Le Casse-croûte
“Sandwich en baguette avec jambon cru, gruyere, terrine de lapain, rillettes ou sardine grillées.”
I got to thinking about the name casse-croûte for whatever reason I do not know, maybe I am just in le groove and finding inspiration in more unconventional places. Anyway so I wondered where the name came from. Were there two Frenchmen, a Monsieur Casse et Monsieur Croûte? Could one of them have been of noble French heritage Monsieur de la Croute and maybe it was during the French Revolution so that the “de la” was eliminated or cut (as were a lot of things during that period in French history). I just wondered.
There are several interpretations on the origin of the words “casse croûte.” It’s a little bit like us and the word “pudding” just more so. One of the more conventional interpretations is that casser la croûte c’est manger sans manières avec les doigts ou la pointe du couteau, à n’importe quelle heure et avec qui bon vous semble. In other words, it means eating without really caring about one’s table manners whatsoever and includes using your fingers or eating from the point of a knife and at any time of the day. Therefore, raiding the fridge at 2AM stark naked also qualifies. So the next time you find yourself lying in bed with your favorite person (I’m being as delicate as possible here) and sharing some bread, cheese and being fed in whatever manner…well you’re having a casse-croûte. In other words, because it is a casse-croûte it gives one a certain element freedom to eat what one wants and where one wants; everything you want to eat, to fix or whatever is permitted provided (this is important) that it is good on the palate.
Alright so where does this casse-croûte term come from? One school of thought traces it to the end of the XIXe century where the casse-croûte was a metal instrument to smash the crusty bread for the “senior set” with no teeth – otherwise known as les vieillards édentés. Not until 1898 does it become associated with a type of small, quick meal. And why then? Well, the casse-croûte was pretty much of an eat-and-run affair for those in the countryside, the more rural areas working the land and in the urban industrialized areas and cities where workers did not have the time to go home and eat. So faced with a time element they made themselves a meal they could bring with them. So the casse-croûte has gone from a quick little meal maybe wrapped in a cloth (checkered of course) to something a little more substantial such as a BLT, fancy ham and cheese, asparagus and smoked salmond sandwhiches.
So we can say that the casse-croûte is and is not a meal or a repas in the French sense of the word) One French professor in contemporay history (J.Csergo, University Lyon) believes the casse croûte is not easily pigeon-holed because everything about it separates it from a “real” meal – un “vrai” repas. A “real meal” is something more formal and usually at a table, in a dinning room and usually at a fixed point in time during the day. There is a certain order in the presentation of a meal and of course, manners-table manners. The casse-croûte on the other hand has no such boundaries and therefore it can’t be thought of as a meal!! And that’s why there is no definition to casse-croûte because with it, anything is possible.
Next time you happen to be at the Gare Montparnasse (or any gare in Paris for that matter) before you board your train, pick up a demi-baguette jambon-fromage, store it in your bag for later and have your own casse-croûte on the westbound SNCF.