The man from Normandy takes half a cup of coffee, and fills the cup with calvados, sweetened with sugar, and drinks it with seeming relish. Ice-cold coffee will almost sizzle when calvados is poured into it. It tastes like a corkscrew, and one drink has the same effect as a crack on the head with a hammer. From the toddling age up, the Norman takes his calvados and coffee.
In the south of France they make a concoction from the residue of grapes. They boil the residue down in water, and get a drink called marc; and it is used in much the same way as the Norman in the north uses calvados. Then there is also the very popular summertime drink known as mazagran, which in that region means seltzer water and cold coffee, or what Americans might call a coffee highball.
Making coffee in France has been, and always will be, by the drip and the filtration methods. The large hotels and cafés follow these methods almost entirely, and so does the housewife. When company comes, and something unusual in coffee is to be served, Mr. Beeson says he has known the cook to drip the coffee, using a spoonful of hot water at a time, pouring it over tightly packed, finely ground coffee, allowing the water to percolate through to extract every particle of oil. They use more ground coffee in bulk than they get liquid in the cup, and sometimes spend an hour producing four or five demi-tasses. It is needless to say that it is more like molasses than coffee when ready for drinking.
It is not unusual in some parts of France to save the coffee grounds for a second or even a third infusion, but this is not considered good practise.
Von Liebig's idea of correct coffee making has been adapted to French practise in some instances after this fashion: put used coffee grounds in the bottom chamber of a drip coffee pot. Put freshly ground coffee in the upper chamber. Pour on boiling water. The theory is that the old coffee furnishes body and strength, and the fresh coffee the aroma.
The cafés that line the boulevards of Paris and the larger cities of France all serve coffee, either plain or with milk, and almost always with liqueur. The coffee house in France may be said to be the wine house; or the wine house may be said to be the coffee house. They are inseparable. In the smallest or the largest of these establishments coffee can be had at any time of day or night. The proprietor of a very large café in Paris says his coffee sales during the day almost equal his wine sales.
The French, young or old, take a great deal of pleasure in sitting out on the sidewalk in front of a café, sipping coffee or liqueur. Here they love to idle away the time just watching the passing show.
In Paris, there are hundreds of these cafés lining the boulevards, where one may sit for hours before the small tables reading the newspapers, writing letters, or merely idling. In the morning, from eight to eleven, employees, men-about-town, tourists, and provincials throng the cafés for café au lait. The waiters are coldly polite. They bring the papers, and brush the table—twice for café créme (milk), and three times for café complet (with bread and butter).
In the afternoon, café means a small cup or glass of café noir, or café nature. It is double the usual amount of coffee dripped by percolator or filtration device, the process consuming eight to ten minutes. Some understand café noir to mean equal parts of coffee and brandy with sugar and vanilla to taste. When café noir is mixed with an equal quantity of cognac alone it becomes café gloria. Café mazagran is also much in demand in the summertime. The coffee base is made as for café noir, and it is served in a tall glass with water to dilute it to one's taste.