Okay, what can I be positive about? Let's see. We had a pleasant drive to Blois yesterday, and did some good shopping. For us, "shopping" almost always means grocery shopping. And when we go to Blois, it's for "exotic" foods that we don't find often or easily around Saint-Aignan. You might not know that Blois has a significant population of immigrants (and their descendants) from Africa and Asia.
This is an image I grabbed off the web. I forgot to take my camera with me yesterday.
The first market we went to was the Grand Frais produce store in the Blois suburb of Vineuil. It's in a big shopping zone — you can't call it a "center" — along with many other stores of all kinds, from garden centers (Truffaut, for example), appliance stores (Darty, But), and a huge Auchan supermarket). There are also all kinds of specialty stores.
Another web image, not mine — http://www.grandfrais.com/
Grand Frais is first of all a produce market. Around the edges of the store are a meat counter and a butcher shop, a cheese shop, and a long wall of products like rice, millet, quinoa, pasta, jars of all kinds of sauces, and on and on. We go there for those things, but mostly for fresh vegetables. They are beautiful and the prices are good. If there's any down side, it's that almost everything is imported.
Okra, for example. It's something we enjoy including in all kinds of dishes, from Asian stir-fries or curries to U.S. Southern specialties (Brunswick stew, shrimp and grits, etc.). Grand Frais usually has a big supply of fresh okra, and it did yesterday. It was imported from Mexico, according to the sign above the bin. I have to blanch and freeze the large quantity — nearly three pounds for six euros at 5.69€/kg — that we bought.
We also got some Italian flat beans, which I noticed in a local supermarket a few days ago at five euros a kilogram. At Grand Frais, there were the flat beans for two euros/kg, imported from Morocco. We got some fresh cilantro (50 cents a bunch), a couple of nice eggplants (also two euros/kg), some bell peppers, and three big sweet potatoes (imported from the USA). Today's lunch will be a Thai eggplant stir-fry with bell peppers and shrimp.
I got this image off Google Maps Street View.
For shrimp, we go to an entirely different kind of grocery store. It's located in the older part of Blois, near the cemetery and the train station. It's called Asia Store, and it has all the signs of being a mom-and-pop operation. There we got two big bags of large frozen shrimp for 13 euros/kg. That's 6 or 7 U.S. dollars a pound, which is a very reasonable price. We also got a jar of peanut butter and a bag of raw, shelled peanuts. Asia Store, by the way, only accepts payment by check or in cash — no credit or debit cards.
By the way, we saw some signs of minor flooding between here and Blois, mostly in the form of small country lanes that were blocked off because the low land they run through was under water. We were able to go about our business without a problem. More serious flooding has become a problem in areas south of Paris, including the towns of Nemours and Rambouillet.
I remember seeing some large fields of Abelmoschus esculentus, better known as Okra, in full flower, near Indio in Southern California. Another time, I stopped to have a closer look at the plant and the man tending that field offered me some of the "fruits". Okra is a hibiscus and the flower looks like that of the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus).
ReplyDeleteI had no idea they grew okra down our way, or that it was a hibiscus. I always thought of it as "southern" - as in Texas, where I grew up. I don't think we see it often in the markets here in LA. Ken, that is quite a reasonable price for uncooked (?) frozen shrimp, I think we're probably almost double that in local markets. I remember the 1960s when they almost gave away fresh shrimp.
DeleteNice shopping now enjoy your meal
ReplyDeleteSo no flooding of river near you?
ReplyDeleteSome fields down along the river were flooded yesterday morning. Nothing all that unusual, however.
DeleteThe water is still rising. More flooding...
DeleteAfter seeing some documentaries about industrial farming in Spain, I avoid anything imported. I count on the small local farmers to be cheapskates who won't spray just because it's been so many days or weeks since the last spraying. A local winegrower told me it costs him €4K to spray his vines (a nice vacation, as he put it), and so he thinks long and hard before he does it.
ReplyDeleteI agree about avoiding imported foods, but where do I get locally grown okra? Balance in all things: we buy locally and we also grow a lot of our own vegetables, organically. Some treated products from time to time won't kill us. Actually, how much longer can I expect to live?
DeleteI had exactly the same conversation as ToF with someone yesterday about the local farmers and their reluctance to go to the expense of spraying. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.
ReplyDeleteThe Val de la Claise was even fuller yesterday than the day before. Anyone with a garden along the river bank is completely inundated. The water at Chaumussay was almost up to the church.
I've always heard that the French use more pesticides than any other people. Maybe the usage has been reduced now, but still...
DeleteI'm going out this afternoon and I plan to take my camera, to document some of the flooding, which as far as I know is minor around us. But the situation is, no pun intended, fluid.
Historically French farmers have been fairly free with the pesticides (especially fungicides and especially in the wine industry). However, the last couple of years (no more than 5) I'm hearing more and more the debate about how expensive pesticides are and what the alternatives are. I think a couple of things have had a practical impact -- first, the communes are being forced to go 'phyto free', second the CAP was 'reformed' in 2013 (not substantially, but enough to impact on people's bottom lines), third, as a wine production area the Touraine and associated AOCs have traditionally been much lower users of pesticides than Bordeaux (traditionally a high use area). There is more and more interest by perfectly ordinary winemakers and other farmers in lowering pesticide use. Fourth, apiarists are a surprisingly powerful lobby group in France, and they are anti-pesticides for obvious reasons. The broad acre arable farmers are the slowest to change their practices, especially with regard to fungicides and herbicides.
DeleteThings seem to be changing. Groundwater pollution is a big issue with all the pesticide use. RoundUp may soon be banned, I think. Arsenic compounds were banned in the vineyards a few years back. I'm all for organic gardening, that's for sure. Sometimes we are forced to spray with the Bordeaux mixture, but not all that often.
DeleteThe France is considering a ban on glyphosates, with the EU perhaps to follow, according to this and other stories: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-glyphosate-idUSKCN0X512S
DeleteWhat are you going to make?
ReplyDeleteI made a stir-fry of eggplant and shrimp for lunch today.
DeleteTomorrow: sausage and peppers.
Saturday: green beans and either steak or chicken.
Okra is plentiful around here. That shrimp was a bargain. Thanks for taking us shopping with you- going to markets like the Grand Frais is one of my favorite things to do in France.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could grow okra in our garden, but I've never been successful. For a few years we had good luck with eggplant, but not recently. Saint-Aignan's summers just aren't hot enough -- though we do well with tomatoes almost every year. If I could buy frozen okra here, I would, but I've never seen it in the supermarkets. No frozen sweetcorn either.
DeleteNice outing! I'm looking forward to the river photos tomorrow. The photos of flooding in Paris and Nemours are sobering.
ReplyDelete