I’ve been out foraging early on our first morning waking up in Paris. The item at the top of my foraging list is buying bread. In French, that would be “pain.” It doesn’t sound like “pain,” though, when it’s pronounced. It rhymes with “pan” as in “frying pan,” but instead of the hard “n”, you make a nasally sound so it ends up sounding something like “panh.”
After checking out my bread buying options, I decided to go into a “Kayser” boulangerie to get my “panh.” I went in, looked around, then got in the short line with other early risers waiting to be helped. They had all kinds of bread in there.
Bonjour Monsieur!
As I was looking at all the different kinds of loaves, I got the idea that instead of a baguette, which is what I had assumed I’d get, what really sounded good to me was toast. I knew my wife would go for that, too, and I think I remembered seeing a toaster in our kitchen. When my turn came, I was greeted by a pleasant, “Bonjour monsieur!”
“Bonjour Madame”, I said. I should explain something here. When you enter a shop in this neck of the woods, you’re likely to be greeted with a friendly “Bonjour monsieur”, “Bonjour madame”, or “Bonjour mademoiselle.” Your reply, assuming the person who greeted you is a woman, should be, “Bonjour madame.”
If you reply, “Bonjour,” without the “madame,” you will be considered to be a rather rude sort. If you don’t say anything, that’s probably worse, but at least in that case you could pretend to be hard of hearing. Then, upon realizing your gaffe, in response to the next thing said to you, you could respond with a loud, “EH?” That might buy you some sympathy, at least.
It’s hard for us english speakers, because we’re used to just saying, “hi,” “hello,” “wuz up,” or something. To us, putting the “madame” or “monsieur” on the end sounds so formal, but it’s the only thing that sounds normal to french speakers.
To a french speaker, it’s probably like when we hear someone ask for something and instead of saying, “May I have that, please?”, they say, “Gimme dat!”, or something along those lines. I dare say we’d probably think that person to be rather rude, eh?
Of course, we’re in Paris, and Paris is a huge tourist town, full of non-french speakers. Parisians must be used to non-french speakers entering their shops. So even if, at first, they think you’re rude, they eventually realize that you just don’t speak their language and don’t know what the heck you’re doing in the speech department. Be that as it may, the fact is, right or wrong, rational or irrational, that when you reply to their greeting with a friendly “Bonjour madame,” it makes a world of difference.
Let’s see… Where were we? Ah – I was at the front of the bread line. We’ve just exchanged greetings, and I remembered to tack on the “madame”.
“Qu’est-ce que vous voulez s’il vous plait?” she said. (“Please tell me what you would like.”)
“Quel est le meilleur pain pour le pain griller?” I said. (“What’s the best kind of bread for making toast?”) She pointed at a fine-looking specimen shaped sort of like a football.
“Ca va bien,” I said. (“That’d be great”).
“Pouvez-vous le trancher pour moi?” (“Can you slice it up for me?”) I wouldn’t have known to ask for that, but I saw someone ahead of me in line have it done, and by some miracle I remembered that the verb, “to slice”, in french is “trancher.” (“Trahn-shay”).
She took down one of the loaves and went over to a big slicing machine. Then she held up a piece of sliced bread and motioned to ask if the thickness of the slice was about right. I motioned back, “Oui,” and she put the loaf into the slicing machine. Two seconds later it was sliced. I had my bread.
Pain aux Raisins
“Quelque chose d’autre?”, she asked. (“Will there be anything else?”).
“Oui. Un pain aux raisin, s’il vous plait.” (Yes. A “pain aux raisins”, please”).
(“Pain aux raisins” is pronounced “pan oh ray zanh.” You pronounce the “pan” part just like “frying pan” this time, because a vowel comes after the “n.” You’ll want to make a note of that, I’m sure).
Anyway, a “pain aux raisins” is a pastry that swirls around like a cinnamon roll and has raisins in it. It’s just about the best thing there is anywhere. If I ever get put on death row, (due to an extreme miscarriage of justice, obviously), and I get to have whatever I want for my last meal before I go to The Chair, a pain aux raisins would be somewhere on the menu.
OK – I had my treat and I had my bread. Now I had to get some butter for the toast. There was a little convenience store a few doors down from Kayser. It had just opened. I went in.
Once inside, I realized it wasn’t nearly as small as I had thought. This has happened to me more than once over here. A store looks tiny from the front, but when I go inside, it’s cavernous. They had everything in there that you’d find in a normal grocery store – a French grocery store, that is.
They had way too many kinds of butter to choose from, and I didn’t know one from the other. Of course, I had to browse around for a bit just to see what other interesting things they had, but I ended up just getting some butter.
I wanted some fruit, too, so I walked a very short distance down to one fo the produce vendors. He and a helper were still setting up, arranging fruit and vegetables into nice-looking displays. I got some bananas and some grapes.
The fruit guy was right next to me when I made my grape selection, and when I was ready to pay, he went and selected a much better-looking bunch of grapes and recommended it to me. I guess he had an eye for those things, eh?
I had been out foraging for quite awhile, and I was ready to return with my goodies when I remembered that I had forgotten to get coffee. That wouldn’t do. I decided to go to a Starbucks that was on the next corner. This should be interesting…
To be continued…
See Travel Notes, Paris, Montorgueil, page for more detailed information about visiting Montorgueil.
Photo credits: Feature Image showing baguettes: © Rainer Junker | Dreamstime.com
