Farmers markets

Marchés (Markets)

“Still savoring?” asked our B&B host to determine if he could clear our breakfast dishes or not. I liked his pleasure-oriented way of saying, “Can I take your plate?” This memory springs to mind, as I am still savoring France’s tastes and sights. See previous post, Tasty Terroir Treats, for food gourmandises (delicacies). For a visual feast, you can’t beat France’s marchés (markets)—and Monet’s Garden and the Petit Palais, but they deserve blog posts of their own.

If I go to a grocery store at home, I’m task-focused. I have a list of what I need; I gather the items, check out, go home—as quickly as possible. If I go to a farmers market at home or in France, I want to linger to enjoy the vibrant colors and artistic presentations of food and flowers. Even if I’m on a quest for something, like the best looking haricots verts (green beans) for the best price, or a foulard (scarf), or chèvre (goat cheese), I don’t like to hurry at a market. Being there is a pleasurable passe-temps (pastime). This includes many smiles at people’s cute dogs trotting by or peeking out of ladies’ purses.

We went to three farmers markets on this France trip. Here are some miscellaneous market photos from Fontenay-le-Comte, St. Martin-de-Re, and Paris’ Marché Bastille.

 

Tasty Terroir Treats

I’ve already mentioned French food’s freshness during my recent time in France. From gourmet chefs to home cooks, the French seem to emphasize flavor. French people I’ve known are also infused with the concept of terroir, or a sense of the land. My friend Françoise paid close attention to where veggies and fruits were grown and what was in season. When is aubergine (eggplant) in

season? Eggplant’s purplish-gray flesh was visible in most vegetable mixtures I was served. If produce was from too far away, or from certain countries, Françoise wouldn’t buy it. When her friend Monique, whose home we had lunch in, served three kinds of cheese, she brought out a map of France to point out each cheese’s region. She of course also told what kind of animal (cow, goat, ewe) produced the milk each cheese was made from. The brebis (ewe’s) cheese was slightly tangy, and the gray ash-covered chèvre (goat cheese) took creamy to a whole new level of smoothness.

Vibrant taste is not limited to strawberries, broccoli, cheese, and eggs, however. Plain old grocery-store canned thon (tuna), sardine (sardine), and saumon (salmon) also tantalize taste buds. Some were lemon-flavored, but other than that, ingredients are similar to cans in the U.S.: tuna, salmon, or sardines, water or oil, salt. I’m not sure where their fish is caught; I seem to remember Norway on one can. The fish tasted purer. Wish I knew why. I remember this purer taste when eating canned salmon in Canada, too; it was from British Columbia. (Just checked the canned tuna and salmon in my pantry. Whole Foods’ 365 brand is from Vietnam; Trader Joe’s brand is a product of the U.S.A. For whatever that’s worth.)

Also at Monique’s house, I got to try Pineau des Charentes, a regional apéritif (pre-meal alcoholic drink) made from grape must and cognac. For fun, she served it to me in a cognac pipe. The Pineau was strong, but the way it trickled warm down my throat awakened my taste buds for the meal.

I liked that in a meal, the salad that generally came first could be any vegetable. Sometimes it was just ruffly lettuce, lightly dressed in olive oil. Sometimes just shredded carrots. Sometimes “salad” was green beans and gold potatoes.

One area in which European food manufacturers lag behind the U.S. is gluten-free offerings. E. Leclerc supermarché’s (supermarket) house brand, Marque Repere, makes

a light and lovely baguette, but all gluten-free breads, cakes, and pastas I saw, all brands—in all types of grocery stores, from grand-surface (big-box) to tiny Bio-Coops—on this trip use corn as the main alternative flour. Savvy celiacs tend to avoid corn. Stores in the U.S. carry hundreds of corn-free products that mix nut flours, bean flours, flax, rice and potato flours to jazz up texture, fiber, and flavor. Still, on this trip, I did enjoy having baguettes, as well as a dark, dark chocolate-covered cookie wasn’t too sweet. The French don’t seem to overly sweeten everything, which I found refreshing.

Although we cooked most of our own meals, we did eat out a few times. Our restaurant meals were outstanding. One, salade niçoise, is a favorite from previous France trips, and this one was artfully presented. Another dish was new to me: brandade de morue, or gratin of whipped salt-cod, garlic, and potato. That’s true comfort food!

My Review of Lynn Austin's Novel, Hidden Places

What an engaging story! I wanted to root for Eliza and Gabe, but then they each carried so many secrets and so much lifelong anger, I wasn’t so sure they belonged together—or with anyone. But as I read, mysteries unraveled and hidden places became exposed. It became easier to see how they became the people they were and how they might change.

I liked a number of aspects of this book. Aunt Batty, for one. What a memorable, eccentric, funny, saving-grace character! The novel’s exploration of people’s varying relationships with God and interpretations of scripture, for another. How many lives are miserable because people see difficult circumstances as God’s punishment, or because they don’t deal directly with God about their shame and guilt? How many lives transcend this world’s sorrows because people trust God's goodness? The discussion of scripture in this novel felt organic to me, too. Yet another thing I liked was the historical detail—hobos lives during the Depression, daily farm life, how an orchard was run back then, how people dressed, how the gender gap played out in the early 1900s, and so forth. I also liked that the novel contained beautifully told stories of multiple generations. It’s in learning Eliza’s and Gabe’s family backgrounds that I could see the hidden places they weren’t showing each other.

Normally, I consider a novel’s jumping back and forth in time a pet peeve. When the first flashback happened, I thought, “Oh no.” But previous subplots had so piqued my curiosity that I just had to learn what went before. The multigenerational stories were interesting and revelatory of the characters. And somehow, I never really got lost in time. The novel contained a few too many mentions of angels for my taste, but that didn't keep me from enjoying the story.

I look forward to reading other Lynn Austin novels.

This morning I was in Paris ...

After 22 hours of traveling and getting settled back at home yesterday, I finally succumbed to fatigue. In my own bed, in my husband’s arms again, weary shoulders sank into pillow-top mattress, and scratchy eyes dried by airplane air gently closed the book of my latest France stories. I could have gone to bed earlier, saved dirty laundry to wash today, rummaged suitcase corners today for presents I’d brought back for my honey—but I savored being able to rest chin in hand, tilt my head, and say with starry-eyed wonder, “I was in Paris this morning,”—which I would not be able to say today. Although Paris itself was not dreamy on this trip, it felt dreamy to know I’d been there just that morning. Maybe, too, I felt awe at air-travel technology that enables people to flit about the planet like birds.

Technology aside, travel yesterday was the most difficult I’ve ever experienced. At one point, I slumped, sobbing onto a bench in the security area of Charles De Gaulle Airport. I’ll spare you the details of taxi, train, and airport inefficiencies and human selfishness and surliness. A series of ordeals rendered what should have been about an hour’s trip to my plane gate into a four-hour nightmare. The experience will change future travel for me; I never want to fly home from CDG Airport again. 

But what I most want to remember in my I was in Paris this morning dream is my French friend who spent frustrating hours of her vacation trying in vain to schedule a taxi for me; the many helpful security and hospitality personnel at train stations and the airport; and the friendly Americans on the plane who told their Paris horror stories with humor and c’est la vie shrugs. And the compassionate young woman from Houston who put her arms around me on that bench and commiserated with my tears. She and her husband had shared the same nightmare, except perhaps for the indignities I suffered at the hands of airport security. (Their experience had made them decide never to return to France. I love France and don’t know if I could reject the country as they did—just that I will find another airport to fly home from.) Anyway, I want to remember people who shone light into the darkness of yesterday in Paris.

Today I peeked out at the day through a one-inch slit in horizontal blinds. Yesterday I greeted the day by flinging open a six-foot-tall window. Today sunshine envelops the house. Yesterday I craned my neck up to see sky between six- to ten-story-tall buildings. Today I am surrounded by lush velvety green lawn and artfully arranged colors—white anemones bobbing in the breeze, purple and yellow pansies playing among pink-striped phlox, and white lilacs perfuming the patio. Yesterday I strolled down a long, narrow, gray-cobblestoned courtyard that our and many neighbors’ doors opened onto. Blue verbena mounded above clay pots on our windowsill, and many green plants reached up from their pots for the light. Benches and sculptures, weathered and worn, lined the courtyard. Today a green garden hose curls on the patio. Yesterday a few plastic watering cans with skinny, curved spouts crouched in the jungle of greenery. Gardens, whether horizontal or vertical, are everywhere.

Yesterday I ate a fat, almost-round egg that still had a tiny chicken feather stuck on it. Today I will eat what Americans call a large egg, half the size of yesterday’s egg, that tapers at one end. Yesterday I could still taste fresh strawberry jam my friend made from tender, sweet berries she picked herself near her home. Today I ate strawberries from 2,000 miles away that are mostly hard white pulp inside. Yesterday I ate store-bought broccoli so sweet, it reminded me of broccoli I’ve grown myself. Today I will eat store-bought broccoli whose satisfaction is only a vague vitamin awareness, no need to linger along the taste buds. Today, however, I can also gaze out my window and see a strawberry patch that I planted because of previous enjoyment of French food’s pure freshness. Many years ago I wanted to “bring France home with me,” and my potager, or kitchen garden, has brought much flavor to my life, and not just to my taste buds. And today at breakfast, I'll enjoy the homemade jam my friend sent me home with.

Yesterday I had little knowledge of current wars, financial crises, and political intrigues. Although my friend followed TV news during our trip, I understood little (okay, none) of the commentary. My main French TV pleasures were a pastry-chef reality show competition and a music show. Today I will go outside and bring in the orange-plastic-sleeved roll on the sidewalk and get caught up with the rest of the world. Then I’ll weed the garden.

Yesterday I was in Paris.

This reminds me ...

In Paris Charles De Gaulle airport, you can recharge your electronic devices the easy way by sitting on a stool at a bar lined with electric plugs. Or you can pedal power into your devices on an exercycle. I liked this. It reminds me of an exposition I saw at the Grand Palais in 2011 where the exhibit hall was set up with many exercycles wired to a board displaying how much power visiting pedalers generated.

French train cars have a quiet section but if most French people speak on the phone as quietly as the ones in my car did, there’d be no need for a special section. Funny, I don’t know how they speak so softly. I watched a man speaking for a long time on his cellphone. He wasn’t whispering; I heard his deep voice forming words with inflections. His facial expressions changed during the conversation; he smiled on occasion. But when he spoke, his lips barely moved. Maybe that’s the secret. This reminds me of the first French restaurant my husband and I ate at. Just a small room with a dozen tables attended by the owner, at full capacity with everyone talking, the restaurant very subtly hummed, like a car engine so finely tuned, you wonder if it’s running. If I clinked my fork on my plate, it echoed above 12 private conversations so loudly, it may as well have been a car horn.

My first evening in Fontenay, TV news featured a segment on rising food prices in France. Most alarming, of course, was an increase in the cost of bread. This reminds me of the U.S., where we get less and less for our grocery money. The difference is that, at least from my observations, the French more conscientiously conserve food, water, electricity, and gas.