On the Internet, They Call Us the Food Police

Welcome to Stranger Than Flicktion, our Flickr-inspired column. We provide writers with five random food-related Flickr images and ask them to construct a fictional short story in under five days. In this new episode, Henry Michel dreams up the eventful daily lives of special agents from the Taste Police, who protect France's culinary heritage with an iron fist.

During the inauguration of the GHPA (Gastronomic Heritage Protection Association), the President of the Republic, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, underscored the importance of Franco-Italian cooperation at the end of his speech.

I was on stage in my uniform, my ears buzzing with excitement as my wife filmed me—so I didn't catch every word. No one else remembered this passage either. The launch of the GHPA as a new armed force of the Ministry of the Interior was such a powerful and symbolic announcement that, in that instant, we all forgot this small, subsidiary mention of transalpine cooperation.

On the internet, people call us the Taste Police. The Food Nazis. Between us, we call ourselves the Atherinas. The coat of arms on our uniforms is the small fried fish Atherina Boyeri, because we're quick, we're bright, and there's 200 of us—the required number of this fish per plate, as determined in 2019 in our Register of Real Cuisine.

I suddenly remembered the matter of Franco-Italian cooperation last Monday morning, two years after the speech—two years that have amounted to 2,314 arrests, 1,200 raids, and 750 restaurant closings. It hit me as I was zipping up a small travel bag and loading my Sig Sauer SP 2022, before taking off toward the French Riviera in my Renault Megane.

Leaving from Lyon, where our offices are located, I knew that my Italian counterpart, Floriano Pini of the RCG (), would get to Nice long before I would, at the wheel of a goddamn Lamborghini Huracan.

Italy was the only country other than France that had armed police units in charge of suppressing bad taste. And they weren't messing around. Over here, we were intellectuals, romantics—we pushed and shoved a little, we imprisoned some, and in extreme cases, we drew out our batons. The RCG made their appearance six months after us and were double the size, twice as armed, and much more irritable. Some buddies from the border police spread gossip of raids at Vintimille with over thirty vehicles, shotguns, German Shepherds attacking servers, and frozen pizzas burnt in the street.

Floriano Pini was high-strung. They'd specifically chosen me to accompany him during his operation on our soil because of my calm nature and methodological ways. My efficiency and gentle intransigence. And my zeal.

567039BD "Aux Fines Frites," Route 7, towards Bugiers-Les-Saints

Attached photograph:

Excerpt from my report:

Acceptable menu but non-regulation signage: typography not included in list of authorised typography, Category B7 Fry Trucks (Comic Sans MS / Arial / Courier New).

Calligraphic typography, with aspirations of elegance that are inappropriate for the establishment.

I summoned the owner to destroy the sign in my presence. Strong resistance at beginning, then cooperation after I threatened to use the explosives in my possession.

The owner climbed the roof and, with a few thrusts, dislodged the plexiglass plaque, which I put in my trunk.

No fine or prosecution, considering the owner's cooperation and the quality of the fries of this mobile establishment."

567039BD "Le Relais du Routier," Route 7, Asquevilliers

Attached photograph:

Excerpt from my report:

Two projectiles were thrown on my service vehicle (eggs) during my urgent departure towards NICE (06200)."

My zeal ended up making me two hours late. Since I couldn't swallow a single bite at the "Relais du Routier," my only lunch had been a portion of cheese bought from a farmer's market, which I ate in the Megane, trying to slow down my heart rate.

The cheese was perfect. It reassured me. I knew I was on the right side of this fight. Even when it's hard. Even when it's thankless. France was speaking to me through this cheese. President Dupont-Aignan was whispering in my ear that my combat was noble. I could see him, in the wind, dressed like a knight with his great helm, helping me chase down food vendors across the land, helping me redress France's historic values, its culinary prowess, its beautiful heritage. I took out my camera to snap a photo of this moment of grace. Then I finished the cheese and turned the engine back on.

When I finally got to the Cours Saleya market, in Nice, with my bag in tow, it was 2:30 PM and the flower market was already closing. Despite the crowds, it didn't take me long to spot Floriano Pini. He was at the socca stand, at the very end of the market, with the cook in an armlock, presumably trying to shove the man's head into the crêpe he made.

I cut through the crowd while calling out to Pini, who broke into a large smile without losing his grip.

"Atherina! Michel Batta! The Taste Policeman! France! The Italian!"

"I'm not Italian, Pini. There's no Italian in me."

"The son of the greatest chef in the world! The son of Italy!"

"My father is French-Italian and my mother is French. Vaffanculo, I'm French, an officer of France's Ministry of the Interior, for Christ's sake, raised on French milk from French cows."

"Raised on the Italian dishes of his father!"

"My father isn't Italian; he's French-Italian. I never lived with him."

"Raised on Italia!"

I thought I was going to shoot him, right then and there, even though I'd only known him for twenty seconds.

"What are you doing with this man, Pini? He's been selling socca at the Cours Saleya since the sixties."

"What am I doing with this man? He's selling Italian farinata and calling it socca!" "But you know full well that in Nice, we call this chickpea crêpe socca. Nice was still Italian two centuries ago."

"Then he should call it farinata! It is farinata!"

The cook popped open the top button of his shirt and caught his breath, then began cursing at the Italian: "I've been making socca for 50 years! I know how thin it's supposed to be!"

Pini kicked him hard, knocking him to the ground. I quickly glanced at the guy's socca.

"Pini, you're going to have to be tolerant this time. It's a little vague, since it's the same recipes. He follows the socca recipe. He isn't disrespecting the recipe; he's just naming it differently. Even though it's the same."

"Can't you make up your own recipes?"

I took a big step and put my face an inch away from his.

"Don't you worry, we have our own recipes. Watch your mouth, you're not at home here, and I've got a gun on me. You're insulting the republic with your implications."

"Yeah, like how you reinvent carbonara by throwing in cream and bacon?"

"It's our own carbo. You're just gonna have to swallow that, goddamn it. We almost had a diplomatic clash with that thing."

Last year, during a Franco-Italian joint operation, an undercover Italian RCG agent used a taser on a French cook after discovering that his menu's pasta carbonara contained bacon and . The cook died instantly of a heart attack. The affair spawned a serious diplomatic crisis—it spread on Twitter as #carbogate. To mitigate the crisis, Dupont-Aignan and the Italian president finally reached an agreement after a three-day summit: the RCG agent was acquitted, and France was granted the recipe of pasta à la "carbo." This abbreviated terminology would refer strictly to the crème fraîche-bacon combo, and clearly distinguish it from the Italian pasta alla carbonara, with egg yolks and guanciale. This compromise had proven satisfactory to the French public, who had been brainwashed by a widespread publicity campaign promoting French carbo: "It might not be as good, but it's ours!"

"Ready to go?" asked Pini, a smile on his lips. "Yeah. The perp's apartment is a few hundred feet away," I answered. He was eager for a fight.

We walked 500 feet in the narrow streets of Old Nice, then kicked in the door of the suspect's building, since I couldn't remember the code the intelligence agency had provided. We went up three flights, then kicked in the perp's apartment door. It was a small guy in a tank top, who was busy tweeting on an awfully loud PC. He didn't say a word.

"I'm Captain Batta, GHPA, and he's Pini, RCG. I'll tell you right now, he's the bad cop."

"You're Xavier Bardan, correct?" asked Pini, while opening the fridge to grab a beer.

"Uhhh…yeah. What do you want?"

Pini opened the beer and drank half of it in utter silence. Tweets cascaded down the screen, one after the other.

"Tell me," continued Pini with a grin, "Did you write an article, one month ago, entitled "The VERITABLE Lasagna Recipe?" Because if so, I have a couple of things to say to you.

I placed my bag on the ground, opened it, and took out the plastic tarp I'd carefully rolled up inside.