Remembrance of Things Paris

by Gourmet Magazine Editors

  The bar is crowded with truck drivers and white-coated “forts des Halles,” or porters, refreshing themselves with vin blanc or café exprès. In the rear, a two-piece combo is already in action. About now the haunts of the haut monde are closing and the night owls begin drifting in. The place is as crowded as a Brueghel canvas, the long tables that ring the dance floor filled by theatergoers, tourists, actors, and assorted refugees from the clubs of Montmartre.

  The ambiance is irresistible. “Why do you pass me by,” the guitarist sings. “Our time is short, our love is young …” Then comes a rollicking parody on “Mademoiselle de Paris.” The crowd sings familiar chansons in chorus or claps hands in unison. Between numbers everyone eats grilled pig’s feet or onion soup.

  By three in the morning, The Smoking Dog is jammed. But now the din outside is heard, as if some gigantic carnival had begun. Les Halles are open for business.

  The trucks have been emptied and the bounty of all the French provinces is on display. The giant “forts” shuttle through the narrow alleys with heavy burdens of meat, vegetables, or dairy products. Produce-laden pushcarts dodge in and out, amidst swelling cacophony.

  On the rue Carême—the central avenue of Les Halles named, appropriately enough, for the famous chef—an infinite variety of meats and foodstuffs fills the stalls, congests the walkways, and spills into the streets. There are succulent volailles de Bresse, hams from Bayonne, rillettes from Tours, fruits de mer from Brittany and the Riviera, marbled filets from Norman cattle.

  There are stalls upon stalls of triperies, specializing in tripe, liver, and oxtails; of volaillers selling pheasants and ortolans as well as more common birds, and of boucheries chevalines selling the horse meat of which Parisians are so fond. Restaurateurs are doing their daily buying, selecting entrecôtes, picking over mounds of cabbages and cauliflowers, eggplants and tomatoes, arguing about price, quality, and measure.

  Farther along, in a slightly less crowded section of the market, we find the peaks of gourmandise: cheeses of the Jura, baskets of huge black truffles, pots of foie gras from the Périgord, luscious beribboned stalks of asparagus, and fraises des bois, tiny wild strawberries. Everywhere the abundance of France, arranged with a sensuous love of symmetry and color, assails the nostrils, dazzles the eyes, and stirs the appetite.

  Dawn is on its way now. The bargaining grows more frenetic, the tempers shorter. Refuse accumulates as stocks decline. Soon the greengrocers and housewives will descend upon the market to haggle over what is left. Then the carters and grinders of refuse and bones take over.

  If I spend a night at Les Halles, by this time I am getting hungrier every minute. However, on my last visit, awed by the immensity of the spectacle, I deferred the usual omelette au lard. The Office Central des Halles was just a couple of stalls away and I had questions to ask, so I sought out the Commissaire.

  “Monsieur le Commissaire,” I asked, “how many tons of fruits and vegetables pass through Les Halles on an average day in May, for example?”

  The Commissaire rustled through some papers before coming up with an answer: 4,374 tons.

  “But, of course,” he said, “fruits and vegetables account for only about half the total tonnage passing through, and the figures are much higher at peak season.”

  The tonnage reflects the fact that Les Halles serve some eight million people. About one third of the amount goes back to the provinces, with generous profits to middlemen and handling charges tacked on. This situation causes many French housewives anguish, for a two-cent-a-pound rise in the price of beef is a real blow in the solar plexus. Government efforts to decentralize Les Halles have thus far failed, probably because of the pressure that their 1,620 concessionaires have been able to exert in French politics.

  “Another question, Monsieur le Commissaire,” I said archly. “Isn’t this an expensive operation? Isn’t the government going to abolish Les Halles?”

  This was too much. “Mon Dieu,”he exclaimed. “Of course it’s expensive. But do away with Les Halles? That’s ridiculous.” Then he added firmly, “The markets, they are traditionnels.”

  I got the picture. Necessity or menace, Les Halles are likely to remain, for they are part of a way of life. Governments rise and governments fall, but Les Halles go on forever.

  As I leave the Office Central des Halles, every avenue, every alley, and every impasse is solid with vehicles. The forty gendarmes assigned to Les Halles are having their problems. The rue de la Ferronnerie is blocked as it was on the hot humid day in 1610 when Henry IV was assassinated there, his carriage stalled between two vendors’ carts that had been overturned in the narrow lane. The rue Saint-Denis, the royal road to Paris, is a mass of outraged vehicular traffic.

  “Well, that’s life at Les Halles,” I thought. And now for that omelette au lard …

  For those who are not attracted to The Smoking Dog, there remain the regional restaurants of Les Halles. The Pharamond, at 24, rue de la Grande-Truanderie, has opened at daybreak since 1832 to sell small containers of its specialty, tripes à la mode de Caen, to local marketers. But during the dinner hour the soft banquettes of this brightly tiled Norman restaurant are crowded with a discriminating clientele, drawn to the Pharamond by this same spécialité. Here is the recipe for tripe after the fashion of Caen as transcribed by chef Henri Guilhem.

  TRIPES À LA MODE DE CAEN

  Simmer 1 veal shank in water to cover until it is tender and drain it, reserving the stock. Put the shank in a large earthenware casserole. Sauté 4 large carrots, 4 stalks of celery, and 3 large onions, all sliced, in ¼ cup butter until the vegetables are translucent and arrange them on and around the meat. Cover the vegetables with 4 pounds tripe, previously rinsed in cold water 3 times and cut into 2-inch squares. Sprinkle each layer of tripe with salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Add a bouquet garni composed of 6 sprigs of parsley, 3 bay leaves, 2 sprigs of marjoram, and a sprig of thyme. Pour 1½ cups white wine, 1 cup Calvados, and the reserved veal stock over all. There should be enough liquid to cover the tripe. Seal the lid with a roll of dough made of flour and water. Bake the casserole in a very slow oven (260°F) for 6 hours or longer. Serve in the casserole accompanied by a green salad and French bread. Serves 8.

  Of course, if hearty Alsatian fare is more to your taste, you may prefer L’Alsace aux Halles. Jutting out into the rue Coquillière at the angle of the rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this chalet-styled brasserie, with its scenic murals of Alsace, provides a grandstand seat overlooking Mushroom Alley. You can sit and watch the vendors peddling every variety of mushroom, from the tiny button champignons de Paris to the giant cèpes of gourmet cookery. And Maître Robert, formerly of the S.S. Normandie, will enlighten you on the characteristics of mushrooms, on Alsatian cookery, and on the lore of Les Halles.

  Here is the recipe for that great Alsatian specialty, choucroute garnie, just as it is prepared in great porcelain-lined casseroles atop the range at L’Alsace.

  CHOUCROUTE GARNIE

  (Sauerkraut L’Alsace aux Halles)

  Line the bottom of a casserole with 1 pound salt pork. Add 3 onions, each stuck with 1 clove, a few juniper berries and caraway seeds, and 1½ pounds sauerkraut. Sprinkle with black pepper and finely chopped garlic. On the sauerkraut arrange 3 pounds smoked pork and sprinkle once more with pepper and garlic. Arrange another 1½ pounds sauerkraut on the pork and cover with 1 pound thinly sliced bacon. Pour 3 cups thin consommé and 1 bottle Champagne over all, cover the casserole tightly, and simmer for 1 hour. Remove the smoked pork, recover the casserole, and simmer for 4 hours. Return the smoked pork to the casserole along with 1 pound thinly sliced ham, 6 Knackwürste, 6 cervelat sausages, and a few truffle slices. Cover the casserole and cook the choucroute garnie for 30 minutes longer. Serves 8.

  Perhaps it’s the Champagne touch, but this hearty fare of the burghers of Strasbourg is one of the most succulent dishes in all France. Don’t miss the province of Alsace if you can help it, but if you can’t, there’s always L’
Alsace aux Halles.

  The third and last restaurant of this little tour of the markets isn’t regional, but on its elegant little menu you’ll find many great regional specialties: suprême de barbue bordelaise, grenouilles provençale, and côte de veau jurassienne, to name but a few. The great golden snail perched over the door of 38, rue Montorgueil identifies this restaurant as L’Escargot-Montorgueil.

  The emphasis at L’Escargot is, naturally, on snails, and a snail restaurant has existed on this spot since the reign of Henry II. As its fame spread through the years, other “snails” opened all over Paris: The Snail of Gold, The Snail of the Butte, The Snail Grégoire, The Gilded Snail.

  The original Escargot was slow to fight back, but a few years ago, in self-defense, it became L’Escargot-Montorgueil. Resplendent in its rococo fin de siècle décor, it is probably the best-known snail and seafood restaurant in Paris. The great and famous of many eras have made their way up squeaking spiral staircases to the private rooms upstairs. Today, Rolls-Royces and vendors’ carts compete for parking space at L’Escargot.

  The average patron, plucking a juicy Burgundian snail from its shell, probably hasn’t the slightest idea of the toil that has gone into making it so eminently edible. One night at L’Escargot, Maître Gabriel Pacaud gave us the inside story of the trimmings, washings, scaldings, and simmerings through which the snails pass before they are ready to be returned to their shells. Our recipe, for Americans, assumes that the snails have been so processed before they reach the kitchen.

  LES ESCARGOTS BOURGUIGNONNE

  (Burgundy Snails)

  Allow 12 snails for each serving. Cream 1¼ cups butter with 1 teaspoon olive oil and blend in 1 tablespoon parsley, 2 teaspoons shallot, and 1 teaspoon tarragon, all finely chopped, and salt and pepper to taste. Place a small amount of the seasoned butter in each snail shell, replace the snail, and seal the opening with a thick coat of the butter. Put the snails on snail dishes or on a flat baking pan and set them in a moderate oven (350°F) for 6 or 7 minutes, or until they are heated through and the butter is melted. Serve very hot.

  The snails, accompanied by a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé, and followed up with chateaubriand béarnaise, pommes soufflées, and a fine Bordeaux—perhaps a Haut-Brion—make an auspicious beginning for a night in Les Halles, especially for those with a fondness for the atmosphere of bygone days.

  Spend a night at Les Halles, savoring the riches of French cuisine, French gaiety, and French history. Then you may agree with Monsieur le Commissaire: “Of course they’re expensive, but vive Les Halles!”

  December 1961

  LES HALLES: A LAST LOOK

  Naomi Barry

  The string beans were packed in an ordinary wooden crate, the type of light wooden box you see in any grocery store. They were very special beans, however. Having been picked so young, they were almost as fine as blades of marsh grass, and their selection had been so careful that they were uniformly slender. Someone had tenderly laid them in the crate in an even basketry pattern. Then, with a burst of good humor, this unknown genius had looked at the carefully braided beans and decided a little touch was lacking. So he, or more probably she, punctuated the top layer at regular intervals with the smiling head of a yellow-and-white daisy.

  What a court presentation to tempt a grocer gathering his supplies in the dark hours of the predawn! We are accustomed to ribbons for bonbons, but furbelows for a bean?

  However, all this took place in Les Halles of Paris, the city where food and dressmaking were raised to the twin pinnacles of haute cuisine and haute couture, both as respected as any of the fine arts.

  These particular halles (the word simply means markets) were the most gigantic, historic, robust, amusing, and artistic in the world. The constructions of fruits and vegetables were a fantasia. At eleven P.M.you saw nothing but bare pavements. By one A.M.you walked between embankments of onions, past turrets of tomatoes, through alleys of lettuce. Cabbages were massed in bulwarks, but the more fragile peaches were cosseted in cotton batting.

  My particular love has always been the watercress. Tiny bunches were delicately arranged until they formed wreaths as large as life preservers. The leafy rings were placed with infinite care, one above the other, in baskets high as your waist. No packing down. The heat of crowding would have killed the fragile cress. But who was the anonymous peasant with the soul of an artist who devised the rapturous solution of a wreath?

  With a pang of nostalgia, I am already using the past tense. In the beginning of 1969, this gorgeous, paradoxical, centuries-old ephemeral garden, which vanished each morning only to reappear again each night, will fade away for good. Les Halles are being forced out of Paris. The city has become too big. Its streets are a distemper of traffic, without even counting the additional four thousand food trucks choking the heart of town, where the roads are so narrow they must have been jammed even in the days of carts. Les Halles, iron-corseted in a colorful Casbah of fish, fruit, and fowl, have become an anachronism. They make as much twentieth-century sense as pushcarts and stands in the middle of Times Square during rush hour. (At that, there are many who might cheer it as an improvement.) After more than ten years of argqments, negotiations, stalling, and lobbying, the gavel has come down. Paris can no longer support the oasis that bloomed on stone. Les Halles must move to a no-place called Rungis, ten kilometers outside of town, near Orly Airport.

  Recently, I made a farewell sentimental journey through Les Halles. It was all color and smell: square fortresses of pale-green and pearl-white leeks; feathery ferns topping carrots, suggestive of the headdress plumes at the nearby Folies-Bergère; small, innocent-looking ivory melons with mint stripes, and only an incredible aroma to tell you of the refreshing juicy flesh within; eggplants, purple, sleek-skinned, a shape to fondle, the most sensual of vegetables.

  Every turning was a delight: impudent scarlet radishes with white bunny-tail bottoms, gathered small for extra sweetness; the intoxicating fragrance of thousands of raspberries, picked only after they had tasted the full passion of the sun; neat little bundles of chives; mangoes flown in from Mali; avocados flown in from Israel; pineapples from the Azores; and hot red peppers from Spain. Produce from near and produce from far, coming by ship, by plane, by truck for the Belly of Paris.

  All products were sized with precision. A basket of button mushrooms meant button mushrooms right down to the hidden bottom row, and a bushel of peas was as uniform as if each one had been sprung out of the same pod. A restaurateur in Grenoble could order four hundred ducklings for a banquet and know that he would receive four hundred ducklings, each weighing five hundred grams.

  The huge trucks crawled through the maze of ancient streets arriving from Brittany, from Belgium, from Holland, from the Mediterranean. Moving like remote-control toys, they pulled up to their appointed stations, nothing but coded chalk marks on the sidewalk. With incredible and silent speed, the contents were discharged into waiting brawny arms. In a twinkling began the erection of the mounds, the pyramids, the still-life displays. The whole ballet was beautiful. Woe unto you, if in your openmouthed admiration you were impeding the structure of a scallion skyscraper. Your French would have to be very good to understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable.

  While I enjoyed a regiment of enormous artichokes scandalously tipped with purple, I was reminded in a far-fetched way of a four-masted schooner, a training ship for naval cadets, I once saw sail proudly into the harbor of Hamilton, Bermuda. Suddenly the shore seethed with people. There was a single collective lump in the throat before those romantic billowing sails. It was a world of grace and drama few of us had ever expected to see; most likely we would never see its equal. The roistering, jolly, earthy loveliness of Les Halles belongs to such not-to-be-forgotten and sadly lamented lost worlds.

  I have a kaleidoscope of memories. One joyous morning about three A.M.,ten years ago, a wholesaler let me “sell” his apples. Mixed in with the buyers came a rollicking band of fashionables. Among th
em was Mary Jane Poole, of Vogue, who also had a suppressed desire to sell apples.

  Our boss was as enchanted with his two américaines as a producer who had unexpectedly discovered two hit stars. Les Halles may have been serious business, but it was always a lot of fun. When we finished our stint, we accompanied the market people for dinner at dawn.

  There always was an exceptional camaraderie. So much handshaking went on, you’d think you were at a reunion of bankers. Hello, good-bye, handshake. Two hundred kilos of oranges. Handshake. Thirty turbot. Handshake. “My little chickadee, your cheeks are roses tonight.” Pinch at the cheek of the smiling lady fishmonger, crimson with cold. Handshake. Buyers and sellers had known each other for years, in fair weather and foul.

  Transactions were made in a whisper, a habit that goes back to a consideration when the buildings surrounding Les Halles were residential. During the trading hours of the night, families were sleeping. (The buildings are still there but in recent years the apartments have become offices.) When a deal was made, a piece of paper was given. Payment was to a group of cash desks at the end of a buying tour.

  Fortunate restaurant owners with wives devoted enough to join them on a tour of duty were able to divide the work and shorten the time spent. The men would select the supplies they required for the day while the wives would trot off to the cashiers.

  One night I accompanied the fruit and vegetable buyer of Fauchon, the most luxurious fancy grocer of Paris, on the Place de la Madeleine. No wonder their merchandise is so exceptional. The vendors in Les Halles never even put their finest commodities on the market until he had passed by. If he shook his head, the item was put on sale for others, but not until he had made his choice.