Road Food

As Napoleon Bonaparte allegedly said: "an army travels on its stomach" meaning, I think, that you can come loaded for bear in the snappiest uniforms with the most devilishly clever stratagem, but if you haven't got it together to feed the troops properly then you will, sooner or later, have your ass handed to you. Putting a rock 'n' roll show on the road is really quite similar. There's nothing like the camaraderie, the esprit de corps, the solidarity that a band on the road can develop together over time. Great shows, fun new sights and meeting cool folks can all go a long way to smoothing over the little frustrations and discomforts that are also part and parcel to a life "On The Road". But if circumstances conspire to deprive your once-jolly band of merry minstrels of their next meal, this will bring down the bummer hammer real quick-like.

This happens much easier when touring in Europe simply because they just don't have the whole consumer-is-king, have it your way, get it when you want it, customer is always right sort of thing we have invented here in the good 'ol U-S of A. Although we are feverishly exporting every aspect of our pop culture, including Hip-Hop, Paris Hilton and fast food, to the rest of the planet, they are still insisting on many charming and quaint notions concerning things like operating hours and choice.

Fer' instance: in France everything closes each day after lunch between 2 and 4 pm. Period.
You pull into the average town at this time looking for a bite and you are S.O.L., my famished friend. No Bistro. No Pizza stand. No Shwarma. Not even a grocery store. Now remember: we are musicians. Meaning we have a certain life-style and schedule that is fairly different from that of the honest, hard-working folk who do things like eat breakfast before noon. So, after the so-called "continental breakfast" at the hotel we are in the van and on the highway. Then, after a couple of hours everyone is getting hungry at around, oh, you guessed it: two o'clock.

C'est tout ce que j'aime! (I'm Lovin' it!)

Thankfully, America has, for the second or third time, come to the rescue here in the form of that ubiquitous and shining beacon of culinary crapitude: McDonalds'. The French just love McDo (pronounced Mac Dough). The first was built in 1979 and since then, despite some famous protest, has grown to over 800 stores with a special ambivalence in the french heart. Of course, France is perhaps most famous for their haute cuisine, but on any given visit the local Mickey D can be full up with happy froggies tucking with absolute relish into their "Maxi Menu Best Of" avec "Le Big Mac", "Royale Cheese" or "Salade Recette Poulet". It's pretty much identical to what we are used to at home, with a few regional specialties, and this brings us to the point: if you are on the road at this time and you're hungry and have failed to plan ahead sufficiently then this is what you get. Finding them can be a little tricky, though. Even as popular as they actually are, the French treat it as this dirty little secret and tend to hide them from view and keep signage to a minimum.

This in contrast to, say, Holland where they post a sign at the motorway off-ramp and the golden arches can be seen for several kilometers atop a 50 meter tall post. I'm not proud of all this. I'm just sayin'. Sometimes when you're out there and hungry enough you're damn glad to find it. One little difference: in all the countries where we've eaten at Chez Ronaldo (all of them) the employees appear much less doomed than they do in the US and even seem to like the gig. This is probably my own imperialist perception, but when they see Americans coming (Yes, we do stand out. Alot.) you can almost see them thinking: "Are we gettin' it right?..Are you lovin' it?