Monoprix

We’re in Paris—my husband, daughter, and I—for a few weeks. We’ve come so James can work on security-sensitive data that can only be accessed by his thumbprint. We’ve rented an apartment for all of us so Ella can reconnect with her friends from the year we lived here.

At least that’s what we tell people. But if you’d been in our dining room the other night, you might have thought this transatlantic journey was just a quest for merguez.

We returned to the U.S. almost a year ago, and during those months of reacclimation we missed many things: Sundays spent at museums, school days memorizing Paul Eluard and Jean de la Fontaine, a city dripping with architectural elegance, a culture in which writers and artists are treated like celebrities. But we distilled all that longing into a humble Moroccan sausage oozing with orange-red grease. We pined, at the store and at the table, about how much we missed merguez.

God knows we tried to find a replacement. In Virginia, we asked at the Middle Eastern market, at every grocery store and butcher shop. We found lamb sausages, but they weren’t the same. Finally, we asked at JM Stock, a new butcher that specializes in “whole animal” meat, and they told us, in February, that they were still trying to find a lamb farm they could trust. Then in March they said the lamb would be ready to slaughter by April. The butcher would make merguez, especially for us, by Easter.

We kept stopping by and checking. “Is the merguez ready?”

“Not yet.”

My husband suspected my daugher and I visited so often because the butchers are gorgeous. That wasn’t the (only) reason. We were groupies, yes, but the rock star we sought was a sausage.

We arrived on Easter Sunday. “We’re making it now!” the young men assured us, their cleavers as big as their biceps. “Come back tomorrow.” We did. We ate and ate and froze what we couldn’t eat. It was good meat. Humanely raised, deliciously spiced. But it wasn’t exactly the same as what we remembered. It didn’t contain, its its casing, our year in Paris.

Then, the other day, we finally bought a plastic-wrapped pack of merguez from the French supermarket chain, Monoprix. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not the best merguez in the world. But it’s our merguez. If pressed, I will even confess that the JM Stock merguez, artisanal and freshly butchered, is objectively better. Fresher. Less greasy. But it’s not our madeleine, our Proustian food that brings back a whole time and place in our mouth and our soul.

The sausage was not as delicious as I’d imagined it would be, during that year away from it. But that’s not what comfort food is about, anyway. Is it?

One of the best things about our location in Paris was the store next door. Monoprix is a supermarket. It’s also a microcosm, the contemporary equivalent of old-fashioned general stores in small towns. Flour and butter and eggs and really good merguez sausage and coeur coulant chocolate cakes beckoned from the back. Clothes, books, office supplies, make-up, toiletries and kitchen gear lured people in from the street. If Monoprix didn’t stock something, that meant you didn’t need it. And yet the store wasn’t big.

Not like Giant. That’s my local supermarket here in the States. The physical space is as huge as its name, with aisles wide enough to drive a pick-up through. They sell only food and toiletries.

I have fidelity cards for both stores, so I receive e-mails from Giant and Monoprix, sometimes on the same day. The contrast makes me laugh.

Giant’s e-mail today says “Feed a family of four for $7 or less with budget-friendly recipes. This week is tuna and vegetable stove-top casserole: 1 box Rice-a-Roni Broccoli Au Gratin, 1 cup frozen peas, 1 can tuna. Mix.” Last week’s missive was a three-ingredient recipe for turkey chili.

Monoprix’s newsletter features breakfast made from three sale items: braided brioche, mango preserves, and orange juice. It reads, in French: “Add to your table a few cravings, a hint of indulgence and a lot of balance for breakfast. A slice of brioche will start you off on the right foot.” Bread, jam, and juice cost 9.26 Euros, or almost twice as much as the $7 dinner-for-four from Giant. Coffee costs extra, especially if you get a chatpuccio, or cat cappuchino, like the one Monoprix sent me (pictured above).

Or, for about the same amount as the tuna casserole or turkey chili, you can buy from Monoprix several “men’s beauty” items, the e-mail says. I can’t imagine my supermarket with the big, burly name ever daring to put the words “men” and “beauty” in the same sentence.

Because we had such a small pantry and refrigerator in Paris, I shopped at Monoprix every day. At least that’s how it felt. If I stayed away too long, I’d joke about going through “Monoprix withdrawal.”

We loved that store so much we are even considering naming our not-yet-adopted dog for it. Monop for short. It’s got a ring to it, doesn’t it?

Or do you think we should name our dog Giant? Such a name might be confusing, since he won’t be a big dog. He’s got to be small enough to slip into a handbag. Then we can take him grocery shopping.

Merguez

David and Goliath, or Monoprix and Giant