Chatou, a long thin island in the Seine just outside of Paris-- the île des impressionnistes, as the town of Chatou says you may call it-- was a pretty place in the 19th century, painted by Renoir and others. Today, it's hard to take a photo there that doesn't show the breathtaking ugliness surrounding it today. As I arrived at the ham-and-antiques fair on the island last Saturday, a local man and woman were standing at the gate gathering signatures on a petition against yet another monstrosity on the eastern bank of the Seine.
The ham-and-antiques fair is still my favorite Paris "flea market." It is a big twice-yearly fair that has been held since time immemorial, banished to Chatou only in 1970 after more than a thousand years in central Paris. I found an interesting short history on the fair's own website:
Charcuterie was the great Gaulish specialty. Herds of Gaulish pigs were admired by the Romans, who enthusiastically talked about the ham of Bayonne and the sausages of Cerdagne and Franche-Comté.

French stamp with a Gaulish wild boar
Until the 19th century, pork was the basic food for Christmas celebrations. It was king of the feast for peasants, bourgeois, and noblemen.
During the Middle Ages, the charcutiers of all the French provinces began coming into Paris during Holy Week to sell their prepared meats. They set up where the clients were, around Notre-Dame, sure to have those who attended Mass as faithful customers. There were more and more merchants because the profession of charcutier was open to all. The freedom of pigs to roam, however, was stopped by King Louis the Fat after his son Philippe died from a fall off a horse that was caused by a free-running pig.

[On 13 October 1131, the royal family was struck by a terrible accident. In preparation for a military expedition to the Vexin, Louis VI had raised an army, and the streets of Paris were mobbed by knights and their followers. In the middle of an indescribable chaos, 15-year-old Prince Philippe, heir to the throne, was leading a group of knights in one of the suburbs of the city. Suddenly a pig escaped its small swineherd and ran, panic-stricken, under the hooves of the prince's horse. The steed reared up, throwing the rider, then falling heavily upon him. The prince, with his body broken, was carried to the nearest house and died at nightfall. "So keen, so striking was the sorrow and grief of his father, his mother, the great men of the kingdom, that Homer himself would not have been able to express it," wrote Abbot Suger.]
From that time forward, only "Antonine" pigs of the monks of Saint Anthony were allowed to roam in the streets. All other pigs were herded together and given to the Hôtel-Dieu [the world's first charity hospital, across the parvis from Notre-Dame] for the sick. In 1451, this Bacon Fair began to be regulated, and bad meat was thrown into the Seine. After 1500, it became too big for its location and in the following years, was transferred first to rue des Prouvaires, then to the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, then to Place de la Morgue (now Place de la Concorde). In 1789 the fair disappeared, but in 1804 a decree allowed it to revive under the name of Fair of Hams, and it returned to near Notre-Dame and Place de la Cité....
Finally in 1840 the fair settled in to Boulevard Bourdon. Many merchants of bric-à-brac, old clothes and old metal came to sell there too, and this junk fair [Foire à la Ferraille] quickly passed the ham fair in size.
In 1869, a police order transferred the two markets to Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where it stayed almost a century, opening between Palm Sunday and Easter each year until 1940. After the war it resumed, twice a year in spring and fall. [After problems with traffic and parking, the fair was transferred out of the city in 1970, to Chatou.]
This is the first allée in the fair. It's a big one, so they all have names. You can get a map at the entrance.
"But where would we put it?"
The central aisle of the fair is still devoted to hams, charcuterie, and other food stalls.
The pig/porc is still à l'honneur.
This stand was covered with posters saying how good this particular wine was for the male organ. Maybe it's true-- I certainly didn't see any women buying there.

Is that an eagle-feather war bonnet? They're illegal in the U.S., but they still turn up in France.
T'es à la menthe ou t'es citron?
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