Nov 04 2009
Late at night…
Late at night when the chain grocery stores are closed, this is what you search for in Paris. The small corner "epicerie" to get another bottle of wine for your dinner party or some chocolate for the bus ride home. Photo by Dani Voirin.
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2 Responses to “Late at night…”
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It was one of these stores that helped me navigate through grocery shopping in Paris when I was principal chef for a small New Year’s dinner party nearby.
It was run by Algerians who took pity on my horribly broken French. Since I obviously looked and sounded a foreigner, I found myself comforted by folks who felt empathy for another “Other”.
Got my rice, soy sauce, sugar and vinegar, and on that night, I felt both alone and very happily part of the world.
Note the presence of fresh fruits and vegetables (most of it from northern Africa). These stores (I’ve been in at least 50 of them) will have real bread, real cheese, many homemade things…it ain’t Quick Chek. They carry a range of wines from cheap to stuff costing 50 euros a bottle, so you can actually get champagne late at night. Most are not open 24 hours, but close at around 11. There is one every few blocks in central Paris and many of the outer neighborhoods too. Most are family-owned and possess this unusual thing known as character.
Here is an alternate caption: Late at night when the chain grocery stores are closed, this is what you search for in Paris. The small corner “alimentation générale” (sometimes called the “Arab” by a less “PC” generation of Parisians) to get another bottle of wine for your dinner party or some chocolate for the bus ride home.
The word for a similar kind of corner store/grocery store in Québec is a “Dépanneur”