When I first came across Emily Dilling's gorgeous book, My Paris Market Cookbook: A Culinary Tour of French Flavors and Seasonal Recipes
Springtime Foraging in the Loir-et-Cher
by Emily Dilling
When I lived in Paris I spent a lot of time shopping. Not the kind of shopping you may think of when you think of Paris- I wasn't shopping for clothes, or shoes, or antique books along the banks of the Seine. What I spent most of my time each week doing was shopping for food (full disclosure: I also spent a lot of time seeking out great beer and wine, too).
Because the origins of my food (and wine and beer!) are important to me and because I try to always support local producers, I planned my days around where to get the best quality produce and groceries. I would work my schedule around that of my neighborhood market, the craft beer store, the natural wine cave and my favorite small shops- the fromagerie, the Italian deli, and the fishmonger, to name a few. I am lucky to have a flexible schedule given the nature of my work and I often wonder how people balance full time jobs AND food shopping in Paris. The erratic hours, the fact that the markets happen in the morning, the time to get from one side of town to the other in order to get the best bread, and not the just ok bread, it's a full time job itself.
Fortunately, food is my job and shopping for it is part of the fun. Though I must admit that I think the errands that take over your day and the overall stress of city living are part of the reason I decided to leave Paris and move to the countryside. After 10 years living in the city, a city I still love very much, I was ready for the calmness of the countryside. The change of pace didn't change my commitment to eating locally and seasonally and as soon as I was settled into my new home I started to look into the best places to shop for food in the area.
The local market and co-op were obvious options, but the most surprising- and convenient- spot for me to faire mes courses ended up being right outside my front door! Apparently the slow pace of country life extended itself as far as food shopping, as I regularly found myself foraging in fields and forests for the ingredients for my dinner.
Fall foraging brought mushrooms- chantrelles and black trumpets in our region- as well as walnuts that fell on their own accord from a large tree in my backyard. Winter brought with it wild mâche, or lamb's lettuce, and the beginnings of spring onions- which showed up early due to this year's mild weather. I quickly had foraging fever- creating new recipes around things I could find in my backyard or in the nearby biodynamically cultivated grapevines. Walnut cakes, garlicky mushroom sautés, a mâche salad cosied up to some oeufs mayonnaises- these became common meals served in my country house. I love the fleetingness of foraging, how it makes you truly appreciate the changing of the seasons and the edible treasures of each time of the year.
Now spring is upon us, and with its arrival comes a whole new bounty of wild things to put on your plate. The spring onions have reached maturity and now can be cajoled out of the ground to reveal lovely little pearl-like onion bulbs that taste great thrown on a grill or chopped up and sprinkled over fresh eggs. The nettles are at their pre-flowering prime and will soon take over ever yard and field in sight. If you are careful to pinch off the topmost tuft of leaves- touching the stem and not the tops of the leaves- you can manage to avoid the “stinging” and just get the nettle. Another new arrival is ail des ours, or wild garlic, whose bright, tender leaves can be made into a delicious pesto.
Soon there will be wild strawberries bringing ruby red spots to lush green pastures, they will be accompanied by dandelion leaves and all sorts of edible flowers. By the time I've run out of recipes for those, bright red cherries will be ripening overhead and a new culinary conquest will begin. Sometimes I miss the baskets of walnuts that filled themselves when left under the tree. Sometimes in the winter it feels like the days of wild strawberries will never come. Foraging not only makes you love, and sometimes long for, a particular time of year- it also makes you take the time to appreciate the present. While I can't wait for fresh cherry pies and roasted cherries with creamy cheeses and all tha ways my imagination will wander with the next ingredients that nature offers up- I also know that, at any given time, I can go for a walk in the woods and come back with dinner.
To learn more about Emily, and get some great recipes and tips, go to her blog, Paris Paysanne. And don't forget to order her book, My Paris Market Cookbook: A Culinary Tour of French Flavors and Seasonal Recipes
Or better yet, you can WIN a copy with our BOOK GIVEAWAY this week! Anyone who leaves a comment on this post this week will automatically be entered into a random drawing to win a copy (drawing will be on April 15th, and winner announced in the next post).
In the COMMENTS: Mary-Anne, I'm still looking for one of those wicker market baskets! The rolling fabric one I have is foldable and practical, but not the least bit romantic. It seems I have lots of company, with my Basket Probation. Mariella, we hope to be sitting in the sun with you very soon at the Cluny marché. Natalia, well put: "Je suis Brussels, and further words are inadequate." How we hope it will be the last incident, but I fear we are in for more. And hello to my cousin Ann, thanks for checking in!
38 thoughts on “A Paris Cookbook Author Takes Us Foraging”
I just found your blog and I am smitten! Very inspiring indeed.
We have retired in the country side outside Chapel Hill, NC and I am delighted to search for the best markets in the area. Your blog is so inspiring. Thanks.
Colette
Bonjour. My first comment is that I initially thought “Forgaging” must be an esoteric French-cooking term—or something else! But I fear it is just a simple misspelling which, fortunately, didn’t stop me from ambling through your charming article. Thank you.
Thank you for allowing us to join you in France on each post. The virtual trip to the countryside helps to sustain my love of all things French in between actual trips. I know when your posts hit that it will be a good day! Merci!!!
As if anyone needed another reason to move to France. I love being in Paris (was just there to see a magnificent collection of clothing!), the small towns and villages are so beautiful and welcoming….
Oh, my stomach is growling as I read your post this morning! Just thinking about all the yummy delicacies that are out there for the taking (as long as one knows what they’re taking) if one will just look. Seeing those strawberries reminds me of a backpacking trip on the Appalachain Trail – we were in the mountains of East Tennessee, hiking up a hill through a very large meadow. Suddenly someone spotted a wild strawberry, then two, three . . . hundreds! We threw off our packs, stretched out on the ground and just started eating. That was surely some of the best trail magic I’ve ever encountered.
Thank you for the opportunity to win Emily’s Paris Market Cookbook. The thought of it has awakened my inner francophile this morning!
I love shopping the markets in France and always arrange trips by visiting the towns on market days. Would love to read your book.
Adore your blogs. I am a Texan turned French and love to wander through Paris food shops. Cannot wait to read the book.
The location Loir et Cher reminds me of a lovely trip to the small towns outside Tours, the wines, and the hospitality of the French people, and the view of the Loire from our B and B. Although I wasn’t foraging there, I do forage in my backyard (mostly herbs, but the blackberries are wonderful too. I would love to have this book to remind me of fond times in la belle France.
Finally, after 40 years, I will be back in France. This time with my wife, and we will be doing a “Barge” trip thru Bourgogne. We will be counting on our chef to as this wonderful Chef Emily does, be finding only the freshest of local foods for our dining pleasure. Can’t wait for our May honeymoon and Gourmand adventure.
Great blog by the way, we enjoy all your posts, especially for Bourgogne.
Bobby and Diane
This is a delightful post. It makes me think that I need it educate myself on the wild edibles in and around the Texas hill country. Surely, there are surprising treasures to uncover.
Mary Anne in Austin
foraging – a favorite activity! A friend and I stumbled upon some wonderful mushrooms on a little mountain trail while hiking near her cabin; the next time we were there we met a grizzly and wisely decided to let him have the rights to any and all delicacies he found.
Oh the road not taken! I traveled to France the first time right after finishing my under grad degree. My traveling companion was a childhood friend–a French major with an elegant Parisian stepmother. She stayed in Grenoble. I returned to my waiting boyfriend. We broke up. A year later I met my future husband. We wound up with two kids and a wonderful life stateside. We also, through his professional connections, acquired delightful French friends whom we visit every year. While I love my family and my life, when I read blogs like this, I cannot help but wonder if…..
I’m returning to France in May, after three long years. Thanks for this intro to Emily! Can hardly wait to hit the markets of Paris, and explore dreamy-paced new-to-me country towns. Your wonderful blog nourishes me between trips, Lynne. Next year: your corner of Bourgogne once again? Perhaps hit the country vide greniers? Ah, the anticipation!
I adore the markets in France – if not to buy, just to enjoy looking at the wonderful variety of foods offered for sale!
Indeed, you are a huge inspiration. Wish we were neighbors……..
VA.
Ahhhhh……I can almost smell the fields and forests – don’t know if there really is a difference of over there and over here…but somehow it just feels like there is….the perfume of the air when the mimosa is in bloom, the smells of the constant baking of bread and croissants, the real earthy odors when you walk in the woods….just seems more genuine there. How I miss France.
I – as you – when in Paris planned my day around the markets. I have an entire photo album of just market food. Looking at it makes me long for another trip to Paris and their wonderful -colorful and delicious markets!
Markets are a part of my life and in California we have plenty and whenever I travel they are first on the agenda.
I love reading your posts about your experiences in that small town. It keeps me longing to wander through the back roads of France, those flea markets and fresh produce markets, or sit in a park listening to that lovely language, and even picking out some meaning in them. It’s a great mental escape from the familiar! Merci beau coup!
Beautifully said. Can’t wait to get my hands in the ground in the next couple of weeks.
We have several of the same wild products in the Pacific NW. Check out Victoria magazine May, the French issue. A nice article about Cluny and Beaune.
I’ll be moving to France in the fall and what could be better than this wonderful book!
When I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a month living in Paris a couple of years ago, I spent many delightful hours combing the fabulous French markets for edible treats to take home & make my meals each day. Like Emily, Paris for me was a food (& wine) lover’s heaven. I’m heading back for another month of French immersion this September & looking forward to more of the same with great anticipation. Living on an island off the West Coast of British Columbia Canada, in an idyllic rural setting, I can also appreciate her foraging adventures & am able to replicate many myself. Going to sign up for her blog.
This one has motivated me to retire to the kitchen to whip up some mayonnaise, something I haven’t done with any regularity since I was in the Peace Corps in Chile living a distance from any fancy shop where I could have purchased some. And thank goodness for that. Chile allowed me to build on the foundation of my mother’s skillful cooking and is partly responsible for the welcome table I offer up lovingly for friends and family of today. Thanks for helping me remember.
I have to admit that I have a fear of picking the wrong wild mushroom and accidentally killing my dinner guests or sending them on hallucinogenic binges!
Wonderful post…..just reinforces the importance of eating seasonally. ….which the French do so well. Time for the cherries of the Luberon but was sad to learn that they are under attack, and production is down 50%……sure hope this is an exaggeration.
Ah, markets! My favorite activity in France, city or country!
Would love to forage in the French countryside, but my back yard will have to do for now…arugula, lettuce and fava beans.
Loves the blog. Foraging is my passion especially when in France. I will be in Annecy in June and looking for a good cook book since I am doing a lot of cooking there. Thank you for a delightful blog!
Francine
I would encourage Emily and anyone else interested in foraging for and cooking with wild edibles to take a look at Marie Viljoen’s blog “66 Square Feet (Plus).” It can be found at http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com/. Marie, a native South African now living in New York City, is a fascinating and witty urban gardener, food forager and cook. She forages for edible growing things in the wild public spaces and markets in and around New York City, grows edible food in her small back garden in Brooklyn (from which the title of her blog originated), and explores the countryside of South Africa during her trips to visit her family.
I couldn’t imagine how you could give up Paris’ markets to move out to the country, especially when you seem to be able to get paid to shop them and to cook and eat. Talk about a dream job! However, reading about the country foraging makes that life sound divine too. I think I’m just very jealous… 🙂
Lynn, thank you for introducing us to Emily,her cookbook and her blog!
Her words and experiences take me back to our happy times in Paris and Montreal when we spent
wonderful hours wandering through the markets trying to come up with some scrumptious recipes to use those glorious ingredients.
And!Her pictures! Especially of those gorgeous frais du bois.Oh! Yum!
We are fortunate to have a bounty of farmers’ markets here in the US,but,alas,no matter how beautiful they might be, it is still not the same.
Sigh.
Thank you for a most interesting and beautiful post. I look forward to reading future Paris Paysanne posts. Years ago in the early Spring before the fields were plowed, folks in this area (Eastern Shore of Maryland,USA) would gather what they called “cresses” which must be closely related or the same plant as the mâche which you picture. More than likely they were cooked and served as a green vegetable. Thanks, again.
I loved your article about foraging. I would love to know more about the wild mushrooms and the attaining of the healthy part of the nettles plant, without getting “stung.” Perhaps a pictorial section could be useful & educational to those of us who are interested in foraging, but who are uninformed. Also, are all wild strawberries safe to eat?
How wonderful to forage and enjoy the best of nature’s gifts. On Saturday after returning from the organic farmers market, I prepared a delicious, greenbean, butternut and chicken dish, seasoned with lots of garlic and homemade pesto.
Mmm, reading this post brought back memories of horseback riding in the Rocky Mountains and enjoying sweet, wild raspberries picked along the trail and still warm from the sun! There have been other times when I have stumbled across wild onions, strawberries, and even garlic. It’s like finding treasure.
J’adore les livres de cuisine avec les belles photos et les recettes delicieuses, especialement sur le sujet de la France 🙂