Des Fraises

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.  -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I've been tackling M.F.K Fisher's The Art of Eating for a few months now. I've finished Serve it Forth, Consider the Oyster, and How to Cook a Wolf. It has been, and continues to be, one of the best literary journeys I've had the pleasure of taking. For all you romantic foodies out there, pick up a copy and spend some time, preferably over some delicious bites and sips, losing yourself in her rhetoric. 

In Serve it Forth, M.F.K. discusses those food moments where things change in the mind and on the palate of a budding gourmand. Those moments when food transcends the molecular and nutritional certainty to unapologetically reveal a hidden potential. She discusses how these moments are often the simplest or most innocent encounters to start, a crust of bread during a hike, a fruit dried on a radiator, but somehow melt like a Dali painting into enlightenment.

I've had a few of these moments but I want to revive the pinnacle. Poignant because it was during those first few wild days of falling in love with Paris.  

My boyfriend at the time, now dear husband, surprised me with a trip to Paris. He had lived there for a collective two years and wanted to go back to visit old places and old friends and to introduce me to an important chapter in his life. The first day was a blur. A 36-hours-awake blur of heat, dust, Jameson, Magner’s and a bank holiday. When we emerged for the first time from the metro after checking into our tiny Airbnb flat in Montmartre I remember thinking, "Does it all look like this?" Paris looked like Paris. It smelt of that first hazy heat of May and charm. I was smitten. We grabbed tarte aux pommes and terrines from a small shop and ate on a park bench beneath the Eiffel Tower. The pictures of us during that meal were dreadful. My one photo posing with the tower was less than flattering. But c'est la vie, non? We drank the afternoon away at the bar at which he used to bartend and retired to sleep for 14 hours. 

When we woke up it was bright and warm, We were drowsy and content. We ventured off to eat in an open air market near Sacre Coeur and toured the cathedral. I cried as I always do in churches. We hit up several must-see attractions during the day. I don’t remember if we shopped for groceries that day or the next but at some point, on our way back to our apartment for our afternoon nap, we stopped in our neighborhood to pick up food for a small lunch. 

We made three stops. The first was at the fromagerie. I’ve lived in Wisconsin my entire life. I’ve been surrounded by cheese my entire life. But this was something different. It was blue-lit and sparse with a smell that hit you in the chest the moment you stepped inside. I peered like a child into the cases trying to decipher the hand-written name tags for anything I was familiar with. We selected a Mobier and I believe a soft cheese like a Brie or Triple Crème.

Next was the grocer. Again, a small, well lit, pungent place. Narrow cozy aisles. Sleepy- eyed children and well-meaning adults. We picked up cashews and strawberries. We held hands.

Lastly, was the boulangerie. The bakery was the corner store on our block. It was triangular and smaller by half than the other two shops. It had an orange glow about it. Baskets of fresh baguettes, an entire dreamy case of glassy cakes and pastries, and what seemed like three times as many patrons. We ordered a beautiful, crusty French baguette and headed home.

For the next few days our routine was simple. We rose late, ate breakfast in any number of cafes, saw a few sites, rode the train back to our apartment for a nap and a light lunch, then as dusk fell we’d venture out for a late dinner.

Our afternoon lunch consisted simply and purely of the items I’ve mentioned already. Sliced strawberries on a swipe of room temperature cheese, pressed carefully across bite-sized slices of pillowy baguette. Cashews, unsalted, on the side. We paired lunch with a bottle of red wine to induce a gentle, dream-like trance and lull us to sleep. These midday meals combined to be my awakening moment. 

What really stuck with me were the strawberries. They were small and ruby red, rounded instead of pointed like in America. The trade off for a lack in taper was an intense concentration of pure summer flavor. I never knew a strawberry could taste like that. I never knew I could like the berries so intensely. They melted perfectly into the cheese, smooth and salty with a wisp of old-world funk. The crunch of the bread and cashews forgave the softness of the rest of the meal. Our fingers covered in pink stains and crumbs lifted garnet colored wines to our noses and mouths. We smiled and giggled with abandon. We were young, in love and in Paris.

The inner stirrings of culinary curiosity warmed me and warned me of an obsession to come. Questions floated dreamily in and out between mouthfuls and stolen glances. How could I ever eat strawberries in the States again? How could I feed myself and this new found craving without the midday sun and effervescence of Paris?  

I was ruined and simultaneously propelled forward like in all good romances. Those simple lunches in that small apartment were just the beginning. After lucky years of tasting, evaluating, learning, researching, attempting and, most importantly, eating I've arrived here where I'm sharing this all with you. With, universe willing, a lifetime of new romances, culinary and otherwise, ahead of us all and the stability of time-tested romances clutched near and dear beside us. 

When I tiredly approach where the road ends, with cataract-glazed eyes and gnarled fingers, and I need a bedtime story to lull me to a final, dreamless sleep, I want it to be this one. A story of love. A story of promise. A story of strawberries. 

Share your 'Eureka!' food moments in the comments below!