For this #MarketFriday post, which is an initiative created by @dswigle, I am going to bring you through a typical outdoor food market in France.
The produce in France is really incredible in my opinion. When I first arrived in the country I was actually surprised at how fresh everything was and how flavorful everything tasted.
It was quite common in the begining for me to bring little slices of vegetables to my wife just for her to taste.
I'd shove a handful of cut veggies in her hand and would be like
"Here, taste how good this carrot is. And now try some of the celery. Have you ever tasted anything so good?"
I was kind of like the dead captain in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.
"and now, how about an apple."
One of my favorites things to buy though are radishes. I regularly buy the Cherry Belle radishes for salads but my favorite are the French Breakfast radishes.
I'm not sure if they are available in Canada because I had never seen them before coming to France. I basically knew that I had to try them as soon as I laid eyes on them. The bay leaves as well since they were so fresh looking.
The radishes are really good raw but I actually like to roast them in the oven with butter, shallots and garlic. They are delicious that way.
Seafood is a big thing at the markets as well.
We usually buy salmon when we go and have sort of made it a custom to eat it once a week. We switch it up every once in a while by buying tuna or dorade or rainbow trout, but we mostly stick to salmon.
If I was more adventurous I would try buying some oysters because they always look really good to me when I see them. I like oysters, but I don't know how to shuck them and I don't think my wife would eat them, so it's probably not worth it.
I did try making frogs legs once and thought that they were really good. The market gets them in every few weeks I'd say.
Artichokes were another thing that I had to try after seeing them here.
They were so green and so fresh looking.
and I've never seen one so big before...
I trimmed it up a bit, steamed it and made homemade hollandaise sauce to go with it. The only way I know how to eat them is to pick off a leaf and drag your teeth across it to get a small bit of meat from the plant.
It turned out alright but I don't think I trimmed it enough and I may have overcooked it a little. Some of the leaves were a bit woody and there wasn't as much flavor as I was expecting. I'll have to try again at some point.
Bread and pastries are big at the markets as well. Bakeries in general are super common in France - definitely a cultural thing.
Plants and flowers are always seen in any market as well.
We don't buy a lot of cut flowers normally, just on special occasions...
but we are getting quite the collection of plants in our house. These are just a few of them.
The newest vegetable that I've seen that has perked my interest is Romanesco broccoli.
I'm sure that they are very common in Europe but I had never seen one before moving here.
It's probably the coolest looking vegetable that I've ever seen before though. So spirally. It kind of looks like an alien home planet or something.
Part of the reason I bought one was because I thought it looked like a Christmas tree. I thought it would be sort of christmassy to eat it during the holiday.
I just steamed it and then melted some butter on it with some salt. It tasted like a cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower, so not all that Christmassy but still quite good.
Yeah bro I know what you mean about the romanesco broccoli, the first time I saw one i was like "What the f... is that?"
So psychedelic.
You know what we did as a kid with radishes? You make a cross on the tip with a knife, then open the cross and put a dash of good butter in there, then you dip the radish in "gros sel" mmmmmmhmhhhh
I can't believe nobody reacted on that frog legs picture yet, I was expecting some "eeeeeew" or "yaaaikes"
How was it?
Yes a very trippy vegetable. Proof of the holographic universe lol
That radish trick is interesting. I'll try that.
I liked the frog legs quite a bit actually. I thought they were really good. I would have them again.
The big difference between France and many other places is, they still uphold the ideas of "seasonal", "domestic", and "regional"; even in supermarkets. Although you can get the standardized year-round-fare from Dutch factory greenhouses and Spanish plastic tent deserts, you're not limited to that. That makes for tastier produce WHEN it's available. The anticipation of a seasonal food soon to return to the table is a feeling we have almost lost in our instant gratification societies.
The same goes for meat as well. Most everywhere there is cheap "beef", where the poor animals have been carted across half of Europe to find their end in the lowest wage factory slaughterhouse. In France you can choose to buy cuts of Charolais de Bourgogne (the whitish cows, not fluffy ;-) for the best Boeuf Bourguignon you can possibly bring to the table. Or select juicy Fin Gras beef from Haute-Loire; lightly marbled, delicate, intense; from happy cattle that fed on pasture grass and mountain herbs. And there is a bunch of other breeds whose names you often find even on packaged meat in the supermarket.
These people still care about what they eat, which drives the markets, which is the true secret behind the world famous French cuisine.
In hypermarché or huge supermarkets like Auchun, Leclerc, Géant Casino, Carrefour, Intermarché etc, they spray fruit and veggies with disgusting chemicals to keep them longer. They usually get their produce from far away so better to avoid these toxic poisons and stick to what's either local or organic. And I lived in the South😬 Even our primeur...local fruit and veggie shop, started spraying stuff and I could tell as the taste changed😖 Garlic frog legs are delicious😋 The meat sold under cellophane in these supermarkets are the product of industrial farming🤢 And some supermarkets will trick you into buying meat that's past the DLC (delai limite de consommation) by chopping it up and redistributing the pink on the outside then they just put a new label on it😫 I saw several documentaries on this😬 Better to stick to your local butcher's shop🙏
I agree with you 100%. Supermarket food is industrialized to a high degree and fresh food from local markets and your trusted butcher is always preferrable. I'm not saying that French supermarkets are a paragon of virtue, I'm saying elsewhere it is often worse!
I live in Germany. The offerings of our supermarkets can only be called cheap garbage. Tasteless produce, for example peaches that look beautiful and are DRY, tomatoes that taste of nothing but WATER, pork that smells of fish because the animals are fed fish meal, white bread with notes of plastic...
When I hop over the border to France (10 km for me) I can shop CORA and the quality is that much better, like I described in my original comment. The bread, too, when I buy it. There are several boulangeries artisanales on my way, and their bread is heavenly, but CORA's compares to them not too unfavorably.
The crimes of the "DLC" and inferior ingredients is universal accross the packaged food industry; it's greed, pure and simple. Interestingly, when I hear about food scandals in Germany, it seldom concerns French companies. Most often, Dutch manufacturers / suppliers seem to be involved, even if the end product is made in another country, e.g. here. (Sorry Nederlanders, that's the impression I got over the years.)
Personally, I'm against globalization and against the EU. I would like to have my borders back in Europe. Things were better then. Now there is "BIO" (organic) food from as far away as China. Yeah, we can trust them not to use chemicals...
I've never heard of Cora. We don't have in the South. I often went to Ceraprim (a little expensive), Biocoop, and La Suprette Bio. Nothing from China there. But supermarkets often do get some of their bio from China🤢🤮 In France beware of origines non-EU. But our local markets and neighborhood artisanal stores you can get everything and it doesn't really cost that much because you're eating healthier therefore are eating less. And as they say, less is more😉🙏
Yeah most of the produce in the grocery stores are from France with only a few exceptions. But even with the exceptions there is always a France option as well. It also helps that they have a very long growing season. Even in the winter there are crops being grown - usually hearty crops like Kale or something.
Yeah I hate to even think about the conditions that animals that we eat live in. I essentially swore off meat for about two years after first learning about how the animals were raided and all that. But I have since begun to eat meat again. For me it is hard to stay a vegetarian long term. Tbh I'm actually looking forward to when cultured meat becomes economical.
You are right that it is the consumer that drives the markets.
I love farmer markets, everything looks like it comes straight from the garden.
I often add bay leaves to jams or tea, add more flavors.
and that artichoke is huge, I've never seen anything that big 😂
Yeah farmers markets are great. I've never tried adding bay leaves to tea or jam. That's interesting. I'll have to try that.
Here's a nice article on how to eat the artichoke. https://www.cuisineaz.com/articles/comment-manger-un-artichaut-4509.aspx It stayed a mystery to me for 26 years except the first year when my boyfriend was Breton lol😅 Garlicky frog legs are delicious😋 Southern French markets are the most colourful and probably the thing I miss the most about France🤩 Thanks for the memories💞🙏
Thanks for the instructions. I didn't know that you could eat them raw. That's surprising.
Never tried raw. My ex always ate them steamed with vinaigrette. I love the hearts,but can't waste the rest. The leaves we'd snap off, then bite off the bottom inner side after dipping in vinaigrette. I later gave up and went more toward the asparagus😋 Much easier but a little expensive😅
That's how I eat the leaves as well. They can be a bit woody though lol
Taking a walk down the markets in France especially over the weekends is such a treat! Thank you for giving us a dose of that through your post. The lure to sit by the roadside table and chairs in one of the café's /brasseries for either a pint or a cup of café allongé (sigh).
You hit the nail right on the head. We brought (ahem smuggled) seeds from France and tried growing them in both Dubai and the Philippines. In Dubai we managed to grow those exact radishes with good imported garden soil, they were not bad but the taste was not nearly as good as those in France. When we tried them here in the Philippines in an agricultural town, they grew but they tasted bad. Horrible even. It seems the tropical climate and the soil quality changed the taste drastically.
That's interesting that the taste would change that much. I'm surprised, but I suppose it also makes sense given it's a different climate. I think the main reason everything is so good is because the produce is picked when it is ready to be eaten and then brought to the local markets and supermarkets right away, so everything is fresh and ripe. Very little is imported from other countries. When produce is imported it is often picked before its ready and then it ripened on a truck, which is not the same. Chemicals like Ethylene is used to ripen vegetables as well. So I think the key I that the produce is local and not imported. I always find that tomatoes grown at home taste better than store bought - that is, if I'm consistent in taking care of them, which is typically not the case hahaha 😝
"Oh crap, I should check to see if the tomatoes need water!"
The soil is dried to the bone and the tomato leaves are turning brown...
"Well I guess I'll go buy some tomatoes are the grocery store" 😆
I very well agree that homegrown veg and fruits are the tastiest. Yes, the prime ripeness timing in picking and offering them also makes a huge difference.
Oh no, hope your tomato plant recovers.
Haha, it happens. 😆
The first time we saw Romanesco Broccolo was Italy. There was green ones and purple ones if I'm not mistaken. Yeah man, we cooked with them regularly.
Your article got me going. I miss markets like that. Just yesterday she was reminding me we're doing Christmas in Greece this year. Have you seen markets there yet? Just as impressive as where you are.
But the fresh fish I could've done without. We're scheduled to be outta this landlocked state in April. Until then or unless these devices advance enough you can text message me a couple pounds, wipe your lucky ass with fresh fish!
I think they are sometimes called Italian broccoli actually. I haven't seen the purple ones before. I've seen purple cauliflower though which I imagine is very similar.
We haven't been to Greece yet so I haven't seen the markets there. You'll have to take photos and do a post when you go so I can see them.
Reminds me of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory lol
Great post! I did see Romanesco broccoli before and it reminded me a little bit of Christmas but i didt know why. Know i have the answer from you:D
Haha yeah it looks like a Christmas tree to me.
beautyful picks, i love it 😍😍
Great! I'm glad you enjoyed it
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