Halloween in Paris: Less Fuss, More Fun

For the past few years, the French have been feeling pretty smug around la Toussaint. "Halloween is gone for good," they gloat. "It wasn't a French holiday to begin with--it couldn't have lasted," they shrug, pointing to bland shop windows that used to be filled with gaping jack-o-lantern grins and spindly spider legs in woolly webs come October. Even store chains like Monoprix have started to skimp on the Halloween déco, content to fill their seasonal aisles instead with Christmas-themed candy and decorations as soon as the weather turns cool. With the exception of the odd chocolatier's--or Le Bon Marché's--displays of plump pumpkin-shaped chocolates, Halloween could almost go unnoticed now. Almost.
Because what the French haven't completely forgotten is the magic of make-believe. Wobbly toddlers turned ladybugs and wild Indians are led by the hands of proud parents to their crèches' Halloween parties, where even the staff has been transformed into witches and devils. Older Parisians stop the children on the street to compliment their costumes and joke with them, no doubt remembering costumed goûters d'anniversaire of yore.
So maybe with a less commercial version of Halloween, the French, young and old, will stop seeing the holiday as a capitalist intrusion and more as what it always has been: a good excuse to dress up and eat candy--pumpkin-shaped or not.

Drew Barrymore as Gertie [Online image] 1982.

Fall in Paris Means Really Big Produce

After months of bite-sized berries, wee apricots all ablush, and innocent heads of leafy greens, fall produce can come as quite a shock here.
Suddenly market stands are weighed down with giant slices of pumpkin (they're too big to be sold whole), fat apples and pears in all shapes and colors, and piles of twisted black radishes.
Shoppers hobble home laden with their spoils, conspicuous stalks of leeks and chard peeking out from bags and baskets, not knowing the culinary coup that awaits them. . . For tonight, Madame will cover them in egg and cream and put them in a pie!

Illustration by Beatrix Potter [Online image] 1893.

Cupcakes Vs. Croissants

I always wonder if kids in Paris know how lucky they are to grow up here. Walking home from school with a flaky croissant in one hand and a suave Parisian papa's reassuring hand in the other, do they know that their never-ending afternoons of goûters and Guignol in the park aren't the stuff that other childhoods are made of? Not that I'm knocking celery sticks and peanut butter with 30 minutes of Mary Tyler Moore. But the average American after-school program today seems to be filled with a lot less fiber and a lot more TV.
With cookies, doughnuts, and cupcakes slowly gaining space on French pastry shop shelves, though, Parisian palates may soon get sweet on gourmandise à l'américaine. Luckily French TV is nowhere near as entertaining as a puppet holding a stick.

Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette. [Online image] 1996.