The Last Popincourt Marché Haul

On Tuesdays and Fridays, from sometime before we wake up until about 2:00pm, Boulevard Richard Lenoir between Oberkampf and J-P Timbaud turns into an open-air market. It's amazing, and it's not even considered one of the bigger or better of the 60-some marchés volants that open and close twice a week all over the city. A short walk to the south is the Bastille market. Open Thursdays and Sundays, it is the biggest in the city. It attracts hordes of shoppers- locals and lots of tourists. We go on most Sundays, but the crush of people can be tough to bear. Popincourt is a mellower affair. It has most of the same vendors I like from the Bastille market, plus a few extras. It has none of the photo-taking crowds, just sharp elbowed, line-cutting little old women. These photos show our final haul from our favorite market. It's a pretty normal collection. Usually there would also be a chicken, maybe some potatoes. We are not going to be cooking much more so we splurged on things like nice mushrooms, extra cheese and a good fish. We felt a little sad making the final rounds, but we hit all of our favorites. 

Here are the details, for those interested: 

The bag in back was a give-away from the marché organization. Look for it this summer as we show it off at the Farmers Markets back home. Moving forward, the brown, dirt covered mushrooms are champignons de Paris. Like cremini, but much firmer, they are the basic mushroom around here. The light colored mushrooms to the right are pleurotes jaunes (yellow oyster mushrooms), and the golden mushrooms toward the front are girolles (chanterelles). The big ugly thing on the right is a turbot- a lovely and expensive flat fish from the North Atlantic. To the left, the green things with the red band are wild asparagus. They have thin stalks and wheat-like tips. Above them are simple cherry tomatoes. A lemon is in the middle, next to the bunch of spring onions. Above the onions are chives and parsley. Moving on to dairy, we've got six eggs and three cheeses. Oh, the cheese. The herb-covered mass is a Corsican brebis, the small one is half a Tommette de Brebis and the large slice is Abondance.