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Everything you need to know about having a picnic in Paris

The french capital is truly a feast for the senses

In the introduction to A Moveable Feast, his book of recollections of 1920s' Paris, Ernest Hemingway wrote: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
For the French, eating is as much a way of life as keeping alive and the purchase of the varied and abundant regional produce is all part of the "art de vivre". Unlike many cities, Paris doesn't really have a shopping centre and, whenever they can, locals prefer not to stock up at the supermarket for the week, but to shop carefully at various food shops for the next meal or two.   
Almost every neighbourhood has its own market streets that usually contain a boulangerie (bakery), a charcuterie (cold and smoked meats), a fromagerie (cheese shop), an epicerie (grocer's shop), a patisserie (pastry shop) and usually at least one confiserie (chocolate/sweet shop).   
It may seem a less efficient way to do the grocery shopping, but there are benefits. These are social occasions, which give Parisians an opportunity to bump into someone they know, share stories and catch up on the latest gossip. The food merchants also take a loving interest in their produce. The fruit and vegetable merchant knows which potato variety is best suited to a gratin or the cheesemonger will let you taste the cheeses first so that you can decide before you buy.
Fancy restaurants are fine, but you can't beat the epicurean delights of a Paris gourmet picnic (pique-nique) enjoyed in one of the city's many beautiful parks, squares or open spaces. Follow the Parisian tradition and shop like the locals for the foods you need while exploring and discovering hidden parts of the city. 
The first essential is bread, and the French should know - they consume 10 billion baguettes annually. Bread shops are ten a penny in Paris but, for something special, visit Poilâne to buy the other French bread.
Inside the most famous boulangerie in Paris, founded in 1932 by Pierre Poilâne, bread making is a passion and a tradition. The baguette may look "oh-so-François" tucked under the arm, but the large, round sourdough loaf of the Poilâne bakery is, historically, the bread of the people, the very same bread that fed centuries of French peasants. 
It's mid-morning inside the bakery's hot basement, and dressed in shorts and slippers, master baker Jean-Luc is hard at work. With deft fingers he instinctively measures and shapes a 2.2 kilo piece of dough. Flour, water, sea salt and the remains of the previous batch of dough, known as 'starter', are the only ingredients. Batches are produced one after another, in an unbroken chain linked by the starter, for nearly 80 years.
The unbaked loaves are scarified - their tops cut with the initial "P" and placed into linen-lined straw baskets, where they'll sit until they're put into a wood-fired oven adapted from Roman designs. The result is probably the best bread you will ever taste; a mammoth crust protects a tangy-sour centre that you can tear into long filaments. Poilâne has many famous devotees of its products, including Lauren Bacall, Robert de Niro and Steven Spielberg. 
A chandelier made of dough inspired by Salvador Dali can be seen behind the shop counter, in a room that is adorned with still life paintings of bread that Pierre Poilâne received in payment for the bread he gave to hungry artists during World War II. Upstairs is a library, which houses 2,500 books devoted to the subject of bread - the richest source of its kind in the world. 
Next on the shopping list is cheese - one of the crowning glories of France. "Cheese is a demanding pleasure, it follows the seasons, it works, it lives," says Philippe Alléosse inside Fromagerie Alléosse, one of the best cheese shops in Paris. Down in the cellars, various cheeses mature according to their traditional method. 
From creamy Camembert and blue-veined Roquefort to piquant disks of goat's cheese, the regional repertoire of cheeses available in fromageries is formidable, and most can supply you with cheese that is ripe to the exact degree you request. You will be spoilt for choice, as there's at least one type of cheese for every day of the year. 
Other picnic foods worth seeking out include saucisson (air-dried sausage) and macedoine de fruits de mer (mixed seafood salad). If you have always wanted to sample fine truffles and can afford it - French black from late October to March, Italian white mid-October to December - then do visit La Maison de la Truffe and expect to pay around 300? per 100gm.
Why not indulge in something sweet to finish off your gourmet picnic? Judging from the eye-catching and saliva-inducing window displays at confiseries and patisseries, Parisians can't get enough of sweet and sugary things. 
Some of the best patisseries include Jean Millet, whose speciality is delice au chocolat praline (an exquisite mix of almonds and chocolate), and Gérard Mulot, where you can purchase tarte normande (apple tart) and mabillon (delicious caramel mousse with apricot conserves). For heavenly handmade chocolates in every conceivable form, try La Maison du Chocolat.
On our last afternoon in springtime Paris, we find ourselves in a small park near Montmartre's Place de Abbesses laying out picnic ingredients bought from shops near Rue Lepic. "Bon appétit," says the gardener as he walks past. Crunching into some fresh baguettes and cheese, we couldn't agree more. 
wknd@khaleejtimes.com