French Shopping in Calais

Madelyn Byrne is married to a dyed-in-the-wool Frenchman and lives in the ‘French Ghetto’ of London. She and her husband stock up on French foods and delicacies in Calaiss and their car knows the way to and from London and Paris by heart.

 I am an American married to a Frenchman and we live in the ‘French Ghetto’ surrounding the Lycée Français in South Kensington, London.  Luckily, there are numerous French pâtisseries, restaurants and café’s close by.  The French mothers ‘déposent leurs enfants’ at the Lycée every morning, impeccably turned out (compared to us Anglo mothers) and stop nearby for their café’ crème and a good catch-up with their ‘copines’, other French mums.  We buy our Figaro and French magazines at La Page, where we also find the required French school cahiers for our children.
 
We can find almost all the French food and cheese we need at the English supermarkets; we can even shop 24 hours a day at Tessco’s and Sainsburys.  London certainly has come a long way since our arrival in the early 1980’s, when even fresh fruit and vegetables were hard to come by.  So why on earth do we and other French families insist on making bi-monthly runs to Carrefour in Calais and Picard in Boulogne?
 
The answer is easy:  we love the selection, all the new and interesting foods and packaging, AND the prices are significantly lower!  If we don’t have time, we replenish locally, but many French mothers are religious in their monthly pilgrimage to Carrefour. We still are wary about local meat here, and so only buy New Zealand lamb and beef from Lidgate’s in Notting Hill, where the cows were raised with love on Prince Charles’ estate in Highgrove (guaranteed organic and thus so no worries about mad cow disease). 
 
Some friends, though, must get to Calais like a fix for a taste of La Belle France.  For the last 10 years, two mothers we know leave at four o’clock in the morning in a large station wagon in order to arrive for the first Euroshuttle; they call the butcher at Carrefour from the train with their order, race through the aisles and turn around in time to pick up the kids from school that afternoon.  What amazing devotion!
 
What do we buy at Carrefour?  If we buy basics in bulk, then it pays for the petrol to get there and back:  Volvic water is half the UK price; Perrier and laundry soaps in bulk are 1/3 less.  Facial soaps, creams for our faces, shampoos, Lipikar creams, children’s clothing (cheap and chic), school supplies, toothpastes and toothbrushes, Pimm’s and beer can be found in abundance.  Most people stock up on wine, but they are not lucky enough to have an aficionado French cousin who finds incredible deals for us.
 
The treats that we also love to buy include Pain Brioche, Moutarde au Dijon, Moutarde al’ ancienne, tons of cheeses (which we freeze), Meunier chocolate, vanilla sticks, smashed garlic in a jar, mayonnaise, Lulu and Petit Prince biscuits, Bonne Maman, sacs of pre-grated Emmenthal, Ducros pepper in a self-grinding jar for cheap gifts, crusts for tarte sablee’ with real butter (vs. lard in the UK), bread crumbs – which don’t have the rancid smell of those at Sainsbury’s — Petits Suisses, Nestle Yogurt, Quatre Quarts cake, Vinaigre au framboise, Lindt chocolate with strawberry filling (all mine!), and finally, enormous cans of Cassoulet with extra cans of Canard, a great dinner basic.
 
The English have earned a reputation for coming to Calais for one reason only:  to buy booze and plenty of it.  Indeed, they buy so much beer that Tesco’s has opened a special booze store in the Super Centre by the Euro Tunnel so they feel more at home shopping there instead of the ‘froggy’ liquor stores like Carrefour.  Besides car day-trippers, people arrive via bus and boat to Calais, and bring dollies with them so that they are able to wheel their cases of beer easily on board.  Their cars and buses are literally groaning with beer when they return.
 
We do, however, see lots of English people in Carrefour, as they love French food and prices as much as we do.  I confess that I pretend to be French and push them out of my way in the aisles as I desperately chase through Carrefour to finish in time for our return shuttle (‘Mummy, the French are so rude!’  YES!).  We love living in London, (BBC TV and the and the kind but reserved British and their hobbies such as train spotting).  But as an American it becomes frustrating to live around so many polite people who haven’t grown up with my same “time and motion” philosophy of life.
 
Next, we head to the Picard store in Boulogne for the real treats!  Like the French mothers above, we call up in advance to place our order with the store and bring two enormous ice chests and pre-frozen plastic bricks.  The employees know us by name and pull our ‘chariots’ full of food from their freezer case to ring us up when we arrive.  We buy lotte at half the UK price and other frozen fish; cakes, patisseries, and hors d’œuvres fill our bags to overflowing.  The list goes on and on!  My French in-laws believe I am under nourishing their grandchildren by buying frozen, but I figure they flash-freeze all fish on the superships before coming into port anyway…
 
A major advantage to living in London is that Picard is almost unknown, even among our French friends.  At dinners, they rave over my delicate hors d’œuvres in puff pastry, my Goujons au fromage, over my entrée of ‘Chaud Froids with potatoes and fois gras’ on green salad, my pumpkin and minestrone soups, my artichoke hearts with melted chevre on salad, my Pommes Dauphinois, my Aubergines Parmesan, (all lovingly placed into white porcelain bakeware for that Martha Stewart authenticity before defrosting); my duck stuffed with prunes, quail stuffed with foie gras, my Moussaka, purees of vegetables, croquettes of carrots, baked Alaska, mango sorbets inside meringue balls, my Operas, Gateaux Surprises, macaroons (someone finally asked if they came from Picard because they have never found good macaroons in England!). 
 
We fill up with gas on the French side, 20% cheaper than in the UK and head off for the shuttle.  We can recite the questions at check-in by heart:  ‘Yes, we are the only ones traveling, no, the car doesn’t run on GPL liquid gas; we have no firearms, no pets, no children, and there are no explosives including fireworks.  We drive through the spaghetti system of roads to London and get home in time to shove everything into the freezer before we break ‘la chaine froide’!  
 
If we were to move to France, we would not make similar supply trips to the UK.  In an ironic reversal, our French friends who visit from Paris love the white wonderbread similar to what we Americans grew up with, lemon curd, chutneys, baking powder, korma and vindaloo sauces in a jar, the great DVD prices, Fornum’s English Breakfast tea, Christmas Crackers, and to savor the service at department stores such as Peter Jones.