It’s 7.54 a.m. and we are waiting for the doors of the Intermarché St Remy de Provence to open. A vast sense of excitement is building within our group that spans the ages of nine months to 68 years. My mother wants espadrilles, my husband wants wine, my brother-in-law wants cheese, the children want toys, et moi? Just the experience, the delicious joy of the French supermarché. And possibly some soap.
I was even asked to show the bottom of my baby’s buggy to the cashier to check that we hadn’t stolen anything
As the hour draws closer, we keep saying how civilised it all is: the plane trees that border the building, the sight of the Intermarché staff in their immaculate uniforms, the quiet punter smoking his morning fag before plunging in for his tinned cassoulet and Morbier. It’s just so French, we keep tooting loudly. Beside us, I see a local couple roll their eyes and look away; how bored they must be of the filthy English exclaiming over their supermarkets and loading up on cheap fizz. L’enfer must truly be the English in a French supermarket.
Once in, we disperse solemnly and quickly like pilgrims to our separate altars. I don’t see my husband for over half an hour until I catch a glimpse of him between the aisles heaving a trolley full of local rosé. My mother lingers by the espadrille stand before deciding on a bright yellow pair that she waves triumphantly in front of me when she finds me sniffing soap. And we haven’t even got to the food. An array of cheese so large it could stretch from Provence to Paris is laid out before us while the lettuces are delicately watered by a special fountain sprayer. Even the tins are better: special tins of youth-giving vegetables, lentils seasoned with herbs, potted ratatouille that is probably much better than anything you could make at home.
I wonder why we do this. It’s not as if we don’t have supermarkets at home. Some of them are even quite good: Waitrose and Marks & Sparks are not exactly shabby. You can buy every single Middle Eastern spice under the sun and even load up on sushi if you’re feeling flush. Maybe something has happened to our supermarket experience in Blighty to make us behave like we’ve just emerged from the Iron Curtain when we get to France. Was it Covid, when we stood, masked in queues waiting to get hold of the dried pasta? Or is it the utilitarian nature of British supermarkets that have now given way entirely to efficiency and forgotten about the thrill of food shopping? Anyone who has wrestled with an automated checkout in Tesco will readily attest to the fact that the joy of the transaction – the tomatoes in the brown bag feeling – is very definitely lost. Watch Anglo-French comedian Tatty Macleod clutching confit de canard and satirising the English in a French supermarket and you realise that we all go in for this; it’s as much a part of the holiday as waiting for the rental car to arrive.
Perhaps it boils down to the fact that the food in French supermarkets is just better. The farming sector here is bigger, accounting for 1.85 per cent of GDP in 2023 compared to just 0.5 per cent in Britain. Accordingly, the quality of local produce is better; meat, cheese, wine, bread, it’s all made in France and not shipped in an airline container as it is at home. But gone are the days when it is cheaper. Under a 2018 law, French supermarkets must apply a 10 per cent profit margin to food to protect French farmers, which may explain why we spanked at least 150 euros every time we went near the place. Who cares? This is France, we thought as we gaily whipped out our cartes bleues. At the checkout one day, I was even asked to show the bottom of my baby’s buggy to the cashier to check that we hadn’t stolen anything. Back at home, I would have gone berserk at such a suggestion but, mollified by the Intermarché, I simply obliged. How civilised.
As with so much else – the Olympic opening ceremony to name but one – the French have not forgotten the theatre of the food shop and its ancient roots to the open-air market. We don’t want to be rushed around with a hand-held bleeper price-checking, thank you very much, we want to take our time and behold the possibility of food, the way, as with the stage, it can transform into something quite other. I, too, am hoping that in my new espadrilles and scented accordingly with lavender soap, I will be quite different when I return home.
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