Word of the Day: Marais

You might remember me mentioning "Marais" before, in the context of the Guérande salt marshes.  

Word of the Day: Marais

masculine noun 

1. marsh, swamp

Well you might be surprised to learn that the Marais district of Paris used to be a big marsh before the 12th century.  Starting in the 13th Century, it became home to Paris' Jewish population.  Construction in the 14th-16th Centuries brought in royalty and aristocrats, and created the very cool narrow curving streets we see today.  This is what all of Paris used to look like, and how Paris Revolutionaries mounted their famous barricades, famously shown in Les Misérables. After the French Revolution, the area faced decline, as the wealthy moved out.  In the late 1800s, Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants began flooding in, but in the Second World War, 75% of the area's Jewish population was tragically killed in concentration camps, which led to another decline of the area.  In the 1980s, the area became Paris' gay district, and gentrification caused yet another demographic change in the area.  To make a long story short:  the Marais is a very interesting a unique neighborhood, that keeps hints of its storied past among the modern upscale shops and cafés.

This afternoon we plan to explore the Marais, so I plan a route that will take us to Breizh Café, the only place name I can remember in the area I want to show Betty: the heart of the Jewish quarter.  Betty's friend Sam had taken me to Breizh Café many years ago, when she lived in Paris.  Of course, Breizh Café is closed today, that goes without saying, but by heading down Rue Vieille du Temple from our hotel, we do manage to get to the correct neighborhood.  Our total route ends up being around 4km.

We decide on le Saint Gervais Restaurant across the street from Breizh, and order the Formule de Midi.  The place is really hopping, so we are lucky to get a table for two, squeezed so tightly between other patrons it feels like we are all at the same table.  Betty really really enjoys her Salade Niçoise, while I really enjoy the 80s flashback I get from watching Billy Ocean's Caribbean Queen, Bonnie Taylor's Total Eclipse of the Heart playing on the house TV.  Not to mention MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This.

Leaving the restaurant, we head down Rue de la Perle, and get turned around, but soon we find our way back to Rue Vieille du Temple, and walk through trendy boutiques and perfumeries.  I see a Kushi Tea store and drag Betty in to smell their amazing Chai tea.  Bonus: while inside, they offer us a sample of iced strawberry tea! 

Near the corner of Rue Vieille du Temple and Rue des Rosiers, I spot Chez Marianne, another restaurant that Betty’s friend Sam had pointed out to me.  Unlike many other Jewish restaurants in the Marais, which are Ashkenazi, Chez Marianne is a Sephardic restaurant that serves falafel and other Middle Eastern specialties.

They have a delectable looking assortment of pastries in the window and don’t seem busy.  We go in to order a Strudel Cocktail (a mixed nuts pastry) and two coffees. The guy at the counter says, “If you want a coffee, you must go sit outside and wait; I only serve pastry.”  Since there is a bistro table available outside, we go and sit… and wait… and wait… and wait… and finally decide we can handle skipping coffee and just getting a pastry to-go.  We go back inside but now there is a line and we must wait for three customers ahead of us to buy their pastries at the counter.  Finally it is our turn:  “Un Strudel Cocktail à emporter, s’il vous plait.”  They wrap it in a square of tinfoil.  We take our strudel out the door and start to look for a park within which to eat it.  

As we stroll past numerous shops and cafés, the Jewish presence is still very visible in this area. At 16 Rue des Rosiers I notice a sign similar to the one I had seen near the Eiffel Tower, but this one imparts much stronger emotion:

“In the memory of Rosette (12 years old) and her father Hersz Lewkowicz, Esther and Henri Merkier, Esther Ita Sokol, Paulette (1 month old) and Victor (2 years old) and their mother Rywka Wajncwaig, deported from 1942 to 1944 by the Nazis because they were born Jewish, with the active complicity of the Vichy government, and exterminated in the death camps.”  

Based on the dates, I assume the first of the people on this list were among the 13,000+ Jews (including for the first time women and children, a French initiative by Pierre Laval) taken in the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup and sent to Auschwitz.  In 1995, the government of France officially apologized for its role in the Final Solution.

We encounter the gate to the Jardin des Rosiers-Joseph-Migneret.  The sign at the gate tells how the Director of the school in Saint-Gervais, Joseph Migneret, saved dozens of Jewish children from deportation in WWII.  Looking down the corridor from the street towards the garden, it’s difficult to tell what the park might be like.  We head in, and discover it’s a lovely little oasis tucked in a set of connected courtyards.  I feel a few drops of rain, but it quickly stops again.

We explore Rue Pavée and Rue des Francs Bourgeois, passing the Carnavalet Museum, which is of course closed.  I peek in through the gate to see a very beautiful courtyard.  There are actually several lovely courtyards in this area, filled with shops, art galleries, and cafés.

At Rue de la Turenne, the rain starts up again.  Without an umbrella or jacket, we turn up Rue de Turenne to start heading back towards the hotel, but the rain starts to turn torrential.  We decide to stop at Minimes Café Brasserie (which I insist on incorrectly pronouncing “mini-me” simply because it amuses me), and order extremely delicious hot chocolates, in hopes that the rain will stop while we warm up.  

  

We feel a little bedraggled sitting in their posh interior, but we are happy to sit and sip our hot chocolates, watching people outside scurry by in the rain.  The café windows are lined with angled mirrors, which messes with our heads, because it makes it look like people suddenly vanish as they walk by.

The rain does not let up, in fact, it gets worse.  We have no choice but to brave it.  We exit Minimes and continue up Rue de Turenne, which takes us within a block of the hotel.  We briefly consider stopping at a grocery or bakery to buy something to eat in our hotel for supper, but we are too wet and cold to think.  We cut through Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud and scoot around the corner into our lobby. Thank goodness for hot showers!!

Feeling a little better, and noticing the rain lightening, we decide we can bear to venture out again for dinner. We head to Chez Jenny, which from the outside looks like a cheap cheesy tourist spot, but turns out to be a very fancy Alsace seafood restaurant with impeccable service.  Again, we are underdressed, but thoroughly enjoy our meal of sweet pink shrimp on ice and salmon spätzle.  For dessert, I order La Coupe Mirabelle, and am delighted to receive a multi-part dessert with mirabelle plum flavored icecream, mirabelle halves preserved in sirop, mirabelle wafers, and a tiny little cup of plum brandy.