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07/12/2009Around and about Paris - The 19th arrondissement, La Villette

Expatica France is pleased to offer a historical and cultural tour of Paris from City of Light expert Thirza Vallois. We continue our tour in the nineteenth arrondissement, to revisit the decadent past of La Villette.

Before 1986, when the site of the main slaughterhouse and the premises of the livestock market of Paris were metamorphosed into, respectively, a science museum and a multipurpose entertainment hall, as part of the new 35-hectare Parc de la Villette, the only reason for a bourgeois from western Paris to come all the way to these remote infamous parts of north-eastern Paris was the prospect of a gastronomic meal at Le Cochon d'Or, Au Boeuf Couronné or Dagorno on Avenue Jean Jaurès. Such establishments took pride in the quality of their meat, freshly supplied from the slaugherhouse of La Villette, on the other side of the canal, which they served in copious chunks.


It was the 'in' thing to savour Gargantuan portions, especially during the Third Republic, when the consumption of food was a respectable occupation, a daily ritual celebrated around the dining table, the altar of a family townhouse in the beaux quartiers of western Paris, as described by Emile Zola. Zola's memory, incidentally, was honoured here in 1930, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the gatherings that used to take place in his home in Médan, les rencontres de Médan, as they came to be known. 

Excursions to La Villette, however, were not a family affair but an all-male experience — this was no neighbourhood for honest middle-class wives or daughters. On the other hand, potbellied lawyers, doctors, politicians and entrepreneurs of all sorts, as well as artists, writers and actors, thoroughly enjoyed themselves here over a meal that could consist of ten courses and took several good hours to absorb. How many people today could face a meal consisting of five different meat specialities such as ris de veau normand, queue de boeuf limousin or veine de boeuf charolais preceded by a consommé and followed by the inevitable salade de saison and plateau de fromages, and still be able to tackle a tarte aux fruits?




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