Where Paris is sophisticated and stately, Toulouse is provincial and bohemian, with lots of artists, musicians and quirky entrepreneurs, and locals speak a saucy dialect with way too many syllables to be considered proper French.
Paris may be a city of the world. Toulouse is the capital of Southwest France -- a land of mountains, pastoral canals, vineyards, deep countrysides and a large population of rugby-playing males -- with a thousand-year history of rebellion.
Toulouse prides itself on its food (its specialty is cassoulet), and visitors can stock up on fresh produce at the Victor Hugo Market.
(Robert V. Camuto)
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Today, regional cultural organizations and militant regionalist rappers keep the independent streak alive. Toulousians matter-of-factly say that they identify more with Barcelona than twice-as-distant Paris.
"Everything is open for Latin culture here," Martine Rondet explained one late evening at Le Petit Diable ("The Little Devil"), a bar-restaurant where she organizes evenings that bring together Toulouse's tango clubs.
Once the home of legendary troubadours, Toulouse has long been crazy about opera and most all forms of music. Carlos Gardel, Argentina's original "Tango King," was born in Toulouse, adding one more ingredient to the cultural cassoulet.
Comfort Food Capital
And speaking of food.
Toulouse is home to France's most comforting comfort cuisine: duck in all its glory, from pâtés to preserved-in-its-own-fat confit to magret (duck breast).
In the United States, foie gras -- liver from fattened ducks or geese -- is a gastronomic luxury. In Southwest France, it's a birthright. Yet despite the fat content of the local diet, Toulouse has some of the lowest heart attack rates in the developed world. Some French theories have gone so far as to suggest that duck fat somehow melts away cholesterol.
"If you don't eat the skin of the duck, there is no fat," Christian explained to me with professional authority that first evening at the bar.
Of course, in Toulouse who bothers to pick around the skin? Our drinks at Le Père Louis came with a small bowl of gratons -- fried, peanut-size morsels of duck drippings.
