Rue Montorgueil, Paris

The other day I mentioned in my post about cooking a French boiled dinner, a potée, that I learned a lot about traditional French cooking and regional products from a woman who operated a charcuterie on the rue Montorgueil, quartier des Halles, in Paris. That was more than 30 years ago, when I lived in that particular neighborhood for three years.

That little charcuterie (Terroir d'Auvergne) is still there (on the far right in the photo), but it wasn't open the day I walked through the old neighborhood back in July. The Chinese take-away is "new" but the boulangerie Collet may well have been there in the early 1980s.

There are fewer food shops and many more cafés and restaurants in the neighborhood these days. Montorgueil is still a shopping street, however, and nowadays car traffic is restricted to local residents and delivery vans. I think the scene above is actually in the part of the street that's called la rue des Petits-Carreaux.

One place that is still there is called Le Palais des Fruits, a produce stand. I'm not sure why a market specializing in fruit would have a big fake asparagus as its most remarkable street sign.

The little apartment I lived in was on the 6th floor (U.S.) or cinquième étage of the building — spiral staircase, no elevator — that now features a tapas bar at street level, rue Saint-Sauveur. If you knew me back then, maybe you remember the place. The tapas bar then was just a neighborhood watering hole with a working -class clientele. I don't think I ever even had a drink or coffee in there.