IT IS POSSIBLE to write a book titled The Authentic Bistros of Paris, as François Thomazeau has done (The Little Bookroom, $16.95 paper), because Paris has authentic bistros. As Thomazeau notes in his introduction, lucidly translated by Anna Moschovakis, bistros are not merely "the soul of Paris" – everybody knows that – but the stars of certain provincial cultures that have come to shine brightly in the metropolitan firmament. Immigrants from the hardscrabble Auvergne, who began arriving in Paris toward the end of the 19th century, have particularly impressed themselves upon the city's bistro scene.

"The Auvergnats brought a lot to the capital," Thomazeau writes. "Above all, they transformed the architecture, the way of life." They have helped define, in other words, not merely what it means to be Parisian, but to be French, and they have done so by preserving their sense of themselves and their origins; as Thomazeau succinctly puts it, bistro owners "have a single word on their lips: soul."

One reason they might have but a single word on their lips is that they don't have time for more. The typical Parisian bistro opens at dawn and closes after midnight, and over that long day's run serves coffee, beer, wine, and, in Thomazeau's words, "the kind of food grandmothers prepare, slowly but not painstakingly, neither fast nor fancy." Could we call such food authentic food?

Although many a restaurant here styles itself a bistro, none is a bistro in Thomazeau's sense. In fact, no American institution I can think of remotely answers to Thomazeau's description. Our land is, of course, graced by innumerable Starbucks coffee shops, which open early, close late, serve espresso and pastries (if not wine, beer, and blanquette de veau), and do offer some corporate fantasist's idea of bohemian culture, which in this sorry time and place seems to turn largely on the question of WiFi for the convenience of the poseur population. We might even go so far as to call Starbucks "authentic" – in the American sense. It is an immense imperial chain devoted to uniformity as a way of making money; it sells an image of stylish bohemianism to people who have been assured by innumerable TV commercials that "image is reality."

I don't mean to pick on Starbucks. It is, after all, us, utterly American in its monomaniacal passion for the old bottom line. It is what we see when we look in the mirror, if we are willing to be honest with ourselves. It is soul for sale rather than soul for its own sake, and that is, maybe, the heart of the eternal difference between us and the French.

Paul Reidinger

paulr@sfbg.com