Food Encounters

On our way home, however, we will buy the evening meal from a choice of five butcher shops, two charcuteries, five bakers, two rôtisseries, a cheese shop, a fish shop, three fruit and vegetable shops and three traîteurs. We will bump into schoolmates, neighbours and teachers. Treats of lollipops, brioche, grapes and slivers of ham will be slipped to my kids as we wait our turn. They will usually dispute some part of the menu, but with such choice before us, a compromise is invariably found. This is the way I want them to learn about food. The way the French do. For in stark contrast to the every-man-for-himself supermarket race, buying food in small shops and at the market is a communal and convivial task.