ate as I sipped a generous glass of Grès Saint Paul – a nice wine from Burgundy.
I remember that I started with a terrine “d’autrefois.” The words “d’autrefois” signals that your French grandmother would make a terrine like this. I know what goes into a pork terrine, but just enjoy the pork mixture and the creamy white stuff that holds it together.
Next I had a souris d’agneau with ratatouille and puréed potatoes. A “souris” in culinary terms is not the critter you chase around the kitchen, but what appears to be the meat on a foreleg. The Grès Saint Paul from Burgundy went well with the lamb with its berry flavors.
For dessert, I had a crème brulée made with mirabelle, the yellow Lorraine plum for which the Lorraine is famous. Mirabelle plums are turned into a strong eau-de-vie in the Lorraine. It is this eau-de-vie that flavored the crème brulée with a savory finish in the mouth.
Coffee followed with a morsel of chocolate. Countries with a Germanic past or influence always serve chocolate with their coffee.
Snow began fall as we walked back home and continued as we drove through tunnel after tunnel in the mountains around Saarbrucke, Germany. Trucks from Spain, Slovenia, and Poland threw ice from their roofs onto us and made driving a real thrill.
I thought of how pretty Metz would look in the snow.
Despite its natural beauty, Metz failed to achieve status as a World Heritage Site the first time they applied I think, because they focused on its Imperial Germanic architecture and military structures. Metz’s role as a pioneer in urban ecology might earn them the World Heritage Site designation, if they try again. It is always worth a shot to try; nothing ventured, nothing gained.
By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
 |
| Laurent Paget Photography |
 |
| Laurent Paget Photography |
 |
| Laurent Paget Photography |
 |
| Laurent Paget Photography |
 |
| Ruth Paget Selfie |
