Ptipois

As far as my experience goes, neither of them do anything for the flavor. Cirons do make the edges of the cheese mealier and bitter, which is not particularly interesting. Some primitive cheeses like the delicious fourme de Valcivière have rinds that are so heavily eaten by mites that they feel soft and fuzzy to the touch. On the two photos below you may see some fourmes de Valcivière I saw at the Aurillac Européennes du Goût festival last July. It is a rare cheese not unlike fourme d'Ambert but the taste is closer to Stilton. These are heavily attacked by mites, which you can clearly see by the texture of the rind. The second photo shows the cut cheese, with the slightly translucent heart (fourme d'Ambert looks more opaque) and you see how deep the worm territory goes. Close to the rind, the cheese has a mushroomy bitter taste. Regarding the Saint-Nectaire, for some reason the presence of maggots was an indicator of quality to my Auvergne grannies, but the maggots were not inside the cheese, they were wiggling on an otherwise intact rind. I have never seen worm-eaten saint-nectaire. It can get mouldy, but is not attacked by beasts. If you want my sincere opinion on the subject of worm-eating in the French countryside, I will tell you that in the old days people did cut off some of the rind but they also ate the odd worm with their cheese without paying much attention to it. But I have often noticed a more recent, provocative attitude displayed in front of Parisians ("See, what's a few cheese worms, we eat it all, we're not sissies like you"). I suspect a lot of that stuff to be somewhat theatrical and a few of the more outrageous stories to be apocryphous.

I did not miss it, but I answered about French cheeses to stay on topic. Apart from the examples I recalled, I have never heard of maggot-ridden cheese in France. That's indeed what we call "cirons". They are found in aged mimolette, not in regular mimolette. The rind of aged mimolette (where the critters are lodged) is too hard for eating anyway.

French andouille and andouillette are both chitterling sausages. Different than the cajun andouille which is more like our "saucisson à l'ail". Salade de museau is worth trying, with lots of shallots. I like it a lot. Civelles are really delicious (and very expensive too) but I think the garlic dressing does most of the job.

I'd say the only true etiquette rule would be not to talk too loud.

Dave, I enjoyed every bit of it. Thank you!

Covered in maggots, that sounds unlikely, but I have seen old Auvergnat shepherds (tall, Gipsy-looking grannies wearing purple blouses and a large straw hat) choosing Saint-Nectaire cheeses at the Pontgibaud market. They picked those that had maggots running on them. That was about 20 years ago. I am not sure things have changed a lot. Some aged tommes de Savoie and various fourmes in the Massif Central have a porous, lacy rind from the cirons (small worms) eating them. The older the cheese, the lacier the rind. Now some people will cut off a thick layer of the rind, making sure they leave all the cirons behind, but I have seen some others peel off only a thin part of it and enjoy extra protein.

There is fromage fort, old scraps of cheese kept in a pot, doused with strong spirits and left for weeks of an intense fermentation. I never could stomach that.

I do not recommend la Maison des Trois Thés. Teas are very overpriced, flawed information is given; there are even more serious flaws I'll refrain from stating here. Just avoid it. The good news is that there are decent Chinese tea houses in Paris, with a good choice of quality teas. My favorite is L'Empire des Thés on avenue d'Ivry (13e), it also has the best value, and they are very serious and helpful. Also Ch'a, rue du Pont-de-Lodi (6e), a small Chinese tea house-cum-restaurant; Thés de Chine on the lower part of boulevard Saint-Germain; Zenzoo in the 9e, specialized in Taiwan-type tea including bubble tea; good Japanese teas may be found at Tamayura and Chajin and I saw a recently-opened Chinese tea house near the Hotel de Ville. I haven't gone there yet. Finally, I spotted a tiny teahouse in the Wenzhou area, 3e, on rue des Gravilliers or rue au Maire. I have to check the addresses, sorry I do not have them at hand. Gilles Brochard's Le Guide du thé à Paris has all the necessary information.

"Gibier" is generic for game. "Gibier à plume" (note the singular) will be game birds while "gibier à poil" (singular again) is four-legged game like venison, wild boar, hare, etc. "Gibier" on the can most probably means scraps of venison from Eastern Europe for I don't see the cat food companies putting partridge or pheasant in their concoctions.

That sounds like Breton butter and, I suspect, Bordier.

Marianne, thanks for the post. How lovely to include tea in Parisian pleasures! The afternoon is probably my favorite time to have a light meal in the city, and there is nothing more relaxing, after a day of walking, shopping, visiting, etc., than sitting down to a nice cup of tea with pastries. Paris is full of interesting places to have tea. I think there should be a thread about it if there isn't one yet.

Puget is actually a very decent oil. Abra: "Elle et Vire beurre doux de Normandie" is like Président (though a bit better), mainstream industrial butter with not much personality. Look for mentions "beurre fermier", "beurre cru", "beurre de baratte", etc.

All marketed butters are cultured and only very few of them are made from unpasteurized cream. Only on some markets and directly at farms you may purchase uncultured butters. Is it the "beurre breton de baratte" that you have? If so, it is Le Gall, not outstanding but decent as industrial butters go. About Président: it is probably the blandest butter available in France and should not be considered representative of Norman butter. It is okay for frying eggs as John does, but do not expect more from it.

Celles-sur-Belle used to be found in French stores, not so much anymore. Same story with Sèvre-et-Belle. Pamplie is slightly more common. It strikes me that all the butters Fat Guy mentioned are from the same region (Charentes-Poitou). They are the butters that travel the best because they are extremely purified and their taste is constant (they do not even change color according to the season, as farm butter does). They also were the first to get an AOC, long before Bretagne and Normandy, which becomes less of a mystery once you know that the butter producers in Charentes have been very good at organizing themselves and selling their product, although there was virtually no butter production there before the phylloxera crisis in the late 19th century. Former vineyards were turned in to grassland and butter production began soon after, immediately aiming at the national and international market through modern production and marketing methods. While other regions like Brittany and Normandy, which had been making better butters for centuries, missed the boat at the time. It is already a good thing that you can get those fine products in NY. Echiré and Pamplie are IMO some of the best. One I never buy is Président.

Butter is generally of high quality in French shops, as long as the origin is clearly stated. There is a personal rule I follow: when buying salted, buy Breton; when buying unsalted, buy Norman; when buying butter for pastry or cooking, buy Charentes. For clarifying (I make ghee at home), use cheap butter but preferably from Charentes because the texture is drier and there is less residue. Tastier butters should be kept for eating raw. In the category of demi-sel (lightly salted) Breton butter, I like Le Gall - beurre de baratte. The generic brand "Reflets de France" (Champion, Auchan) is the very same butter. In the category of unsalted butters, I like beurre cru d'Isigny, Lanquetot or Sainte-Mère-Eglise. If Bretons are the champions of salted butter, Normans are at the top for unsalted. Charentes-Poitou or Vendée butter like Échiré, Baignes, Surgères, La Viette, Pamplie, is another category. I call it "butter for Parisians", which is not derogatory. It is just a particular taste, different from traditional butter. Very mild, it has a dense and dry texture because it is heavily rinsed and pressed. It is so hard when cold that it may be conditioned in narrow cylinders, which is often the case. This is the perfect butter for people who do not like the assertive taste of farm butter from Normandy or Brittany, and for making pastry. Especially flaky pastry. FYI Pierre Hermé uses Charentes butter from La Viette for all his pastries, creams and viennoiserie. La Viette may be found at La Grande Epicerie. I never understood what makes it special. In that category, Pamplie is excellent, but rare. Edit: Bretagne, Normandie and Charentes are not the only regions where butter is made. If you travel through France, you should know that local butters from Auvergne, Lorraine or Savoie can be of optimal quality. They will often have a slight taste reminiscent of the cheeses made in the region, for instance Auvergne butter has a hint of sourness like Cantal. I have had superior butters from Alsace and Lorraine as well. Those butters do not travel, not that they couldn't, but they are never sent outside of the region.

A lot of game (birds especially, for instance woodcock) come from Scandinavia. For birds, ask a volailler (there are still a few). Le Coq Saint-Honoré is a good place. Any good butcher will know how to source game and venison. Look around markets too. I'd go to the covered market in Aligre.

Well there was worse eating before. I went to Dutournier's new yuppie joint La Sydrerie de l'Etoile and it was bad beyond description. Even worse than Toustem. What's with all those grand chefs these days? Thanks, indeed I hope next place will be better.

I have heard many opinions of Hélène Darroze's cooking, most of them bad. Today, at lunch, I decided to make my own (opinion). Living in the 5e arrondissement of Paris it was easy to walk to place Maubert and her auberge Toustem on rue de l'Hôtel-Colbert. Always try something once, I thought, the restaurant was one-fourth full, so we just walked in and were sat at a table for 2. We were shown the lunch menu (24 euros) and the menu of the day. First courses 12 euros, main courses 24 euros, dessert 9 euros. Overpriced. The food has to be supremely good to justify 24 euros for a main course. I hope it is. Especially since the nearby Pré Verre serves an excellent lunch menu for 14 euros. This had better be good. My companion's escargots en brioche de Christine Ferber, salade d'herbes were pretty good. Being particularly tired of the current name-dropping trend on French restaurant menus, I think "who gives a (bweep!) it's Christine Ferber brioche" and indeed the brioche is good but not good enough to justify writing the name of its author on a chalkboard. My first course is foie gras confit au naturel, figue de Solliès in a red wine reduction, foie gras good but not outstanding, nice poached fig. Pleasant but nothing to write home about. We go on with a macaronade au foie gras et shiitake which is really penne rigate tossed in a ultra-rich cream and foie gras sauce with mushrooms (identifiable as grey chanterelles, girolles, trompettes, no trace of shiitake) and pan-seared diced foie gras. The foie gras is good, the mushrooms taste and look like they have been boiled before in another dish and reused in this one, the sauce is much too rich and lacks flavor, the penne proudly hold to on their neutrality. My main course is broiled tuna belly with cogollos and slow-roasted tomatoes. Tuna belly decent, cogollos are Little Gem romaine lettuces sliced and sautéed with the tomatoes. (Why not just call those vegetables by their French name, "sucrines"? That would save the waiters' saliva.) The vegetables are exceedingly sour and greasy, and my first impression was right: 24 euros for each one of those two main dishes is a gyp. Dessert: these, thankfully, allow us to end the meal on a positive note. There is, at least, a good pastry chef here. Vacherin aux fraises gariguettes is almost what it claims to be, a lovely combination of good vanilla ice cream, a light strawberry-flavored chantilly, small button meringues, a discreet raspberry coulis and really good, flavorful mara-des-bois strawberries (not gariguettes, second mistake on the chalkboard). Remarkable, though you do not have to be a good cook to come up with that (it just takes a very attentive, sensible pastry chef). Nevertheless it was, without question, the high point of the meal. With 1 half-bottle of Badoit, 1 glass of pouilly-fumé and 1 glass of jurançon sec, the bill is 120 euros. Here's the PM: - Product sourcing 7/10, - Cooking 5/10, - Decor 6/10 (nice 17-th century dining-room, but all that orange!) - Accuracy (i.e. conformity of ingredients served to the written menu): 5/10, - Quality-price ratio: not good. Focusing on the sheer quality of the ingredients, cooking and service: that meal wasn't worth more than 60 euros for 2 (half the bill). - Superhero dessert intervention meant to save our lunch at the last minute: 10/10. Go back? Send friends? Hell, no. But I'll miss that vacherin. And if you want to dine exclusively on bas-armagnac, this is the place. Hélène Darroze - Toustem, 12 rue de l'Hôtel-Colbert, Paris 5. Tel. 01 40 51 99 87.

Of course you have to allow time for the camera to focus and for your eye to set the frame. But think of a press photographer taking a snapshot before you've even had a chance to see him seize his camera. Or of a fox stealing a chicken from a coop. Alert, attentive, swift, silent, but by no means apologetic.

You're welcome. Bring a cart and good walking shoes, it's huge.

Yes, the savoyard is good. The "Chinese primeurs" should not be mentioned as representative of Monge. I never go there. There are good producers like Marc Mascetti (he's cheap and has been known to give a whole extra bagful of free stuff every once in a while), Thierry (red-haired guy on the bank side of the market) who carries out-of-the-ordinary vegetables, some maraîchers who sell only their produce for a reasonable price, etc. Mr. Zamba, the Beninese potato man (a bit expensive but great potatoes, Roscoff onions, and fruit he imports directly from Africa). However I think those small 5e markets are far less interesting that larger markets like Cours de Vincennes or the big covered markets in the East suburbs (Champigny, Le Perreux, Charenton, etc.).

Blush! ← Blush too!

So inapercu that next thing you know you'll put it in your mouth and give a big crunch.

That is a constant characteristic of Aligre market: never buy the cheap fruit offered in large quantities. Apart from that, it is an interesting market, especially the covered market, the North African shops nearby and the flea market (the only remaining flea market in town). I am happy with the Place Monge market near my place but I often wish I lived closer to a cheaper, more ethnically diverse market. I regret not to be able to shop at Château-Rouge or Belleville more often. I do a lot of shopping in the 13e, a few bus stops away from my neighborhood. For those who have the opportunity to go there or stay there, the Cours de Vincennes market (starting at Nation eastwards) is one of the largest and most interesting in Paris.

Clotilde, Caroline and I have one important thing in common: we're all bloggers. Bloggers take lots of food pictures. It's in their genes. My personal approach to restaurant photography: 1) Have the nerve to do it and do not think twice. Do it wholeheartedly or do not do it at all. Never be apologetic — you're already a very slight nuisance, don't make yourself a big one. Self-consciousness attracts attention. 2) However, do understand when (a rare case) the restaurateur does not want pictures taken. He will let you know. 2) Never never never use a flash. 3) Shoot faster than your shadow. 4) Use a very good, silent, sensitive, small compact APN. Mine is a 2002 Konica Revio I would not part from for all the tea in Chiney. Oh, and 5) Sometimes the company and the food are so delightful that you do not even think of pulling the camera out of your bag. That is what happened to me today at L'Astrance. One less blog post but some things are more important than blogging Edit: 6) DON'T shoot plates with your mobile phone, especially if you are going to put that on your blog.