Paris 11 Ancien - Quartier École-de-Médecine

Today was all about the gastronomical delights of France. I am both proud and a little (a very little) embarrassed to say that today’s blog entry literally only consists of food 🤣
We discovered a walking tour, designed especially for kids to explore the best of Parisian food- walking the streets of Paris with a ‘local’ (Rachel) who took us to all the places the locals love to eat at. And boy do the French take their food seriously. Like, rockstars in France are not famous actors or singers… they are chefs. No word of a joke (our English is getting sketchy…) Good chefs over here are household names; they are held in such esteem that blood has been drawn between friends over which Chef is better (venison blood I’m sure…)
It was SUCH a fascinating tour. It ended up being just the 4 of us with Rachel, and she was knowledgeable, and captivating and had a great dry sense of humour. The kids were fascinated with her tales of food woven through a very in-depth history lesson of France- ask the kids about Louis XIV (thats 14 for those lacking in the Roman numeral department). He was the Sun King (he predated the fun King- kids like him better). In fact, Nick and I learnt more on her tour than I’ve ever learnt about the French Revolution (which was pretty much zilch), and it was FASCINATING. I have a much better understanding of the French way of life, knowing more of its history. Like why food is such a massive thing here- when King Louis XVI (16- the done King) and Marie Antoinette were overthrown by the oppressed French peasants (and had their heads chopped off… as the kids say), a huge number of amazing Chefs found themselves with no job (as they were all hired to be private chefs of the Royalty) and so… restaurants were invented! And what went from only a handful of restaurants in Paris, overnight bloomed into thousands of top notch places selling fine grub. And so the tradition has continued. And we spent a good chunk of the day sampling this slice of history (full disclosure… not just one slice…)
I can’t pronounce any of the delights we consumed (except eclair… seems Audrey’s new favourite word) but the photos will do it more justice than my ramblings anyway.
Our lovely guide was having such a nice time (or she forgot her watch?) that she ended up spending an extra hour with us- and snuck us into one of her fave shops where we sampled a hundred (I swear it felt that many) different jams. The shop madame was so wonderful and played a ‘guess the ingredients of this jam’ (kids vs adults) for a good 20 jams (ignoring the couple of customers that came into the shop during this time…). We left high as kites on sugar and very jammy indeed.
The verdict: French food is delicious (and not that nutritious… but we are currently ignoring that). Liv ate lots of cheese (lady was impressed), Nick ate lots of escargot (lady was very impressed) and Audrey ate lots of desserts (Audrey was very very impressed). And I had a balanced diet today… from all the good French food groups 😉🍫🍰🍾Read more