[Here are the two latest batches of photos:
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=41321172842757557/l=249642553/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=951201174410283660/l=249866127/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB ]
France just isn’t the country I thought it was and it seems just about every week there is something that takes my expectations and tosses them out the nearest “window”. This last week was no exception.
On a tip from our DC friend Meg, we decided to attend the French Agricultural Fair. I thought that this was my chance to make up for missing the Montgomery County Fair. The poster in the Paris metro had an enormous and very cute cow on it, but it was inside the city limits, so my expectations were low. But, it sounded like a great afternoon, one of the French Presidential Candidates was slated to visit on the day we were going and I heard there was a great food tent.
Well, I really underestimated the French this time. I should have known that any country that takes its food and wine so seriously would have to then take its agriculture seriously. As it turns out this event is so well attended, approximately 1:10 Frenchman will attend it!
First, the livestock—we visited the building with cows, sheep, goats, and pigs. Who would have guessed that the largest cow I’ve ever seen would be in Paris? (this is no small feat considering I did grow up in Indiana).
They had cows of every variety, each one seemingly more enormous than the previous. They also even had a special place for “the Poster cow”, so we saw him too. In a true Parisian twist, several of the larger cows were being sketched by art students.
The piglets were very cute, as usual, and the sausage stand a mere 25 feet from the pigs was a reminder of the circle of life. The goats and sheep weren’t particularly noteworthy, but I did enjoy the sheep dog who was rounding them up in the arena.
Admittedly though, we skipped the dog/chicken/horse building and the other 5 buildings of exhibits (gardening, tools, etc, etc, etc), to get to the good stuff aka—the food buildings. There was food from every region of France (which might as well be different countries in their own right gastronomically) and all of the French territories (say what you will about deciding French influence, but there are still a LOT of little places that speak French out there).
We enjoyed raw scallops and a special cake (that is pretty much butter, sugar and more butter) from Brittany, oysters from the coast, foie gras, boar sausage, caramel, cheese from all over, the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted that was a hand cranked coconut sorbet from the Tahiti area, banana rum (from Martinique) and wine from the Bordeaux region. Though I adore county fairs back in the States, I think the French version of the fair wins on the wine tasting area alone.
We did limit ourselves (so as to be able to make it through the rest of the fair), but it was really fun to chat wine with sellers who don’t even sell their wine in Paris (though we did ask often if they distributed to the states and /or Nebraska—though I’m not sure any of them had ever heard of Nebraska. CK/AK, we’re the Corkscrew Parisian scouting team. J)
We left happily full of all of France’s goodness (or at least as much as we could enjoy in 6 hours). Paris may be a city of cigarette smoking, café sitting, politics talking people, but they are a people who know really still connect with the country, if only at times for the food and I was happy to be counted among these Parisians for a wee bit.
sPg
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=41321172842757557/l=249642553/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=951201174410283660/l=249866127/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB ]
France just isn’t the country I thought it was and it seems just about every week there is something that takes my expectations and tosses them out the nearest “window”. This last week was no exception.On a tip from our DC friend Meg, we decided to attend the French Agricultural Fair. I thought that this was my chance to make up for missing the Montgomery County Fair. The poster in the Paris metro had an enormous and very cute cow on it, but it was inside the city limits, so my expectations were low. But, it sounded like a great afternoon, one of the French Presidential Candidates was slated to visit on the day we were going and I heard there was a great food tent.
Well, I really underestimated the French this time. I should have known that any country that takes its food and wine so seriously would have to then take its agriculture seriously. As it turns out this event is so well attended, approximately 1:10 Frenchman will attend it!
First, the livestock—we visited the building with cows, sheep, goats, and pigs. Who would have guessed that the largest cow I’ve ever seen would be in Paris? (this is no small feat considering I did grow up in Indiana).They had cows of every variety, each one seemingly more enormous than the previous. They also even had a special place for “the Poster cow”, so we saw him too. In a true Parisian twist, several of the larger cows were being sketched by art students.
The piglets were very cute, as usual, and the sausage stand a mere 25 feet from the pigs was a reminder of the circle of life. The goats and sheep weren’t particularly noteworthy, but I did enjoy the sheep dog who was rounding them up in the arena.Admittedly though, we skipped the dog/chicken/horse building and the other 5 buildings of exhibits (gardening, tools, etc, etc, etc), to get to the good stuff aka—the food buildings. There was food from every region of France (which might as well be different countries in their own right gastronomically) and all of the French territories (say what you will about deciding French influence, but there are still a LOT of little places that speak French out there).
We enjoyed raw scallops and a special cake (that is pretty much butter, sugar and more butter) from Brittany, oysters from the coast, foie gras, boar sausage, caramel, cheese from all over, the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted that was a hand cranked coconut sorbet from the Tahiti area, banana rum (from Martinique) and wine from the Bordeaux region. Though I adore county fairs back in the States, I think the French version of the fair wins on the wine tasting area alone.
We did limit ourselves (so as to be able to make it through the rest of the fair), but it was really fun to chat wine with sellers who don’t even sell their wine in Paris (though we did ask often if they distributed to the states and /or Nebraska—though I’m not sure any of them had ever heard of Nebraska. CK/AK, we’re the Corkscrew Parisian scouting team. J)We left happily full of all of France’s goodness (or at least as much as we could enjoy in 6 hours). Paris may be a city of cigarette smoking, café sitting, politics talking people, but they are a people who know really still connect with the country, if only at times for the food and I was happy to be counted among these Parisians for a wee bit.
sPg
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