Mirepoix. Crepes. Pain au chocolat. Opera Houses–these were all seemingly ubiquitous in my visit to San Francisco (near downtown, anyway). In Bush St alone I had the opportunity to see not one, but two French restaurants.
I was kind of in awe. The environs near Music City Hotel vaguely reminded me of a fateful Toulouse trip taken in July 2012, a few months before starting grad school. No lavender fields adorned the highways here, true–but the subtle symphony of French goods and culture was yet palpable.
Quite wondrously for me, as it turns out, there was an Alliance Française right next to the hostel! In fact, mon voyage Toulousain was possible thanks to an initial contact with the Alliance back in Puerto Rico. Having spent 3 weeks in Toulouse (with excursions to Carcassonne and Bordeaux) learning the language, I and several travel buddies would wander around, absorbing the sights and culture.
While in Toulouse, I happened to stay in a small hotel near a Carrefour, and so even a cursory visit to the supermarket over there was an enlightening experience. Naturally, the bakery section was a vault of baguettes and pain au chocolat, where I first sank my teeth into its croissant-y deliciousness. So of course, it was a treat to see it in your average Californian supermarket, along with baguettes and what we’d call “real bread” (I wish I’d bought more than one packet 😋).
But yes! Back to the point, being that there is an actual French community in San Francisco, which had first made its way to the region during the Prussian war of the 1870s. Many exiles supported Napoleon III, so aspects like the opera houses and the “Roman ruins” of the Palace of Fine Arts were likely inspired by Parisian aesthetics (and history, society, culture…) at the time. This history was gleaned thanks to the historical museum at the Alliance Française, where I also managed to get some pretty cool books like La Fortune des Rougon by Emile Zola and Le flaneur des deux rives by Guillaume Apollinaire (I’ve yet to see if there’s art criticism in this book!).
Check it out (choses d’Alliance & architecture):
