The Proof is In the Pudding

Pudding Aisle

France: the land of cheese, baguettes, crêpes, wine, and of course, ham. French cuisine is so romanticized that a foreigner knows which food items to expect to see in Paris upon arrival. And yes, Paris is all of those things- boulangeries with rows of fresh bread, charcuteries with red rainbows of sausage, and little crêpe stands and sandwich shops that appear on street corners with the frequency of Starbucks in New York.
Those are the big-picture things about food in Paris. However, because my experience here isn’t confined to a two-week tourist’s visit, I am getting to notice the smaller things about French eating habits. It’s salad, wonderful, fresh, do-it-yourself, to-go New York deli salad that I miss most about home. Four toppings for $6.50, your choice, all in a divine plastic to-go container! Here, if you want a decent salad, you’re going to have to sit down at a brasserie/bistro/café and pay 12 Euro for a lovely Nicoise that would be enough food for two days. Imagine choosing your dressing! No, in France, things are on the menu as is. You eat what they put in front of you. If you ask them for no anchovies, they’ll do it, but be prepared to get the exasperated French look reserved for fussy American customers.
But all salads aside, you’ve gotta hand it to the French- their food is really good. Personally, I’m a sucker for the quiche, the onion soup, and anything fish. Their sushi restaurants are generally very good, although France must be the only country to have cheese sushi on the menu. Blech.
It’s the quotidian experience of going to the grocery store and trying to reconcile my American palate with French merchandise that is most enlightening in terms of learning about French eating habits. My roommate and I have the good fortune of living directly across the street from a Franprix, a medium-sized French supermarket known for its low prices. Nothing tells you about the differences in the daily minutia of a culture quite like a trip to the grocery store.
Aisle 1: Produce. Not the best at Franprix, I usually save the fruits-and-veggies shopping for a trip to Monoprix or those cute little French produce stands (which are obviously more expensive). Note to France: I miss seedless grapes. Please get some.
Aisle 2: Pudding. The French supermarket’s selection of yogurts and puddings is pure insanity. I didn’t even realize the French were so into pudding. I didn’t even realize there was so much pudding in existence on this planet, and there it all is in the supermarkets of France. I guess the French love for pudding is emblematic of their love for creamy, homogenized foods: pureed soups, butter, fondue cheese.
Aisle 3: Dairy. The best eggs I have ever tasted in my life. What do they feed the chickens? I think I might stay here just for the eggs… or hire a French chicken farmer to come home with me. Oddly, though, they don’t refrigerate their eggs. What’s up with that?
Also, there is an extensive selection of packaged cheeses. For the true French experience, visit a Fromagerie, cheese store. Be prepared for strong odors.
Aisle 4: Breads and “crackers”. Yes, the French do have sliced sandwich bread. Although, when you buy a loaf, they pre-remove the two end pieces, which are usually the part you throw out anyway. When the French make sandwiches out of it, they cut off the crusts. They have some kind of aversion to the crusty part of American sandwich bread.
The French “cracker” isn’t really a cracker at all; it’s more of a toasted piece of bread. Note to France: I miss crackers.
Aisle 5: Wine. The only truly cheap thing in all of Paris. You can get a decent bottle of wine for 2 euro and a good bottle for 6 euro.
Let’s skip to the back of the store.
Have you ever heard the reason why they keep the milk at the back of the supermarkets in the US?
Supposedly, it’s to get the customer to walk through the rest of the store before s/he gets to the essential stuff.
Can you guess what they keep in the back of the French supermarket?
Ah, the Jambon. Ham, ham, and more ham. Ham every way you can imagine it prepared: smoked, sliced, diced, roasted, dried, and fried ham. The only thing more impressive in this supermarket is the crazy pudding aisle.