Blueberries

Myrtilles. I found them today in Picards, the supermarket that sells ONLY frozen food. That’s it. (Frozen food in French is “surgeles” – sur – on; gelés – iced, basically.*) The store is a little surreal, it’s a fairly large room whose dominant color is white, lined with waist-high, open-from-the-top deep freezers in which you can find any kind of frozen food possible. It’s got the feel of a room for the insane (but no rubber walls), or a factory where they assemble microcomputers – all anaesthetized and sterile. Until you look into the glass-covered freezers, all you see is black and white placards perched on the tops of the freezers with the names and prices of the contents therein. Vegetables, fish, chicken, beef, pasta, pizzas, complete dinners, pastry desserts, fruit, ice cream, you name it, if it’s food that can be frozen, it’s here.

I was looking for blueberries. Ever since having them in New York City a few weeks ago, I had looked for them in fruit stands and in supermarkets here. But the berries that were so prolific and cheap on the streets of New York were nowhere to be found here in Nice. Finally, I thought, perhaps, frozen. After church this morning, I wandered around the city streets – it was quiet, as most stores are closed on Sunday mornings, but there are some stores that open in the morning (and then close for the afternoon). And I saw a Picards on my walk that was open. I’d heard about the store from my French tutor in the States, but had not darkened their doors since my arrival here. But this morning I went inside.

And there they were. In among the framboises (raspberries), mangones (mangos), et cerises (cherries) were Myrtilles sauvage – blueberries (handily identified by the blueberries on the plastic bag!). Sauvages implies that they are wild (and apparently from Sweden) but that sounds better than cultivated blueberries to me. Now I can have blueberries on my yogurt again!

P.S. Myrtilles went on sale this week at Picard’s – bonanza!

*Priscilla, my professional translater, tells me that a better translation of surgeles is under ice, or in deep freeze. I need a better dictionary, she tells me!