All the time we lived in Paris I never once came across "fried rice" or "egg rolls," not in the style that we know in North America.

In the Asian groceries and certainly in the thousands of Asian traiteurs scattered throughout Paris, one sees riz cantonnais, basically steamed white rice with small dice vegetables in it or perhaps a rice dish with tomatoes, and plenty of noodles (noailles) to be sure, but never fried rice. All of it by the truckload.

And as for egg rolls or spring rolls, those wrapped concoctions that Americans consume by the ton, nope, I couldn't those either. The popular "roll" is something called nem, or Vietnamese "spring roll," but with a twist: its filling is essentially a paté of either pork or chicken or vegetable. But nothing remotely like the fried egg rolls so popular in the US.

So, for those of you folks out there who know more about this stuff than I do -- and you are legion -- what gives here?