During the Occupation, the Parisian meal no longer revolves around abundance but around the ration card (J3 cards, bread coupons, fat tickets). Meals are composed from whatever is available: a cheap, unrationed base vegetable (rutabaga, Jerusalem artichoke), a substitute drink, and, on festive days, a makeshift 'ersatz' treat to cheat the shortage of sugar and butter. Ingenuity replaces the recipe; the black market supplements, for those with connections, what the ticket does not provide.

These two forgotten vegetables, once reserved for livestock, become the unwitting emblem of the dark years. Cheap, unrationed, indestructible: they feed Paris when everything is lacking, to the point that, for that generation, they remain the very taste of war.