What’s Better Than a French Farmer’s Market? The Farm!

If you’re lucky enough to be in residence this summer with access to a vehicle, there’s no better time to try one of France’s cuillettes (or pick-your-own produce farms). The concept is familiar; many growers open to the public at the height of a particular season (apples or strawberries for example). But here a group of independently-owned farms grouped under the name Chapeau de Paille – “straw hat” in French – make their entire potagers available from roughly April to October each year. This means, depending on the month, that up to twenty varieties of fruits and vegetables, and sometimes even flowers, are ripe for the picking. August and September are the months that hit twenty. The farms are not organic, but do practice “sustainable agriculture” – using as little chemical assistance as possible to produce a profitable crop. Chapeau de Paille’s website is only in French, but it’s easy enough to click on the red dots to find a location close to you (the smaller map is the Ile de France region surrounding Paris). Links lead you to a particular farm, its hours and driving directions. Once there the rules are simple. And you needn’t speak French to follow them. Pick up a pair of clippers, a wheelbarrow near the entrance and grab a handful of plastic bags at one of the dispensers located around the grounds. There are paper or plastic containers for berries. Pick only where you see signs at the ends of plots and avoid areas surrounded by white plastic tape (crops are rotated to keep produce flowing throughout the summer). Wheel over to the checkout, where your takings will be weighed. On a recent visit to the cuillette in Aulnay-sous-Bois near Epernay (two hours from Paris; there are other farms within an hour’s drive), I harvested a generous bunch of radishes, another of carrots, an enormous head of butter lettuce, plenty of green beans, new potatoes and six pounds of tomatoes (only because they were so beautiful I couldn’t stop picking them). Grand total? Twelve euros. No, I’m not kidding. I passed on the eggplant, zucchini, turnips, heirloom tomatoes and apples but would have jumped on the raspberries had a very large, container-wielding family not beat me to the punch and hoovered up the ripe ones. Artichokes were ripening, as were late season strawberries. The necessity of a car certainly offsets the edible bargains to be had. But even if you were to rent one (this qualifies as an excellent ‘things to do with kids in France’ activity, by the way) an afternoon playing paysanne, hunched over gathering up your own haricots verts, is a authentic experience you won’t soon forget. Not to mention the fresher-than-even-the-marché reward on your table.