Paul Éluard at the table

In Paris between the wars, a poet's day is governed less by the plate than by the counter. One begins with a glass and a snack at the café's zinc counter, standing; on Sundays or evenings with friends, one sits down to a slow-cooked dish that has simmered for hours; and during the Occupation, everything falls back on 'restriction cooking,' made from whatever ration tickets allow. No starter-main-dessert here, but a succession of moments: the counter, the table, the scrounging, the comfort.

Neglected in normal times, the Jerusalem artichoke (and its cousin the rutabaga) becomes the emblem of Parisian plates under the Occupation. Its sweet, slightly bitter flavor haunts Éluard's lines: 'Paris is cold Paris is hungry.' Highlighting it means tasting the daily life of the Resistance.