The end of a great French culinary institution
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Of course I had been aware of the rot, but maybe not of the extent to which it had set in. These days, when I am in France I am in Provence and I shop chiefly in the local markets. Sometimes, when I go to a big supermarket in Carpentras and peer into the baskets of my fellow shoppers, I am horrified by what they contain.
The French have changed shape: they are no longer slender or stylish, and many are actually obese. It is not hard to see a correlation between their physical appearance and the industrially produced food they so willingly consume.
It was not always thus. Before the Americanisation of their lives, many French people shopped on an ad hoc basis. The streets were filled with food shops, and there were regular markets. One great boon to people returning to an empty fridge was the local charcutier.
The translation “pork butcher” hardly does it justice. All charcutiers were different, but the core range remained the same: fresh or cooked pork or ham, pâté, sausages both fresh and dried, prepared salads and cooked dishes that could be simply reheated. The selection had remained much the same for a century or more and is admirably described in the pages of Zola’s Le ventre de Paris.
The larger, grander charcutiers added a selection of wine and spirits, cheeses, pâtisserie — you name it. Remaining open until 7.30 at night, you could pop in on your way home. There was at least one in every main road.
When I lived in Montparnasse in Paris there was a reasonable one in the boulevard, but up in the rue Delambre there was a great chap who sold onglets and bavettes. I can still see the infinite care with which he prepared my onglet, opening it like a book with his knife and trimming off the fat. He was also open on Monday, when all but the neighbourhood horse butcher was closed.
French people claim they use supermarkets because they are convenient: they can park their car, get everything in the same place, fill up the boot… but nothing was ever as convenient as the charcutier, and to be honest, the butcher, the pâtissier, the baker and the candlestick maker were all next door to the charcutier anyway. You didn’t need to dig out the car and go for a long drive.
This year my French itinerary has been slightly different. I was in Reims in April and Arras in September. In Reims there were bakers and pâtissiers, but apart from a cheesemonger and a shop near the cathedral selling the famous local ham there was little else of interest; just tatty clothes. Only on the last day did I find a clutch of specialised shops around the covered market in Boulingrin.
I had less time in Arras, and I located nothing on the arcades around the city’s three big squares. I am sure in the past there were half a dozen charcutiers in and around the centre. Then, at the time of the July heatwave I was in Paris with my family. I thought we might pick up a few things for a picnic near the Marché St Honoré: formerly the gastronomic island at the centre of the 1st arrondissement, but the best we could find was a small supermarket.
Later by the church of St Roch I pointed out a building where I had once lived in a squat. It was six floors above one of the largest and grandest charcutiers in Paris. That charcutier had been replaced by a clothes shop.
Of course the grandissime Fauchon is still there on the place de la Madeleine but its rival Hédiard closed for renovation a few years back and shows no sign of reopening. In the eighties the Soviet press published a picture of the Christmas queue outside Fauchon to prove the French had food shortages just like them; but they were lining up for foie gras and truffles, not potatoes.
At my favourite charcutier, Coesnon in the rue Dauphine, they would bring out little pâtés en croûte to feed customers in the queue waiting for their famous boudins blancs truffés. Coesnon was one of the first to go: it pulled down its shutters some time in the nineties.
I spoke to Jean-François Mitanchey from the Association des Chevaliers de Saint Antoine, the body that represents artisan charcutiers throughout France. He pointed out that the process of industrialising the food chain had claimed many victims, not just charcutiers, but butchers, bakers and pâtissiers. He might have added restaurants too, for more and more of those have become chains profiting from modern technology to cut costs.
His members continued to maintain quality, but he had to admit that in many parts of France the charcutier was no more. In the wealthy Côte d’Azur, for example, he could name but two artisan charcutiers. The charcutier was still represented in Paris and in France’s gastronomic capital of Lyon and remained a cultural entity in Touraine, the Franche-Comté, Alsace-Lorraine and the Landes.
He was based in Dijon where there were eight. Twenty years ago there were 47 or 48, and forty years ago, 67. In the meantime, France has forfeited a good deal of what it meant to be France.
For readers travelling to Paris who would like to see a proper charcutier and experience its range of products, there are the several branches of the Maison Vérot.
