February 24th Sunday

Today was going to be a big day. I was going to the Salon d’Agriculture with Amanda. This is an annual event that allows French farmers to come from all over France and show off their products. The president is usually required to make an appearance.

I got up at 9:20am after hitting the snooze a few times. I had some cereal for breakfast. Adrienne wasn’t feeling up to going so she stayed home. I left my place and met up with Amanda around 11:00. We took the metro line 12 to the Porte Versailles stop. We came up the stairs among a large crowd of people. There was a huge building with “Salon d’Agriculture” across it. It even had a picture of a cute brown cow.

We headed toward the lines. Amazingly the lines didn’t take that long. We were able to pay our €6 student entry fee and head in to grab maps. We had little guides that told us which halls had which centers. We decided to go to the halls that had the regional products first.

We went in to a huge room. It was full of booths with vendors from different regions of France. They were each separated by region too. We walked in and went to the nearest booth. Now it was time for what makes the Salon really fun. The dégustations! All of the booths were giving out free samples. We walked up near one booth and the woman called us over. “Want to taste some wine?” We said yes and she poured us some small glasses of wine to taste. The wine was a very nice red. Then she had us taste some of the same wine from previous years. I actually could taste a big difference through the years. Amanda and I preferred the second to last wine that she had us taste. I can’t remember now what the exact year was. Then we went to the rest of the people at the same booth to try ham, cheese, and nuts.

At first I was nervous because I thought they would pressure me to buy their products, but they were all very cheerful and happy to show off their stuff. Soon I felt like a pro weaving through the booths grabbing cheese, ham, and wine. Amanda and I came up to the Champagne region. I had always wanted to try actual champagne from the Champagne region of France. Unfortunately, they did not have any free samples so Amanda and I bought a glass to share. It was only €3 for the glass. It did taste very good.

By one o’clock we’d decided that we’d hit a few too many wine booths. We made our way around to look for some ham and cheese booths. The food and the wine all tasted amazing. They all had such different tastes. The vendors were happy and smiling. We stopped at one booth where the man was carving off pieces of ham and cheese with a large knife. He said “Tout est pour degustation, même les vendeurs.” (You can try everything here, even the vendors!) Amanda and I said “Oh!” and looked at each other.

We talked to people with different accents. Some of the men had very large mustaches with the ends curled up. It was a beautiful celebration of culture… and food. Each region even had its own restaurant where you could sit down and eat specialties from that region.

I bought myself a souvenir. There was a handsome man selling bells. They were actually cowbells to be exact. I bought myself the smallest one. It’s silver and has a surprisingly loud ring for its size.

I had to call Adrienne and cancel my afternoon plans. She was meeting up with Capucine, our landlord’s daughter, to go see the movie Juno. The Salon was much bigger than I had imagined and it was going to take much longer to get through. We were just moving on to our second floor after three hours. We were still in the regions section. We continued to visit the different booths sporting different products. We also ran into a man selling can openers who liked flirting with us. We tried to sneak away while he was talking with some customers. Then he saw and said “Mais non!” He told his coworker to take down our addresses so he could find us later. Ahhh the French.

We’d been having so many samples that we only felt slightly hungry for lunch. We ended up buying a foie gras sandwich to split for €7. It was so delicious. The foie gras was smooth and creamy. It was on a crusty baguette. It even came with a complimentary drink. We tried to find a table and ended up sitting down to eat on a step. Our feet were beginning to complain from walking around so long.

Our next step was to journey into the regions d’outre mer. These are the areas that were former French colonies. There were all of a sudden very bright colors and loud music. Here it definitely felt like we weren’t in France any more. The food tended to be a bit more exotic here. We were tempted into buying a €3 coconut sorbet to share. That was quite delicious. It was sweet without being overpowering.

After we finished the sorbet it was time to leave behind the delicious French regions and head out to see the animals. We found one of the buildings. The next one we went to contained horses. These horses were very tall. They seemed much bigger than any of the horses I’d ridden in Colorado. We also saw some dogs, cats, and birds. They had different rings were they had different shows for each of the animals. We moved on to the next building.

This one contained sheep, cows, and pigs. These animals were all so much larger than any variety I had ever seen in real life. The cows were just massive. The sheep were even quite large. These farmers must know what they’re doing. We wandered around and looked at the different animals. Amanda pointed out to me a man that was selling leather right next to the cows. Here are the cows. Now here’s the leather. No delusion there.

We also go to have samples here. They had a milk bar with free milk for the children. Adults only had to pay €0.20. They even put a squirt of flavoring in. I had vanilla in my cup of milk. I drank my milk and looked at the giant picture behind me. It was of a large cow sitting down. There were streams of milk shooting out of its udders into surrounding cylinders. I never thought I’d see that.

I didn’t think there was a French cheese that I didn’t like. I found it there. Surprisingly it was not Roquefort. I’d tried that and actually liked it. No this cheese had a much more, natural flavor. It was very strong. I didn’t like it at all. It tasted very strongly of cow. After, we had to go back and get some strawberry milk to try to wash it down. We could still taste it after the milk. Amanda said that pretty soon we would turn into cows too.

I bought some postcards to keep as souvenirs. They had ones of cows and horses. We went to visit the momma pigs with their running piglets before deciding that we’d spent enough time at the Salon. We made our way to the door around 6:30pm and left with a crowd of people. We hopped on the metro and I was able to take it all the way back to my Solférino stop. I came away with a goody bag of information on different regions. I got maps of Brittany region which I’ve studied.

I came home and made more food for myself. The sandwich got me going so I made a pâté sandwich and then made up some of my frozen cheese crêpes. I finished it all off with some brioche and jam. After that I noted how much weight I’ve gained since coming to France. I’m going to have to watch how many cheese crêpes I eat.

Adrienne came back and told me all about her evening with Capucine. I was glad to hear that she had fun. Juno sounded like an interesting movie.

I went to bed around 1:30.