Ground cherries, affable hippies on boulevard Raspail
On Sunday, I met up with Christine (who is keeping a nifty cooking school blog of her experiences at Le Cordon Bleu Paris) at the marché biologique on boulevard Raspail. To my untrained eye, it resembles many other outdoor food markets in Paris, except that this one had a whiff of earth-lovin’, hippie-dippy organica about it. Since I entertain fantasies of tending compost heaps in Berkeley after this blissful Paris stuff is over, I kind of fell in love. California crunch and Paris produce smushed into one cute, slightly shaggy market!
Less than half of the stuff I bought at the market.
I think it is no coincidence that I found many vendors on the boulevard Raspail to be exceedingly friendly and kind. I left with a groaning string bag of food that I couldn’t resist buying; I loved the woman with dreads and the Patagonian sweater almost as much as I loved her ugly, imperfect tiny yellow peaches.
Just when I thought I couldn’t carry any more, a flirty fruit vendor let me try a sample of these:
We had puzzled over them all morning. They look like tiny tomatillos, but when I asked the guy whether they were related, he practically peed himself at the sheer idiocy of my question.
“NOOO!” he bellowed, guffawing. “They are FRUIT!! SWEET!” Then he let me taste one.
Oh. My. God.
I never knew I could love a fruit so much. I think, after some research, that they are ground cherries; here they are just called physalis. They come in a delightful papery leaf covering that is ripped off to reveal a glossy apricot-colored kernel beneath. You pop the whole thing in your mouth and it bursts open and floods your tongue with what I can only describe as flavors of tropical paradise that have been magically encapsulated in a tiny fruit. There are hints of velvety coconut, perfume-y mango and tangy citrus.
The look of rapture on my face made the fruit vendor laugh even harder. I guess proper Parisian women are not so obviously passionate about their fruit. This gave him free reign to make a shameless attempt at flirting as he bagged up my new favorite food.
“If you eat these, you will not be alone long,” he said. And then, the tired old, "Where are you from?" My answer must have pleased him, because as I left he was busy making a kissing face at me.
Gross! I guess I am willing to endure lecherous fruit vendors if it means I can stuff myself with ground cherries whenever I want. Isn’t there a Christina Rossetti poem about this very problem?
I should consider myself warned.
P.S. And they ARE related to tomatillos!
I think it is no coincidence that I found many vendors on the boulevard Raspail to be exceedingly friendly and kind. I left with a groaning string bag of food that I couldn’t resist buying; I loved the woman with dreads and the Patagonian sweater almost as much as I loved her ugly, imperfect tiny yellow peaches.
Just when I thought I couldn’t carry any more, a flirty fruit vendor let me try a sample of these:
We had puzzled over them all morning. They look like tiny tomatillos, but when I asked the guy whether they were related, he practically peed himself at the sheer idiocy of my question.
“NOOO!” he bellowed, guffawing. “They are FRUIT!! SWEET!” Then he let me taste one.
Oh. My. God.
I never knew I could love a fruit so much. I think, after some research, that they are ground cherries; here they are just called physalis. They come in a delightful papery leaf covering that is ripped off to reveal a glossy apricot-colored kernel beneath. You pop the whole thing in your mouth and it bursts open and floods your tongue with what I can only describe as flavors of tropical paradise that have been magically encapsulated in a tiny fruit. There are hints of velvety coconut, perfume-y mango and tangy citrus.
The look of rapture on my face made the fruit vendor laugh even harder. I guess proper Parisian women are not so obviously passionate about their fruit. This gave him free reign to make a shameless attempt at flirting as he bagged up my new favorite food.
“If you eat these, you will not be alone long,” he said. And then, the tired old, "Where are you from?" My answer must have pleased him, because as I left he was busy making a kissing face at me.
Gross! I guess I am willing to endure lecherous fruit vendors if it means I can stuff myself with ground cherries whenever I want. Isn’t there a Christina Rossetti poem about this very problem?
I should consider myself warned.
P.S. And they ARE related to tomatillos!
posted by cindym at 2:10 PM
11 Comments:
Ooh la la! Watch out! ;) Those little ground cherries sound good though...
I think those little things are also called "coeur en cage" -- my friend Garett found some liqueur made from them once and it was called "amour en cage". It was so incredibly delicious that I can only imagine what the actual fruit is like!!!
we had these in Germany this summer -- I'd never seen them, but our friend there (who used to live in Cambridge near us, and knows us all too well) found them at the market and knew we'd be enraptured by exciting new weird fruit. They are fantastic. Tangy, tart/sweet, tropical. I wonder if they can be found in the US or not -- i have not seen any yet.
Duh, they are just called "amour en cage", not "coeur en cage". The liqueur that I had was from Quebec -- maybe they have abundant ground cherries there?
Loved your description, I'm going back for more physalis on Sunday!
Thanks for introducing me to blood peaches, they were amazing.
hmm, maybe the name "amour en cage" was inspiring the lechery in the fruit vendor...interesting!
As long as you don't pay the goblin fruit vendor with locks of your hair, dear migrant, you should be solid on the Christina Rosetti tip.
I discovered physalis several years ago in France. So good! So unusual! (And I, too, thought they had to be related to tomatillos.) They are also known as cape gooseberries in the US.
oh, they grew ground cherries at henry's farm. i used to go home from the farmers market with heaping bags of them and no one else in my apartment would eat them -- it was perfect! they're so pop-in-your-mouth-able.
i'm glad the case of stroopwaffels that my father sent me in college didn't permanently turn you off the stuff!!
Wow, I ate gooseberries all summer (and just bought some tomatillas) but have never seen them with the paper still attached. What fun!
Here in Colombia, these are called "ochuvas" and I love'em!! They're really cheap, too. Just curious: how much did they cost??? Here they make anything from ochuva jam to ochuva hotsauce etc.
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