A market at last

Before moving to France, I was convinced I would make weekly trips to a local food market and relish in the delightful produce that France had to offer and make weekly trips to buy my fruit and vegetables from a bustling market among locals. I had experienced something similar on a trip to Lyon where a Saturday food market lined the river bank and it was the most spectacular place to be. Unfortunately my experience in Nancy was to be very different. There is an indoor fruit and vegetable market in Nancy but I have struggled to suss out who had the best produce and found some of it quite tired and on the odd occasion I have bought something from them the stall holders often struggled with my accent which made me immediately clam up and run for the nearest supermarket where I was safe in the knowledge I could choose my own fruit and vegetables without having to speak to anyone. My past experiences of French supermarkets had demonstrated a wide variety of good quality fresh fruit and vegetables and even better, the majority of it local to France. The experience I have had here has not been so good, the supermarket in the centre of town which I use has very poor quality produce, often mouldy and covered in fruit flies which really saddened me. Not having a kitchen here, my need for lots fresh produce is reduced, and often a rummage around would find some okay apples and clementines, a passable cucumber and a bag of rocket but deep down I yearned for a local market full of good quality local produce sold by people that knew what they were selling me and had a passion for it. Luckily for me, everything changed last week, and although it is now just 2 weeks until I leave France, in my opinion it is better late than never.

Every second Sunday in Nancy there is a brocante market which is an antiques and junk market. On a side street attached to the market, I walked along a path lined with stalls, chickens roasting on a spit, cheese of every shape and size, local honey and of course, the Holy Grail that is a proper French fruit and vegetable stall. I spied the pile of deep red glistening cherries with a sign sticking out that proudly noted their place of origin as France and before I knew it I had queued up and purchased 200 grams of them. I realised how silly I had been to be scared, I know the vocabulary for ordering food, and the result meant a happy afternoon in the sun eating gorgeous cherries, I was thrilled. This week I went down again, whilst there was no brocante I was pleased to see the food market had returned. I queued up among the Sunday shoppers listening to people ordering and being advised on the best produce whilst being handed samples of torn apart fresh apricots. Luckily I was served by the younger calmer grocer and not the exuberant older gentleman who would shout at the crowd enthusiastically about his special deals for the weekend. I ordered 300 grams of cherries as the smaller purchase a week disappeared rather too quickly, a punnet of small sweet strawberries, six apricots and some rhubarb. Everything I bought is French produce, everything was ordered by me, and best of all from a Market like the ones I had been dreaming of before I even arrived.