Freshly Frozen

When you think of French gastronomy and French cuisine, what comes to mind?

French cuisine is known to be one of the best in the world; visit any of the world's greatest restaurants and chances are, the Chefs there have been trained in France. Gourmet. Fine food, wine and incredible pastries. Michelin-star establishments. Highly skilled master Chefs. Quality and fresh ingredients. Those are the key words that came to mind.

But nowadays, you have this:

and I learnt that the French are simply in love with the entire concept of quick fixes for their daily meals. "Monsieur Picard is the French household's best friend!"

Enter Picard, the leading frozen food specialist in France with chain stores popping up in every Parisian neighborhood:

with its charmingly warm and inviting decor which I'm sure, is a result of a well thought-out master plan that I hope I'll understand someday......

I think this place simply defies the essence of French gastronomy, which to me, is a lot of marvelous things but certainly not frozen food. I'm not a fan of frozen or processed food, especially after D's health scare last year. I did, however, pay a visit to Picard just to check out the place during my first week of moving into the neighborhood, wasn't too impressed and vowed to not go back again.

However, time and time again, I would hear my friends at school - culinary school students -  talk about how great the place is, the variety of foods they can find there and the ease of cooking their meals with ingredients bought from the store.  Tearing open a package of pre-cooked-then-frozen meal, nuping it in the microwave and eating from the same container is hardly my idea of living the life in Paris. The more I continued to hear friends from school singing praises of the store, the more I continued to shrug it off as pure ignorance. Up until last week.  Last week, I met up with someone who's definitely no stranger to Paris and what's more, a food lover and culinary expert. Someone I truly respect and adore so when even she had good things to say about Picard, I just knew that I must've seriously missed something. So back to my neighborhood Picard I went, this time with a determination to search for that something that everyone seems to "get" (that I didn't), keeping an open mind about everything in the store - yes, including frozen pizzas, frozen meat and fish.
And then an amazing discovery

Well, I was actually tipped by that dear friend - bless her heart - but at just a little under a Euro each, this is my favorite fall-back indulgence, now that most of the wonderful pâtisseries in the city have closed for vacation. As I peaked into the morgue store's freezers, I became more intrigued to see their array of desserts, many of which we've learnt to make in school and most of them popular mainstays in pâtisseries throughout the city.

The irony was, just next door, we have this:

....offering a wide assortment of freshly baked goodies and while these may not have the haute pâtisserie factor, they still look pretty darn good to me.

I still can't get myself to purchase frozen poultry, meat nor seafood when I can find this just around the corner of my street

and as tempted as I was to buy their frozen desserts, I stuck to my loyalty towards my neighborhood pâtisseries

I mean, how can frozen dessert stand a chance against anything freshly-made? Just look at this labor of love, this almost-homemade style confiture using fresh, not frozen, ingredients, painstakingly spooned into each jar on the same day they were made!

So while I love this about Picard

I am still scratching my head over this

.....and  definitely still confused with the eerily cold theme.....

Fast foods, food on-the-go, frozen food culture.... concepts that I still do not "get". Having delved a bit more into the world of cuisine and baking, I am now more conscious about the decisions I make about ingredients I use. Picard is poised to take over Europe, but let's just hope that Pierre Hermé et. al. will never embark upon the Sara Lee path, God forbid!