Rungis Au Grand Palais, Great Quality, Pretty Displays But Limited In Scope

Le Grand Palais is a beautiful building created for the world exhibition of 1900, which hosts multiple events throughout the year.  Trying to “bring” Rungis to Parisians was not one of their best.

Rungis is not the prettiest word, nor a pretty village, but is famous for housing the humongous former “belly of Paris” Les Halles in its environs, renamed Rungis.

When the magnificent Baltard wrought iron structures of Les Halles were torn down by 1972 and the biggest food market in the world was sent to Rungis, it left a black hole over this historically rich area of old Paris that will never be able to be recaptured.

Writers, especially Emile Zola’s beautiful sensuous words painted Les Halles so visually you felt literally transported to this fabled world that made Paris the gastronomic capital of the world.

Today Rungis, a very modern food market covering  234 hectares( 578 acres) has over 1,200 wholesale sellers of vegetables, fruits, meats, seafood, flowers and even cookware. It is in itself, an entire village!

Whereas the old Les Halles was open for all, you have to be either a restauranteur or professional retailer of foods or flowers to buy or even get into Rungis.

There are a few tours offered for 85 euros up to visit the Rungis, but again you can not buy anything during your visit.

So the idea of offering some of the foods sold there to individuals was well-intended, except for the limited offerings, limited space, limited time, limited cooking demonstrations and overly expensive admittance fee and crowds.

The whole event was overly hyped as well, with glowing promises of master classes of famous chefs and known restaurants, which did not pan out.

The restaurants were not well known, certainly not “ephemeral”, and there was just one master class per time slot allotted for visitors, divided either into a morning admittance or late afternoon one.

The event planners looked like they were trying to imitate the Taste Of Paris an annual event held there too, which offers much more for the visitors than did this event.

The bottom line was that the entrance fee of 15 euros could have been better spent at one of the high-end markets in Paris, rather than fighting crowds and being pushed out after a few hours!

Thanks to the Gilet Jaunes demonstrations that bring violence whenever they demonstrate, a tremendous amount of metro stations were closed, including all on the Champs Elysees.

Therefore I did not attempt to go on Saturday, but the closures remained on Sunday too so getting to the Grand Palais was difficult, except for a few buses, causing me to arrive late.

Although the interior of the Grand Palais is very big, it nevertheless did not allow for enough stands to warrant representing Rungis in all its vast diversity of products offered.

There were beautiful arrangements of fruits of course and a magnificent Eiffel tower-like sculpture of huge prawns from Madagascar.

France is justifiably famous for their excellent poultry and fowls, with several varieties that carry hefty price tags for the exquisite taste they offer to the gastronomes.

Chickens, capons and turkeys from Bresse are royal breeds pampered with much care, special diets and regulations to account for their well being before slaughter and even afterwards to ensure a distribution of fat into each bird.

One of the poultry farmers demonstrated how each poultry from Bresse is prepared after slaughter. It is an age-old tradition of wrapping the birds with linen and tightly sewing the garments around the body, which are then massaged to increase fat penetration into the tissues.

As a sensitive soul and reluctant carnivore who limits meats, there is always a great sense of sadness seeing these magnificent animals sacrificed on the altars of gastronomy.

At least they did not bring in carcasses of cattle, sheep and pigs which Rungis has hangers full all awaiting being bought by butchers in Paris or precut there.

Not surprising the most marbled of all beef were the cuts of Waygu from Japon.  All French beef is grass fed, raised without hormones and slaughtered around 7 to 10 years versus under 12 months for the states.

Feedlots are forbidden here, and therefore beef is generally not as marbled as those you find in America.

There were upscales oysters for the taking, and the Madagascar shrimp, but he poissonnerie(fish market) was minuscule to what you normally find in any food marché here, yet is one of the largest in the world at Rungis.

On the positive side, the merchants were fairly generous in passing out samples.  The Irish beef providers were grilling Black Angus beef samples, as the race is not that well known here.

I tasted one of the very best pineapples of my life at Banagrumes stands that came from Ecuador and a succulent golden kiwi, which I planned to buy before leaving so as not to heave around a heavy sack.

 

The pretty light crimson orchid flowers were dazzling to look at, but there weren’t any other exotic flowers displayed, yet Rungis is the foremost flower supplier to the majority of French florists.

 

The vast variety of mushrooms is impressive, as well as large globes of pretty black truffles and white ones from Italy offered for sniffing and buying if you had deep pockets.

I spied an original looking dessert made entirely out of fruits that looked enticing, but not for sale.  Yes, there were two pastry stands, one only of eclairs and the other only chocolate cakes.

Since I had, unfortunately, missed a master class with Thierry Marx, I did catch a mini class with a chef preparing samples of rolled omelettes filled with mushrooms that were prettier than they tasted.

The most original foods were from an importer offering some wonderful walnuts and apricot seeds from Uzbekistan and a surprising Finnish confiture(jam) of exquisite rose petals that was really outstanding.

I was tempted to buy but resisted paying 12 euros for a small jar.

It was close to three when I started back to buy that sublime Ecuadorean pineapple, only to be prevented from going by a security agent rounding up folks like a sheepdog to shew them towards the exit.

I saw many protests at being pushed out before the hour to make room for ticket buyers who were coming at four. I lingered around hoping to make a breakthrough to no avail.  Forget the pineapple!

Though the pineapple would have made lovely eating just by itself, I had envisioned using it for something more elaborate, like adorning a lemon trifle.

So I ended up coming home empty handed, except for a small cookbook and some nice recipe booklets all free for the taking, a nice compensation all in all.

By the time I got home, it was almost dark and I had to go straight to the kitchen to make Sunday dessert.  Easy enough to do for someone who has made many a tarte in her day!

I had bought some great organic lemons from Sicily the day before with plans on making a lemon tarte, one of my favourite winter desserts.  I love the creamy French lemon tarts made with creme fraiche, eggs and fresh lemon juice

I make mine with a lots more lemon juice to ensure a full lemon tartness and minimum sugar and like to float thin lemon slices on top.  My buttery pate brisée marries perfectly crisp and flaky crust with succulent tart lemon cream.

Humble perhaps in appearance but marvellously rich and delicious!

As for the real Rungis, I would love to visit it someday!  I hope that the rumour that they may open up a market for individuals when the Grand Paris Metro stops there in a year or two comes true!