The Horrors of the French Marché

I remember the first market I saw in Paris.  I was heading to FNAC to buy a class book, when I saw it, on the corner of Rue de Rennes, close to Montparnasse.  

The market cleverly hides the horrors behind vegetables.

Because, I was hungry, per usual, I decided to poke around.  Within moments, I discovered the difference between the Whole Foods and the French marché.  The French know where their food comes from.  The market was rampant with chickens, feet and head still attached, feathers bedecking some.  

Example 1

This, I am happy to say, would never happen here.  Meat comes in sanitary packages, with no resemblance to the animal it once was, and this is how it should be.  Our meat definlety doesn’t come from the sweet chick or the lamb.  It springs preformed from the shelves of the store.

In Italy, this December, I made dinner for the family.  Chicken breasts and legs.  The breasts were good.  The legs and thighs put me off this form of chicken forever.  They had been improperly plucked.  I had to skin them, tiny feathers poking me, then…  I can’t think about it.  It was truly one of the worst moments I have ever had in the kitchen. 

Though my grocery store purchase in Italy was not nearly as gruesome as the headed and feathered chickens of the Parisian market, it made me wonder the same thing.  Are all of the people frequenting such places butchers?  One doesn’t come readily by the knowledge of beheading chickens and robbing them of their plumes.  It appears that the chickens are still in full possession of their innards, what of those? And what, exactly, does one do with the sheep faces?  They can’t possibly be edible can they?

They can't be... They really can't.

Why this fascination with animals in the whole?  I saw it around Place St. Michel, a tourist district.  On a spit, in a window, slowly turning was a whole rotisserie pig.  Snout firmly attached.  The French passed by without comment.   I stared in horror.  He was garishly displayed.  The proprietor of the store had bedecked his crackling nose with sunglasses. 

After that adventure, only Mexican food would do.  No questionable animals, just cheese and chips, both apparently bought in store rather than made in house.  This was a happy meal.  When I saw the butcher’s truck, loaded with sawed open carcasses, nothing would do but vegetarianism for a few days.

It's your luck that I'm not sharing that picture.  Shudders.