Jaunted Embedded Travel Guide: Paris Markets
6/29/2007 at 2:05 PM
Tags: Paris Tours, Markets, Monica Guy, Embedded Travel Guides (all tags)
Nobody loves the weekly supermarket run, even in Paris.
But we all love a good market. Take a load of food that's normally available at your local superstore, clean and neatly packaged, placed at convenient heights on labelled shelves and surrounded by helpful recipes and appropriate sauces.
Now remove the items that are out of season, let a few of each go mouldy, cover everything over with a light covering of dust or mud, stand them in the sun for half a day, then arrange them randomly in rows under plastic covered stalls in overcrowded streets.
Food shopping suddenly becomes a lot more of an attractive prospect. Even something you'd want to do on your holiday.
Everyone loves a good French market.
The English, like myself, love them so much we import them for a few days at a time. Special English-only French markets, where the French sell off all their old and gone-off produce, the pots of strange home-made jam nobody else wants, and the weirdly shaped smelly sausages men buy as amusing novelty presents for their boss's leaving do.
It's not a myth that French markets are popular, or great fun. But there are plenty of myths. Allow me to wave my one-euro bargain fell-off-the-back-of-a-lorry feather duster in the air and dispel a few.
French markets sell only local produce
Not unless Indonesian fish are now to be found floating around in the Mediterranean, or Chinese pak choi growers are setting up shop in the French countryside.
French markets are cheap
I managed to buy a 250g slice of perfectly moulding sheep's cheese for 14 euros 38 centimes last week. Beat that. My boyfriend chucked it away while I was in the shower, on the grounds that it had gone mouldy. If you're browsing the flea and antique markets in search of novelty gifts and souvenirs, you're better off going for a plastic Eiffel tower any day.
French markets are French
Here's the biggest myth of them all. Ninety per cent of market traders are not of French origin, on the grounds that born and bred Parisians are getting too lazy to get up at 5am on a Sunday morning when someone else can do it for them. In central food markets like Place Monge and at the popular flea markets, ninety per cent of the buyers are tourists. A Parisian wouldn't be seen dead haggling over the price of a dented tin soldier or a broken tea-pot.
The best food markets are actually those furthest from the centre.
People have less money, so the prices go down. They sell weirder looking sausages and mouldier cheese, so they must be more genuine. You can find these food markets in any area of Paris - ask a local when and where the nearest ones are.
But you have to prepare carefully.
You have to have enough change in various pockets to sink a small galleon. You have to be wheeling a big trolley bag. You know, the ones with two wheels and a tartan plastic cover, the ones your grandma uses when she pops down the shops? Indispensable for running over other shoppers' feet when they're in your way. One day, when I'm brave enough or in a real hurry to get the shopping done, I shall stick rotating razor blades on the wheels of the trolley. That'll shift'em.
Now, I'm the kind of person who just loves a good bargain. Especially a second hand one. Garage sales, clearance sales, bargain basements, the lot. I pride myself in judging better than the previous owner whether his stuff is such an old piece of crap that he'd rather sell it to some loser for 50 cents than actually give it a decent disposal. So I jumped in excitement at the idea of a day at the self-proclaimed mother of all markets, Les Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen - Porte-de-Clignancourt.
Apparently there are over 3500 market traders here, along with more useless old broken rubbish than in any other flea market in the world. It's not actually a market, but a whole load of streets filled with dirty shops, dirty stalls, and dirty people. Selling dirty goods. The Mayor recently changed the dame of nearby rue des Gardes to `rue de la Mode' in an attempt to attract young designers, but don't be fooled. A rose by any other name...and this street doesn't smell much of roses.
Conversations go a bit like this:
Me: I like that flowery porcelain head you've got there. What's it for?
Trader: It's an antiquated antique head of the finest Egyptian porcelain with an elaborate stylised floral design, and right now it's on special offer at 867 euros.
Me: Right, right. But what's it for?
Trader: It's been carefully preserved since the fall of the Roman empire as a unique part of the national heritage, a bargain at just 564 euros.
Me: Hmmm, yes, I see. Can you use if for anything?
Trader: I tell you what, mademoiselle, I'll do you a special deal, don't tell the others, two for the price of one.
Me: Yes, well, two heads are better than one, I guess. I'm just not sure I'd find an appropriate use for them...
Trader: Okay, okay. You got me. It's a scoop - you take them right now, I'll give you 50 euros and you can have a free ornamental toilet antique bowl. And the mouldy sofa it's sitting on. Can't say fairer than that. I'll even throw in some gift wrap. What do you say?
Me: Erm, no thanks.
Apart from having a silly name and being in a really inconvenient bloody area, the Les Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen - Porte-de-Clignancourt over did it for me. You know how you used to love peach schnaps until one night you drank just a bit too much and...? Well, it's the same for me and markets now. Can't touch the stuff.
So where did you say Ikea was again?
*****
Monica Guy lives in Paris, writes for Time Out, and keeps a low profile, like any true femme fatale. In fact, most people don't even realize she's a femme fatale. She's been told to upload her avatar, but she's not sure who or what that is, or why she might want one. Unless he's in a pilot's suit, that is. That would be quite another matter.
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