Western world’s cheapest meal

Press, 27 February 1986, Page 13

Western world’s cheapest meal

From

KARREN BEANLAND

in Paris

Tucked away in a narrow Paris backstreet is the cheapest restaurant in the Western world. It is run single-handed by a frail-looking 76-year-old widow, Madame Marie Codina. Her grey hair and bird-like frame belie her energy. Since 1959 she has been doing all the cooking, cleaning and shopping to provide lunches and dinners seven days a week, except on Sunday evenings. At first sight, the price on the yellowing weekly menu looks like a typing error. For five francs Oust a little more than NZ$l), a figure which has not been increased in five years, diners get a three course meal, complete with rough red wine. A similar meal in a cheap restaurant elsewhere in the city would cost easily 10 times as much.

The Casa Miguel, on rue St Georges, not far from the famous Paris Opera, looks like a film set from the 19505. It has a decidely dingy air, with faded grey-green wall-paper, gaudily flowered plastic table cloths and a bizarre assortment of jumble-sale cutlery and crockery. You cannot expect to get much for five francs, and you don’t. The meal starts with microscopic portions of salad or liver sausage and continues with a selection of cheap main courses such as macaroni, a pauper’s cassoulet of beans and inexpensive cuts of

meat or cous-cous, a North African-style casserole now popular in Paris. Dessert consists of half an apple or a slice of cheese, and those willing to lash out an extra 1.5 francs can have a thin wedge of cake or biscuits. The food is warming and nourishing, but by no stretch of the imagination could it be called cordon-bleu. Judging by its taste the wine has more water in it than grape juice. Although the food may not be memorable, Madame Codina certainly is. Watching her scuttle in and out of her crowded kitchen, it seems amazing that such an old woman is willing to work so hard, for so little gain. “I do it because it gives me pleasure. I enjoy meeting all the people,” she says. Hard work? Not at all, she says — it is just a question of being organised. Each meal, she cooks enough for 32 people and late-comers have to go without. “I stop there because I have no more dishes and I have to have time to do the washing up,” she adds with an infectious cackle.

Madame Codina has gained a reputation as one of Paris’ eccentrics, scouting around the early-morning markets in search of the best bargains of the day or even left-over fruit and vegetables which she can get for nothing. The restaurant, named after her Spanish husband, Miguel,

who died during World War Two, now features in many Paris quide books. Surprisingly, cus- ' tamers include businessmen in three-piece suits and welldressed visitors from the provinces, as well as the expected tourists and students.

“I first heard about the place on television and I have been coming back ever since,” said one diner on a visit to Paris from Dunkirk. She had travelled 45 minutes on the metro to get to the restaurant, but though it was well worth the effort. Madame Codina used to see her work as a kind of vocation, helping impoverished youths and the down-and-outs of Paris. Nowadays — perhaps it is a sign of her age — she firmly discourages the tramps.

“I don’t like the clochards because they take too many liberties and drink all the wine. I can cope with one, but not when they are in groups of three, four or five,” she says. Outside the restaurant, she points proudly to her 1985 diploma from the Guiness Book of Records, certifying that the Casa Miquel provides "the cheapest meal in the Western World.”

Not much for five francs

Clochards not encouraged