Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [127]
* As noted in the introduction, mealtimes in France—whether at restaurants or in food shops—are generally well established and adhered to, even in Paris. Other than at cafés and brasseries, which typically serve food and drink continuously, by two in the afternoon lunch service is over and patrons will not be admitted (or if they are, there won’t be much food left to offer). This is easy enough to grasp, but less clear is when lunchtime officially begins. Mark Greenside, in I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do), recounts the following: “At 12:00 virtually every French person not serving food in Gare Montparnasse stops whatever he or she is doing and starts to eat. By 12:05 not a single chair, table, bench, or horizontal surface is empty. There are lines—actually wedges, the French don’t make lines—thirty and forty people deep waiting to buy a sandwich or a Coke or their ubiquitous bottle of water.… At 11:55 we could have sat anywhere and bought anything. By 12:05 there’s no place to go. I haven’t seen anything like it since the piranha tank at the Brooklyn Aquarium.” This is not unique to France—I’ve had very similar and more stark experiences in Greece, for example—but is nonetheless worth noting.
A Passion for Pâtisseries
When I was a student, I established a Sunday routine that I loved: go to the Louvre at opening time (it was free on Sundays), stay for about three hours, and go to a pâtisserie, preferably a different one each week. As I couldn’t afford to eat both lunch and dessert, on Sundays I would eschew lunch for the full pâtisserie experience, which for me was a café crème and a treat (or sometimes two) of my choice. My only rule was that I couldn’t repeat the treat I ordered for at least one month, which ensured I would try all the pâtisserie classics: Paris-Brest, religieuses, macarons, croissants, brioches, profiteroles, financiers, éclairs, kugelhopf, Napoléons, etc. (I felt it was important that I be familiar with the classics, since at that time the only French pastries I’d ever heard of, or eaten, were éclairs, which of course everyone back home pronounced with a long e.) I often think longingly of this Sunday tradition, and though at my age now I’m no longer able to enjoy pâtisserie treats so frequently, I usually try to sample a pâtisserie a day when I visit Paris—by eating sensibly, this is really not a weight-gaining indulgence.
The pastries at even the most humble pâtisseries in Paris are an art. Even if you use your waistline as an excuse not to indulge at all (such a shame, I say), at least admire the pastry creations in the windows. And don’t forget that most of these pâtisseries all have beautifully packaged treats that make great gifts (just be careful what you choose in the hot summer months). I find many pâtisseries to be truly intoxicating, and I am equally fond of legendary places and less exalted pastry shops. I seek these out and incorporate them into my daily itineraries the same way I plan visits to restaurants and cafés. You’ll make your own discoveries, of course, but for a good selection of memorable pâtisseries in one source, I think the best book is Paris Pâtisseries: History, Shops, Recipes (Flammarion, 2010)—I use the word “best” because, as the editor notes, “in this book we only show the best, the truly exceptional.” And so you’ll find Pâtisserie Stohrer, Pain du Sucre, Fauchon, Ladurée, Gérard Mulot, Lenôtre, Laurent Duchêne, Dalloyau, Du Pain et des Idées, Blé Sucré, Pierre Hermé, and others. The book includes the history of each bakery, up-close photographs of some desserts that give the word “mouthwatering” new meaning, and the pâtisseries’ specialties, ranging from classics to newfangled favorites destined to become classics; plus there are twenty-five recipes and other favorite addresses. “The stories conveyed by desserts,” the editor notes, “are stories of nostalgic affection that become part of family lore.… Parisians are always ready to cross the city from one end to the other to fetch