Here, too, bourgeoisie to do Bastille Day justice

Festivities evoke childhoods for French natives

French chefs in Boston Raymond Ost (left), Iris Robert, and Gérard Lopez have been planning for Bastille Day. (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

Tomorrow, every corner of France will burst with joy to celebrate the anniversary of Bastille Day, the 1789 storming of the notorious prison at the beginning of the French Revolution. Today, as it has for the last six years, Holyoke Street in Cambridge will turn into a French village for those who cannot go home for the anniversary or for those who just love France.

"There's a ball outside every village. There is eating, drinking, dancing, then there are fireworks," said Raymond Ost, reminiscing about fêtes in his native Alsace, in northeastern France, straddling the German border. "It goes on all night, starting at 7 until 2 or 3 in the morning."

And so it will be in Cambridge, sans fireworks and with perhaps an earlier closing time.

Ost spoke about his favorite holiday last week from Sandrine's Bistro, which he co-owns on Holyoke Street. Joining him were Iris Robert, chef of Petit Robert Bistro on Commonwealth Avenue, and Gérard Lopez, a co-owner of the Elephant Walk, a French and Cambodian restaurant with locations in Boston, Cambridge, and Waltham. Lopez is head chef of the Cambridge location. Like Ost, Lopez is a French native, while Robert was born in San Francisco on Bastille Day.

Born to a French father - chef Jacky Robert, who owns the two Petit Robert restaurants, located in the South End and in Kenmore - Iris Robert celebrated all her previous birthdays with her grandmother in Granville, a fishing village along the Normandy coast.

"We ate a lot of traditional foods, like pâté," said Iris Robert, who turns 25 tomorrow in Boston. "The whole family got together. We ate oysters, and mussels, and shellfish as appetizers."

All dishes were rich and creamy. Cow tongue was a staple entree and homemade strawberry tarts served as both dessert and birthday cake, she said.

Though Robert, Ost, and Lopez celebrated Bastille Day in different sections of the country, they share the same fond memories. Villages host parades and bike and boat races. In Paris, waiters compete in a road race that requires more arm coordination than leg. Each runner must carry, with one outstretched arm, a small tray holding a full plastic glass of water. The winner is the first to cross the finish line with the glass and water intact.

"Family and friends have big dinners together, and then, they all go out and meet at the town hall," said Ost. The food each family serves depends upon where they celebrate in France. Potato salads mixed with a variety of pork sausages, tarte flambée - a pizza-like dish of rolled dough covered with onions and sausage are mainstays at the Ost family home, as are sauerkraut and merguez sausage - lamb sausage spiced with chili paste, sumac, paprika, and harissa.

Bastille Day dinner for Lopez was filled with the flavors of Béziers, a southwest village deep in wine country. "There were lots of grilled stuff, fried dough, steak, and fries with mustard. There were a lot of sandwiches of cooked ham on buttered bread. It sounds simple, but at the moment it is just great."

Families put their tables together in the streets, which were illuminated by colorful lanterns strung outdoors. "And people were dancing all over the place," said Lopez. Commemorated since it was declared a national holiday in 1880, Bastille Day honors the siege of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789. France was nearly bankrupt in the late 1700s, with its upper crust growing fat and wealthy and its poorest citizens starving. Furious bourgeoisie attacked the prison, freeing its seven inmates. Though that number is small, the attack has come to symbolize the freeing of the lower and middle classes from the corrupt grasp of an aristocracy embroiled in malfeasance.

Bastille Day is the most celebrated and patriotic French holiday. Festivities abroad begin early July 14 as families head to market to gather fresh ingredients for special recipes. After a home-cooked meal, residents arrive outside their town halls around 7 p.m. for a parade followed by live music, singing and dancing that lasts until the predawn hours of July 15. Brilliant displays of fireworks light up the sky for hours.

"Even when I was little, like 7, I would go out until four in the morning with my grandmother, who was like 70," said Robert. She recalled a Bastille Day spent in Paris in which the fireworks literally stopped traffic at the Arc de Triomphe. "People just parked on the sidewalks and stood on top of their cars and just watched. It's like the Fourth of July at Times Square."

In the smaller villages, the sidewalks are lined with old-timers sitting in chairs and referred to as "the news," Ost said, with a smile geared toward Lopez. "They just sit outside and gossip. If you wanted some news, you go to those people because they know everything."

It is not always easy to go home again, so Ost, Gwen Trost, the other co-owner of Sandrine's, and the Harvard Square Business Association now bring the celebration to Holyoke Street. Chefs from the area's finest French restaurants, such as Brasserie Jo and Chez Henri, are preparing menus and training a member of their wait staff for the big race, which is one lap of Holyoke Street.

More than 5,000 people each year have attended the satellite Bastille Day. Food, beverages, beer and wine, will be sold in festivities from 1 to 10 p.m.

Fine French foods, from homemade pâtés to smoked cod to grilled bratwurst smothered in sauerkraut, will be sold from $1 to $5 as a live band plays traditional French favorites, including La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, while guests sing along and dance in the streets. In other words, for a few hours today, narrow, brick-lined Holyoke Street will exude the spirit of Bastille Day, as if it were situated in a village in France.