Pickled pigs' feet--boiled for a day and then pickled for two more--are a tradition going back to 1908, when Philippe Mathieu first opened his restaurant. Pigs' feet were popular bar snacks in this country through the '30s, but most people seem to have forgotten about them. Understandably, because they're far from convenience food, with all the gnawing it takes to winkle the tiny bits of meat from their prison of leathery pig skin and an annoying maze of foot bones (carpal, metacarpal and phalangeal, my friend). But at Philippe's, where the meat is attractively perfumed with pickling spices, customers order an average of 300 pounds of pigs' feet every week. You have to pick up one of these pigs' feet with your hands--don't even try to use a fork and knife (though if you want to, there are tumblers of spare cutlery at the right-hand end of the service counter--the carver will give you only the utensils she deems necessary).
The Big Dipper
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Philippe's: In the Los Angeles Times Magazine's April 6 issue, a caption with an article about Philippe the Original misspelled the last name of a woman who has worked at the restaurant for 38 years. She is Juanita Gonzalez, not Gonzales.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, May 04, 2008 Home Edition Los Angeles Times Magazine Part I Page 14 Lat Magazine Desk 1 inches; 21 words Type of Material: Correction
Philippe's: A caption accompanying "The Big Dipper" in the April 6 issue referred to Juanita Gonzales. The correct spelling is Gonzalez.
This is how Philippe's came to be. Philippe Mathieu, one of 14 children, was born in Pontis, a little sheepherding village in the French Alps, in 1876. As a teenager he worked at a butcher shop in Aix-en-Provence, then apprenticed as a chef in Algeria and served a two-year tour of duty in the French army.
He came to this country in 1901 and wound up in Los Angeles, by way of Buffalo, N.Y., in 1903. He liked his prospects here. In a few months he opened a deli and invited his brother, Arbin, to join him.
In 1908 he opened his first Philippe restaurant at 300 N. Alameda Ave., where he served roast beef, roast pork, roast lamb--and liver pate and blood sausage. The last were not necessarily exotic here--we'd had French restaurants since the 1860s. In fact, all of Mathieu's restaurants were in L.A.'s traditional Frenchtown neighborhood, which dated to the 1830s (it has long since disappeared, torn down for City Hall and the 101 Freeway).
"He never mentioned selling sandwiches there," says his grandson, Philippe Guilhem. "It was basically the kind of food restaurants served at the time. His food was probably a little more and little better."
Certainly a little more, because this was an all-you-can-eat restaurant. A meal was 25 cents, and that included a pint of homemade wine. Ph. Mathieu's, as the sign read (the Ph. stood for "Philippe"), drew such crowds that people sometimes called the police, figuring there must be a fight.
