Recently I went to the local grocery store to purchase supplies for a wonderful dinner I had planned with a friend. I want to pause and clarify that like every good American who fancies themselves very principled, I too decry the fact that Wal-Mart has prevented small businesses from thriving. Yet, that doesn’t stop me from shopping there as you can get everything you need in one spot without overspending. In France, I get to bask in living a much more principled life where I shop at smaller stores. The result is that I spend more, get less, and have to often go to several stores to find ingredients as the first store might not have any milk, or eggs, or cereal.
French produce is legendarily tasty, coming from a country blessed with rich soil. I love the tomatoes, greens, and seasonal vegetables like endives. Unfortunately, as a product of the Wal-Mart mentality, I have no concept of a vegetables natural season. Wal-Mart is an eternal harvest, with every fruit and vegetable coexisting year round in a perfect (though completely false) harmony. I mean, of course summer is “tomato season,” but that just means they are better, not that you can’t find them. I am not a kitchen dunce. I love to cook, know how to pick produce, yet having to know the seasons of certain fruits and vegetables is not a necessary skill for cooking in the states. Here, it seems like the French all know and abide by a sacred code to eat only what is in season. In my new cookbook, the first section talks exclusively about planning your menus around the season. Now I realize it has less to do with planning and more to do with submitting. The other day I went to go buy figs. Multiple grocery stores proved lacking, and when I went to a specialty fruit stand, the vendor – not to mention the several other more seasoned customers – laughed at me.
I left with a different menu, as is often the case when I go shopping in France. But I can’t really feel annoyed. There is something refreshing and beautiful about an entire country that has accepted the value that scarcity and temporality lend to things. Ease and convenience rank beneath quality. Who would want to eat something out of season when you could instead just have something that was better because it is in season?
Like with everything in France, there is a time and season. It is usually not when I want it. But in a manner very French, the seasons know better than I, when I should want things. I am removed the art of choosing because I am not up to making the choice, I suppose. And thus I learn the very French art of waiting. . . only I think that fig season is over. At least endive season lasts till May, or so I am told.
2000 Streets 
This was one of the biggest adjustments that I had to make when I first moved to France, but I thank the heavens now. I now know the real taste of strawberries and white asparagus and so much more. It is so right to eat this way, and it only further confirms the “everything in moderation” philosophy that is so integral to French life. I am lucky to now frequent an organic grocery store now that I live in the U.S. and I try to remember when things are in season and when they are not. I don’t always remember, so when in doubt I ask my French husband and invariably knows – it seems like they learn these facts like the alphabet!
This is maybe the most important thing Paris is teaching you. Look at how deeply our WalMart culture has alienated you from the actual flow of life and food. Wendell Berry has commented that the great harm of modern life is that it has “deprived the mass of consumers of any independent access to the staples of life: clothing, food, even water. Air remains the only necessity that the average user can still get for himself.”
The flow of seasons is a rhythm of limits. Gracious living partly is about learning to live harmoniously with these limits. Walmat teaches us we can have anything we want, any time we want, as long as the only “cost” we count is money.
I envy you!
I hope that these culinary lessons permeate cooking back in the States – you can set a new pace.
Hannah, I’ve just recently started reading your blog, and I love it! Your pictures are beautiful and your words so fittingly witty.
I have to admit though, that I cannot sympathize with your love for endives. Despite the faithfulness of our cook at my school in Grenoble to cook everything in creamy goodness (usually they were served wrapped in ham, cheese, and cream sauce), I could never bring myself to finish one. I ate a lot of baguette on those unfortunate days.
Anyhow, keep the blogs coming, I love them. Tu nous manques beaucoup ici (particulièrement dans mon cours de Drame Moderne avec Ben et Erin)! Nous t’aimons. Bon courage, ma belle!