Thursday, July 13, 2006

Bouncing a Little French Girl

Those who know me well know my addiction to junk food, often referred to as "Lance Food" during my graduate school days. America has its great variety of such culinary delights like Cheesesteaks and Buffalo Chicken Wings but Europeans do very well on their own going well beyond the omnipresent American chains.
Uitsmijter  Francesinha
In Amsterdam I always go for the Uitsmijter (literally "Bouncer", like at a club), basically an open-faced sandwich with fried eggs on top. I usually go for the Rostbief Uitsmijter and the Ham-Kaas version (Ham and Cheese and the Eggs) can really clog those arteries.
But the Uitsmijter is downright healthy compared to the Porto delicacy Francesinha ("Little French Girl"). One starts with a thick slice of bread then add layers of ham, steak and sausage. Cover with another slice of bread and pour melted cheese on top. Then add the fried egg and smother the whole thing in gravy. Right now Porto is having their Festa da Francesinha by the river where restaurants from all over the city come to offer their versions of the Francesinha.
Luis Antunes says "A little bad food is good for stomach every now and then." After eating a Francesinha at lunch today I'm not sure my stomach agrees.

12 comments:

  1. That was all non-veg and I am not delighted. What about some veggie junk delights in Europe? Fish doesn't count as veg. When it comes to veg, every western country sucks.

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  2. Western countries also suck when it comes to eating silkworms. :-)

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  3. are there any vegetarian complexity theorists worth a damn?

    didn't think so...

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  4. who's the coding guy? venkat something

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  5. There are not many vegetarian fast food dishes but some exist: Falafel (Middle Eastern but I saw it in Paris), and if you allow dairy then Pizza (exists in fast food form in many places), cheese sandwiches (saw many in Italy) and Crepes (mainly France, you can choose between salty and sweet). As for various types of sweet vegetarian junkfood, you can find them almost everywhere. If you insist on vegan, your friendly neighborhood grocery store surely has carrots :-)

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  6. Hi,

    There are a vegetarian version of the francesinha, but I have never had it so do not know what kind of junk is has :-)

    It was funny to see Lance complaining about the effects of such a great delicacy.

    Here is a picture of Lance taking care of his health.

    http://www.ncc.up.pt/~lfa/francesinha1.jpg

    Lu�s Antunes

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  7. okay.

    Venkat.

    That's one.

    So sue me.

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  8. We call it... the Good Morning Burger!

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  9. Anonymous said...

    We call it... the Good Morning Burger!

    it?!?!?!? Francesinha?!?!?!?

    Lu�s Antunes

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  10. hmm my only question is why are there no comments on the quite disturbing title?

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  11. hmm my only question is why are there no comments on the quite disturbing title?

    What's so disturbing about bouncing a little french girl? Sounds like normal good fun to me.

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  12. As a Porto native, I must say that I am quite positively surprised to acknowledge that "Francesinha" has fans in the U.S.! Who could tell? :-))

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