Much of my time at Le Cordon Bleu is spent in the kitchen. However, like any good teachers, the chefs realize that students need real world exposure. During intermediate pastry we were lucky enough to visit the famed La Maison de Angelina located near the Louvre. We sampled their famous chocolat chaud, as thick as melted chocolate bars, and watched them make perfectly formed pastries.
The superior pastry field trip took us 30 minutes south of Paris to the largest wholesale market in the world, Rungis. In the 1960s the original Parisian wholesale food market was moved from Les Halles to the outskirts of Paris due to aesthetic and hygienic reasons. A city in itself, the Rungis market employs over 10,000 people. To enter you must be on a guided tour or visiting for professional reasons. Various halls dot the 1.6 square mile property where fish, meat, fruit, vegetables and even flowers are stored. Rungis is like Disney World for foodies. During the tour I almost expected a mouse to jump from behind one of the 300 pound wheels of cheese and try to take a picture with me.
If you are not in the market to buy thousands of pounds of beef or hundreds of pints of strawberries and still want to visit Rungis check out their website and find out how you can join a tour: http://www.visiterungis.com/?lang=en
Click on the slideshow below to see pictures from my visit
Bisou, bisou,
Bisou, bisou,
Maggie
“I’m asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it’s this: to be a part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one’s hands—using all one’s senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure (though oral sex has to be a close second).”
-Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
-Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
