…or How to lunch like a Parisian.
You know how there are some things you can do in life, and then there are those that you can’t? Me for example. Great at cooking and writing, but try and make me drink a bottle of water whilst walking and you uncover a serious weakness. Dear old Paris is the same, though like a real lady, she wouldn’t thank me for pointing out one of her flaws.
But the fur coat of luxury that sits upon her shoulders hides a few dark secrets, and if we’re talking about food, she might not want us looking too closely under that glitzy exterior. Let’s face it Paris, despite France having what’s regarded as one of the best cuisines in the world, if we’re being honest, there’s really not a great deal you can bring to the party, love.
Sure there are bistros and brasseries galore and a thriving modern restaurant scene, but check out the menu and it’s really her regional cousins propping up the reputation with dishes from all corners of the country. Beef stew and coq au vin from Burgundy, mussels and cider from Normandy, crêpes from Brittany, enough meat to terrify vegetarians in Lyon, and classic Bouillabaisse from the south – wherever you travel you’ll be spectacularly well fed.
The same is true in Paris of course, and you can find all of these dishes faithfully occupying space on the city’s menus and filling the bellies of her hungry inhabitants, as if she herself invented them. But between the confit de canard (Gascony), cassoulet (Toulouse) and wildly popular foreign import the ‘amburger, just take a moment to try and locate Paris’ contribution to the national food culture. Suddenly old dame Paris falls strangely silent.
See, she may be all culture and style, but when it comes to feeding and watering us, Paris skipped dinner and preferred to head straight to the cabaret instead, blinding our appetites with her sparkling nipple tassels. I’ve been here for 7 years, and I can’t help but picture the traditional Parisian dish as a McDo and a Coca Light, with half a packet of cigarettes on a café terrace to finish.
If you’re in the mood for lunch though, there is at least one classically Parisian dish to sink your teeth in, first recorded on the city’s menus in 1910 – the famous croque monsieur. It’s hardly the height of culinary sophistication being essentially a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, but if you’re after a fancier edge, you can always add a gender-changing fried egg on top and tuck into a croque madame.
Literally meaning ‘Mr Crunch’ and his wife ‘Mrs Crunch’, legend has it that some dim workmen left their lunches of ham and cheese sandwiches on a radiator whilst they hammered and chiselled away, and were surprisingly delighted with the result when the midday hunger hit. It didn’t take long for the dish to hit brasserie menus in the capital given the French’s penchant for talking about food (like ALL. THE. TIME.) and now it’s considered a classic, occupying blackboards with its more sophisticated regional friends.
Amateur chefs can recreate their own with bread, ham, béchamel sauce and grated gruyère cheese (but rule breakers are style makers, remember) but for those in France with a lazy constitution can head to the supermarket and purchase the packaged version ready to be cremated in your frying pan. Chips and following food baby optional.
I’ll admit it – after nearly seven years in France’s fair capital, there’s still a list of things I sorely miss from the motherland for which Paris can supply no substitute. It has diminished over time, a mere scribbled shadow of what it once was, but the one thing that remains steadfastly stubborn at the top (and I’m not proud of myself, dear readers), is the British supermarket. Sorry Carrefour, Monoprix et al, but you’re just simply no match for the behemoths I’m used to (and guys, if you insist on selling Marmite at such an offensively inflated price, you never, EVER will be).
In Paris though, there’s one thing on the other side of the coin that floats high above these pile-’em-high grocery warehouses, and that’s the traditional produce market, largely abandoned back home in favour of convenience and the fruitless (ha!) search for the cheapest price. And I don’t mean the status-coated ‘farmer’s markets’ either – throughout the city you’ll find both covered and outdoor markets every day of the week selling ordinary fruit and veg from mere pennies to the more upmarket selections in the more well-to-do arrondissements.
Whereas the supermarket is a relatively modern invention at a mere 100 years old*, showing its true influence in our food culture only in the last 40 years or so, the traditional market goes way, way back into the very deepest mists of time – so far back you can hardly even see the beginning anymore. I’ll leave Tesco, ASDA and friends to contemplate their frustratingly unflinching stranglehold on the UK economy, and instead 
You’ll find this rain-friendly covered market in the 3rd arrondissement near the Rue de Bretagne, and its name, ‘Market of the Red Children’ comes from the red-suited inhabitants of an ancient orphanage that used to stand nearby. Though the latter is long gone, the market has stood strong for the last 400 years, though understandably needed a facelift after centuries of trading, and closed for six years for a spruce-up in the late 1990s.
Rainbows of produce await hungry punters, but waiting until to you get home to satisfy your hunger sounds like unnecessary torture to me. To save you from breaking your teeth sinking them into a raw turnip, the real draw of le Marché des Enfants Rouges is the huge selection of freshly prepared food on offer from all corners of the world, hot and cold, served in compact glass pod-like structures with plenty of seating scattered around to take the load off. Happily the menu also includes fish and chips, so authentic that you could close your eyes and be sitting in a café on Brighton seafront. That’s another British comfort ticked of my list then.
Popping my eyes back into their sockets, I scooped up some bounty for lunch and headed back home to do some research. Had the local residents protested their hearts out until the shops were forced to open? Or was I in an alternative dream world in which Paris was actually behaving the way I wanted it to for once?
There are 14 areas in total, sometimes a mere street as in this case, in other arrondissements you might find a whole neighbourhood throwing out the vehicles and welcoming your custom with open arms, with the Marais and Montmatre being two of the most popular. Down by the Seine you get to breathe properly for once too, with lengthy stretches of the banks proving to be a hotspot for leisurely joggers, afternoon strolls and intense marathon training.
pARIS: small capital 