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Published: January 13th 2009
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Carrefour in Brive
Sandy and I are over our flu and decided to head to Brive today. Brive is a medium size city about 40 minutes north of here. It houses a wonderful cathedral, major SNCF station for the area and a Carrefour.
Carrefour is the reason we made the trip. Carrefour is what Super Walmart should be. Built into a shopping centre it is huge with easily distinguishable departments - food divided into a bakery, fish market, meat department, huge cheese section(bien sur), hardware, books, clothing, furniture, etc. A bank, cleaner, DVD rental all can be found. Anything you might want but minus the cheap Walmart crap and the terrible displays.
It is soldes time. Sales don't happen all year round but by French law only during a couple of designated weeks each year. Think about it. That allows the consumer to shop knowing the price is reasonable because the retailer can't briefly over inflate prices just to hold a so-called sale.
The shoppers are interesting. People are all dressed nicely though conservatively and present themselves attractively. We didn't see one of those Floridians who parks in the handicapped spot and runs into the store to
claim the motorized scooter. Black is predominant or grey, with colour used as an accent by scarves, etc. This apparently results in French people owning fewer clothes but better quality clothes. This way they can save their money for what is really important - food. There are some jeans but not many of the tattered, torn ones even on teens. Usually they are designer jeans.
We went to the fish department, waited our turn and tried to tell the lady what we wanted. A white fish, firm texture, mild. She took over. How did we plan to cook it? With a sauce? What kind of sauce? How many people? What kind of fish did we usually buy or order in a restaurant? To use tonight?
She suggested "sabre" and we agreed. She then picked through a pile picking up one and then another until she found the one for us. She didn't seem concerned with other customers waiting. They would have her complete attention, as we did, in due time. She washed the fish, dried it and packed it in a chilled, insulated foil envelope which she then heat sealed. Of course this envelope had written instructions for
storage, etc. She gave us a recipe sheet with two appropriate sauces - a hollandaise and garlic/olive oil. (Sabre is a Meditteranean fish called "scabbard" not to be confused with swordfish)
The cost of this fish? Euros 6.30 which is about $10 Cdn but still is 6.30 to a French person.
We bought a 5 litre cubit (plastic refillable) bottle of Red Bergerac wine as well. It is very drinkable. The cubit of wine costs Euros 8.60. That works out to almost seven bottles at less than E 1.50 per bottle. The equivalent wine in Canada in my guess would be $15.
The cashiers sit at their registers which seems to be a more sensible system. On the negative side there always does seem to be lines at the checkout and people accept the fact that they are going to have to wait.
Stores in the city of Brive were closed as it was Monday. We walked a typical French pedestrian street and had lunch at a bistro - Rumsteck(rump steak) et frites and a faux filet (sirloin steak) et frites, each with a pepper sauce and a tiny salad and we shared a featured bottle
of Bordeaux. We will visit the cathedral another time.
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Ernie
non-member comment
The fish counter
Hi Bob, I am glad to hear that you have both recovered. You do have a way of highlighting the differences between the North America and France. I can get wonderful seafood here in Nova Scotia (and that included lobster at $5.90 a pound 10 days ago), but with nowhere near the care and attention you received at Carrefour. Keep it coming ... your readership awaits.