Bringing Home the Baguette

In France, the act of buying a baguette is highly ritualized, and over 9 months in Paris we had many opportunities to both observe and participate in the experience. Before leaving, we documented our understanding of the process of purchasing bread, and we humbly submit our performance of this important phenomena for your consumption and critique.

Step 1: Be patient.

Step 1 Commentary: With a different boulangerie to be found every 736 ft. (unscientific estimate) on the rue de Belleville, at first we had trouble understanding why anyone would bother waiting in line. We ultimately came to two conclusions: 1) Some boulangeries are better than others, attracting larger crowds. 2) Even at inferior boulangeries, lines form because people don't stagger their visits throughout the day. Which isn't to say that lines only form early in the morning and in the afternoon after work lets out - you'll also find lines at lunchtime, around snacktime, and at pretty much every other time of the day. Come to think of it, despite the large numbers of boulangeries in Paris, maybe the city is just too dense; maybe there are simply too many people per boulangerie to avoid lines. It really makes you respect people who live/d under Communism.

Step 2: Choose wisely

Step 2 Commentary: Economists and psychologists have determined that too much choice can seriously handicap your ability to choose wisely. Boulangeries are perfect examples of this dilemma. If you don't know what you want by the time you get to the register, you risk looking stupid, or worse, not getting anything at all. Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? Many of those who work at the best-regarded boulangeries seem to share his mania for prompt, polite, and plainly pronounced orders. If you have your choice in mind well in advance, you'll leave the boulangerie a happier person. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that you have to know what things are called in order to choose them. Learning all the names of all the products in the boulangerie requires months and months (at the very least) of embarrassment and faulty orders. Call it a character building exercise, we're pretty sure that's how the boulangères see it.

Step 3: Order. Very carefully.

Step 3 Commentary: So you've waited in line and chosen carefully, but all of your patience and planning could be for naught if you botch the order. Maggie has opted for a tradition nature (tradi nature in street lingo), which is a shorter, skinnier, denser version of the baguette. As she arrives at the moment of truth, she hesitates briefly as she considers the consequences of failure - but then she nails the landing, correctly assigning the feminine gender, smoothly and clearly pronouncing a few difficult "r" syllables, and otherwise exuding confidence so that the boulangère doesn't sense her fear and pounce. Congratulations, Maggie! You did it!

Step 4: Enjoy immediately.

Step 4 Commentary: Normally, you'd think that the boulangerie buying experience ends when you walk out the door, but not so. Approximately 87.34% of boulangerie patrons who buy bread (rather than a pastry) execute one final ritual between the boulangerie and their residence: they consume the end of the baguette or baguette-substitute (such as a tradi nature). We would need to conduct more research to determine whether the majority of people rip off the end with their fingers before eating it, or bite directly, as Louis has chosen to do. Furthermore, the exact logic of this ritual remains unclear. Must the boulangerie patron taste the baguette as a connoisseur tastes wine - to confirm its quality before sharing it with friends and family? Or is it merely a question of the freshness and possible warmth of the baguette presenting an irresistible temptation to the purchaser? One final possibility: having just undergone a stressful experience, the customer translates pent-up fear into aggression, taking out the angst of the boulangerie experience on the unsuspecting baguette. We're happy to entertain other hypotheses as well.

There you have it: a bread-buying boulangerie experience from tepid start to violent finish. Next week on "Paris: The Urban Jungle is a Terrifying Place," we'll bring our award-winning, cutting-edge investigative journalism to bear on one of the greatest dangers of the city: French attempts at American-style fast food. Don't miss it!

Putting Local Boulangeries to the Test

We've been debating for months. Can we actually taste the differences in the bread that comes from the four boulangeries we regularly patronize? Or are we just biased in favor of some based on appearance, location, or service? Finally, we decided to put our opinions to a test. A blind taste test.

First, we need to introduce the contenders. There's the "yellow boulangerie," aka "Le Moulin de Pierre," which is the boulangerie closest to Métro Belleville on the rue de Belleville.

A clear frontrunner, this boulangerie always has a huge line snaking out the door, and looking at the splendid breads, pastries, and tarts they make, it's no wonder.


Up a block and just across the street, you'll find the "orange boulangerie" (maybe next we'll test for color-blindness, because in this picture it looks pink), aka "Au Moulin de Belleville." (In case you're wondering, moulin means mill. Like in Moulin Rouge.) This one ranked towards the bottom going into the test.

Staying on the rue de Belleville, you'll find the "green boulangerie" (it has no alias as far as we can tell), whose owner we profiled for our "Portraits of Belleville" series. Between the storefront and the unmatched service, we assumed this one would rank higher than the orange boulangerie.

Finally, on our way to and from the park every day, we pass the Banette-affiliated "red boulangerie" which also doesn't appear to have an official name. (Banette is a consortium of boulangeries, wheat producers and other parties interested in producing and selling bread. Banette-affiliated boulangeries seem to tread a line between a franchise and a baker's union.) Given its location in a swankier neighborhood than our own, the lines of waiting customers we almost always see, and our own experiences there, we anticipated a close competition between red and yellow boulangeries for the crown.

Maggie did the buying, while Dimi and I did the tasting. We were very scientific about it, as you can see.

In addition to taste, we judged a croissant and a baguette from each boulangerie on the basis of overall appearance and texture. You can see real differences in the exteriors and cross-sections of each item, and we took careful notes on every relevant aspect of our tasting experience.

In the end, the results were roughly what we expected: the yellow boulangerie (#3 above) took the prize for best croissant, while the red boulangerie (#1 above) won best baguette. The green and orange boulangeries just didn't compare.

Still, we'll continue to buy from all of our contestants, in part because the two winners are both closed on Wednesday, in part because sometimes we don't feel like standing in line, but mostly because all of these boulangeries are great by American standards. We will sorely miss them when we return.

Supermarchés de la rue de Belleville

To celebrate the end of our time here, we'd like to ask a favor of our readers: take a minute to read back through your favorite posts, and send your "top 3" list to panda.a.paris [at] gmail.com. We'll be collecting your submissions throughout the week, and next week (our last in Paris!) we'll post the results. Thanks in advance, and happy browsing!

Paris is best known as a city of light, of romance, of history and culture and beauty. It is not generally thought of as a big, dense, dirty place where 98% of daily existence is completely - and at times oppressively - mundane. But because Paris is, in fact, all of these things, it's important to be able to take the mundane and turn it into something more interesting. A trip to the supermarket, for instance. There are at least nine supermarkets within a five-block radius from where we live, which turns normally mundane food shopping into an exercise in self-image, fiscal discipline, and logistical savvy. In case you ever live where we do, here's a tour of your supermarket options.

The first supermarché you walk by on your way up the rue de Belleville from Métro Belleville is Ed.

Ed is a chain that clearly prides itself on being a cheap place to shop for a limited selection of food and household products. It also appears to be the supermarket that devotes the smallest percentage of its budget to appearance (there's an equally ugly - if slightly larger - Ed at Métro Pyrénées).

Next, you'll notice Chinese supermarkets on both sides of the street.

Given that you're walking through the heart of Belleville's Chinatown, it should come as no surprise that these stores are your one-stop-shop for all kinds of East Asian delicacies (and "delicacies"). Though poorly organized, the prices are rock-bottom, the service is efficient, and the produce is much fresher than at any of the chain supermarkets. We probably hit up "Les Halles de l'Asie" two or three times a week (it's just so convenient when walking from the métro to our apartment), which has made it easy for us to consume fewer processed foods and more fresh veggies and fresh-frozen seafood. Thanks, Chinese supermarkets!

Passing our apartment, the next supermarket is Belleville en Bio, which we've reviewed before. Considering we're East Coast Liberal hippies, we should probably shop at this all-organic store more often. But we're frugal East Coast Liberal hippies, and the "Bio" label in France (much like the "organic" label in the states) doubles prices without ensuring environement- and health-friendly products. Bummer.

Our go-to chain supermarché is Franprix, located at the corner of rue de Belleville and rue des Pyrénées (and again on rue de Belleville just above Métro Jourdain).

They just redid this store entirely, and it's too bad we weren't prepared for a before-and-after comparison, because the change is mind-boggling. In any case, Franprix sits in the middle of the supermarché hierarchy, above Ed and below Monoprix (see below) in terms of price, selection, and quality. We reguarly buy yoghurt, cereal, butter, cheese, condiments, household goods, and cheap wine here. Whereas Ed and the Chinese supermarkets are downhill from our apartment, Franprix is about a block uphill, giving it a logistical advantage (on the way home, it's easier to carry a heavy bag downhill).

Finally, Monoprix is the chain supermarché with the greatest selection, highest prices (even for the same exact products you get at Franprix and Ed for cheaper), and largest quantity of somewhat high-quality products. All Monoprix's have internal boulangeries, boûcheries, and (I think) poisonneries, each of which normally charge less for their wares than the individual food boutiques operating outside of Monoprix. The store also offers a (comparatively) large selection of clothing, kitchenware, and toiletries, putting it somewhere between a Shaw's/Publix/Giant/Acme and a Walmart/Kmart/Target.

We tend to shop at Monoprix when we want to get absolutely everything in one place - and even that's usually impossible. French stores, we've discovered, are aggressively territorial. We love this when we encounter it in a boulangerie, fromagerie, boucherie, cave à vins, or other "speciality shop," but as Americans we demand that our supermarkets constitute a one-stop-shop for all of our needs. The supermarchés we've been to here, however, don't aspire to that standard (and we're not the first to notice).

Supermarchés at which we haven't shopped regularly (or at all): Carrefour, Casino, Huit-à-Huit, Naturalia (another bio place), Shopi, or Leader Price. Basically, if you ever forget how big and ordinary a city Paris is, just think of all the supermarket options. That's what we do.

A Réaumur

To celebrate the end of our time here, we'd like to ask a favor of our readers: take a minute to read back through your favorite posts, and send your "top 3" list to panda.a.paris [at] gmail.com. We'll be collecting your submissions throughout the week, and next week (our last in Paris!) we'll post the results. Thanks in advance, and happy browsing!

In yesterday's post on Paris's plaque obsession, I mentioned that the city makes it easy to recognize its long and storied history. But when your history is as rich as Paris's, it's hard to get to every little detail. For instance, on my way home from the library most days, I pass by this incredible building that takes up an entire block of Rue Réaumur:

Inspired by Invisible Paris, a blog that explores the unsung marvels of the city, I decided to uncover the history of this building. My sleuthing started with a single clue, found on the tower on the southeastern (and most visible) corner of the building.

This isn't much of a clue, since "à Réaumur" really only tells you that you're on the street that the building sits on. But thanks to the marvels of Google, a tiny bit of sleuthing led me to discover that "À Réaumur" was a big department store that opened in 1897 as a competitor to Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, Le Bon Marché, BHV, and Le Samaritaine. The name seems to be a jeu de mots - a pun - since it sounds just like "Arrêt au mur," or "stop at the wall." Not a very funny pun, I guess.

À Réaumur specialized in ready-to-wear clothing and catalogue sales, supplied the French Army during WWII, and won all kinds of awards at various World's Fairs and International Expos over the years. (All this from an amazing blog that also publishes images of old catalogues and gives lots of details on the store's history.)

The building itself, designed by F. Constant-Bernard, was constructed with great speed and has housed clothing boutiques and offices since the closing of À Réaumur in 1960. My favorite aspects of the building are the little architectural details - the spiderweb-like metal braces holding up the awning, for instance.

That wasn't too hard. Maybe I should move to the next mystery to solve: what's the story behind the delightfully baroque building right across the street from À Réaumur, which refers to one "F. Potin" and now houses a Monoprix?

Any ideas on where to start?

Caves Dargent

We take Panda to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont twice a day, every day. And both on the way there as well as on the way back, we walk by this cave (wine store). It's a hip, remarkably cheap alternative to both the more traditional cavistes you'll find elsewhere in the city and the do-it-yourself wine offerings of the supermarkets. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking the endless selection of 3-euro bottles of wine you'll find at Franprix and Monoprix. But the people who work at Caves Dargent - like those at any wine-specific store - offer an expertise that's probably worth more than the limited mark-up on the wine.

We'll miss Caves Dargent when we get back to Somerville, along with all of those other boutique food stores where the quality, selection, price, and advice can't be beat. Just one more reason why we'll be counting the days until we can come back.

Happy Easter!

Paris can't seem to make up its mind about Easter. Lots of things are closed today and tomorrow - schools, the BN, the Grands Magasins - but lots of other things are open - museums, local boulangeries, parks. Schools have spring break starting two weeks from now, but people still call it "Easter break," much as they do in the U.S. Flowerbeds are bursting with color but temperatures have been hovering in the upper 40s (Fahrenheit, obvi). Whereas I'd expect everyone to be hunkered down with family obligations today (including a big dinner), I have a rehearsal and a photo shoot scheduled late this afternoon, and no one I know has left town for the long weekend.

Still, it's not like anyone could miss Easter's arrival. Egg-shaped balloons hang from balconies and delectable desserts beckon from storefront windows. Yesterday we stopped by La Grande Epicerie at Le Bon Marché with our most recent visitors, Rebecca and Moritz, and took in the sights and smells.


Happy Easter, everyone!

Belleville en Bio

We think we're pretty lucky to have found a quartier like Belleville. One of the reasons why is that we have our very own organic grocery store right up the street. This comes in handy when searching for specialty items like pure gluten, rye flour, and caraway seeds (all needed to make pumpernickel bagels - coming soon to a Paris blog near you!). Belleville en Bio is another example of the diversity that this area offers. Just across the street you'll also find our favorite Chinese-owned produce stand and further down our favorite halal butcher! 

Fauchon

Looking to save money in Paris by avoiding expensive restaurants and doing your own shopping? Don't go to Fauchon.

Fauchon is hands-down the most decadent gourmet supermarket in Paris, way more decadent than Le Bon Marché Épicerie. For example: with truffles (the mushroom kind) at 3400 euros per kilo, a 50-gram (1.76 oz.) sliver will still cost you 170 euros. Most everything else is similarly overpriced (although not usually so much per kilo). But the presentation is pretty impressive, at least in the boulangerie/patisserie/boucherie/charcuterie building, which is across the street from the restaurant/wine cellar/chocolaterie/épicerie building (which one of our friends referred to as "sterile").


And although we were too sticker-shocked to try one, their pâtisseries look pretty darn good - even amazing.


I'm not so much trying to tell you not to go to Fauchon - if you feel like splurging, or even if you just want to salivate over/complain about incredibly fancy and high-priced food, you should absolutely check it out. But if you're looking for high-quality, native French delicacies and "luxury" products like foie gras, rillettes, chocolates, and wine, go to any of the neighborhood shops you'll walk by on your way to and from the métro every day. Because out-of-control prices, even for the most delicious gourmet food, can leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

Bright Spots during Gray Days

No matter how much the grisaille gets me down, Parisian storefronts never fail to bring cheer and wonder back into my life.


So many colors! Which one is your favorite?

Love the Engrish

I'm not sure what they sell at this store we saw from the bus in Fontainebleau, but whatever it is, I certainly don't want it on sale.

(Just in case you have a hard time reading that, it says "Manhattan Gigolo.")

As for this next one, since we saw it in Le Bon Marché, it must be ok.

Someone likes her sweaters extra-pimply. 

Foodie's Paradise

Over the 13 days that JP and Eden were in town (which coincided with the 8 days my mom and Cathy were here), we engaged in some epic food tourism. Here's a list of most of the places we hit, just so you can get a sense of the sheer magnitude of our consumption. With the exceptions of the places specifically indicated as not recommended, this is a pretty good list of places to eat and buy food during any random visit to Paris. We'll be posting about groups of these places and reviewing individual restaurants in the coming weeks, so don't worry - there's plenty of food photography in store.

Afternoon "Tea"
Ladurée (tea and pastries)
La Maison Berthillon (pastries and ice cream)
Hôtel Crillon (hot chocolate)
Angelina (hot chocolate and pastries)
Mariage Frères (tea and pastries)
Maison des Trois Thés (intense authentic Chinese tea)

Lunch (only the ones worth mentioning)
Così
Le Baratin
Café Trésor
L'As du Falafel

Dinner (* = from Jesse's List)
Fish La Boissonerie*
Coq Ming (do not recommend)
La Cerisaie*
Polidor (famous, but do not recommend)
Nambodaï
Astier*
Hotel Kaiserstein (two meals)

Fine Food Shopping:
La Grande Épicerie (at Le Bon Marché)
Galeries Lafayette Épicerie
Fauchon
Mariage Frères (tea)
Pierre Hermé (macarons)

La Bonbonnerie (chocolaterie across from la Trinité)

Now it's time to rest for four days, eating as much rice, beans, and pasta as possible, so we can do it all over again when Matt gets here Monday . . . (well, maybe we won't do it all over again).

Galeries Lafayette

Sunday made it two weekends in a row that we went on a clothes-shopping adventure. (Last time we hit up Ding Fring, in Belleville.) We went back to Galeries Lafayette, which had been closed the first time we stopped by.

Along with Bon Marché, Printemps, BHV (owned by Galeries Lafayette) and La Samaritaine (closed until 2011), Galeries Lafayette is one of the "Big Five" Parisian department stores that have been around for more than a century. "Department Store" is actually a poor translation; they're more like malls unto themselves. Each has a restaurant, a café, a supermarket, a gourmet épicerie, as well as expansive collections of clothes, kitchen ware, furniture, electronics, media, everything. Galeries Lafayette, for example, is spread out over three huge buildings, one of which is 10-stories tall. Take that, J.C. Penney! Unlike American department stores, there's no sense of "lowest common denominator" in the products offered (sorry, Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfiger fans). Rather, you can find cheap, store-brand stuff, as well as high-fashion, boutique-style items. It's impressive.

Also unlike American department stores, these French department stores haven't done well as franchises, with just a few other locations around the world (including Jean Nouvel's Galeries Lafayette in Berlin). In part, that's because the grandiosity and flash of each store makes it an event as much as a retailer, and that's hard to replicate.

To give you an idea of what I mean, check out the escalator bank of the five-story Galeries Lafayette building (home and kitchen wares, restaurant, café) just across the street from the main one:

Clearly I was dazzled by all the pretty colors and flashing lights, as well as the seemingly-unrelated place names and nouns (Engrish?). Eventually we crossed the street and entered the extension to the main/original building (can you tell this is a big operation?) where we were completed overwhelmed by the throngs of people who had had the same idea: it's Saturday! There are sales (soldes)! Let's go shopping!

Also overwhelming were the smells of the place. After another, less interesting escalator ride, we arrived at the epicenter of odors: the spice table just outside the supermarché:

We still hadn't gotten to the clothes, or the original building. First, we had to cross a skywalk, which (as if not to waste any space) doubled as one of two locations to buy sunglasses. But then, we arrived at the Galeries Lafayette Coupole (dome), and immediately forgot the crowds, the smells, and the terrible dollar-to-euro exchange rate:

Clearly France isn't so far behind the states in terms of the total commercialization of Christmas - even here, the soundtrack in the store was Christmas carols, and it isn't even Thanksgiving (which the French don't celebrate, commercially or otherwise) yet. But gosh, is that dome beautiful - and the tree, too.

We didn't end up buying anything, in part because the crowds were too intense. I guess that means we'll have to go back! (On a weekday. After Christmas. Having left our credit cards at home.)

Today in Belleville

Today, Louis and I visited two nearby places we've been meaning to go to for some time. First, we headed into the 20th arrondisement to check out Ding Fring, a "charity" shop. All the clothes are second-hand (eco-friendly!) and the proceeds go to a charity (Emmaüs). I'm not quite sure what Ding Fring means (pronounced in French it sounds even weirder). We browsed the quite wide selection of pants, dresses, shirts, jackets, and more. Eventually, I tried on three skirts and came out with a red one in solid wool for only 12.50 euros! (Picture of me in the skirt forthcoming.)

The other adventure of the day was an absolutely fabulous dinner at Kiwizine, a restaurant just around the corner on rue Rebeval. The interesting thing about this place is that it's actually a non-profit association, not a restaurant. This means that anyone who eats there must be a member. To become a member, one pays 2 euros. So we did. And it was totally worth it. The restaurant is only open Friday and Saturday, and there are no choices on the menu. Tonight's menu: pumpkin soup with honey and mustard, garnished with cream and fresh parsley; filet of salmon over risotto with mushrooms topped by asparagus wrapped in ham; fondant au chocolat with raspberry sorbet. There are almost no words to describe the deliciousness of this meal. I can only say that we will definitely be going back. Maybe it's a good thing they are only open two days a week!