Tuesday 15 July 2008

An unlikely fruit store

Rue Carnot
Have you ever bought your fruit and vegies at a second hand shop? This place is amazing: The owner, Tristan, age 75, repairs shoes and sells second hand clothes and shoes, mountains of them piled high in his dark and old shop. Into the depths of it is his workshop, lit by a single neon light. On the counter, his little dog sleeps right in front of a fan, enjoying the wind on his nose. Outside on the pavement, protected from the sun (?) by a tiny pram umbrella are cases of apricots (1.70 euro/kilo), peaches (1.90 euro/kilo) and nectarines (3 euros a tray), all from Tristan's family in Boulbon, a small village just a few kilometres away. The fruit you see here were picked this morning and were never refrigerated - it's the closest you can get to picking your own. A hand-written note says 'lettuces and tomatoes are indoors in the shade. Please inquire within'. The elderly people love to stop here for a chat. It's a shop that will die with its owner. In the meantime, I buy my apricots at my shoe repair shop and I love it.

Vous avez déjà acheté vos fruits et légumes dans un magasin de fripes ? Cette boutique est une curiosité : le propriétaire, Tristan, 75 ans, est cordonnier et vend aussi des vêtements usagés. Sa vieille boutique sombre est bourrée jusqu'au plafond de fripes et de vieilles chaussures. Au fond, éclairé d'un néon, son atelier de cordonnier. Sur le comptoir, son petit chien qui dort devant le ventilateur. Devant la vitrine, à l'abri d'un parasol de poussette, des cageots de fruits qui viennent de la famille de Tristan à Boulbon, un petit village tout proche. Les fruits ont été cueillis le matin et n'ont jamais connu la réfrigération. Abricots (1,70 euros le kilo), pêches (1,90 le kilo), nectarines (3 euros le plateau) et un petit message écrit à la main "Les salades et les tomates sont au frais, demandez-les à l'intérieur". C'est une boutique qui n'a plus d'âge, où les vieux du quartier s'arrêtent pour discuter un brin. Une boutique qui disparaîtra avec Tristan, c'est sûr. En attendant, moi j'achète mes abricots chez mon cordonnier et j'adore.

17 comments:

Coltrane_lives said...

We need more shops like this to add sparkle to our world. I can see why you stop and buy fruit there. I would too. Great shot and story. Merci!

Sally said...

Something surprising at every turn in your town, Nathalie!

Happy quartorze juillet! (A bit late, I know!) . I’ve made a small tribute today, via an unexpected Australia-France friendship symbol, and a small quiz to help celebrate.

Sydney Daily Photo

MmeBenaut said...

Happy Bastille day Nathalie!
I think I would buy my apricots from Tristan too. They look delicious.
I wonder how many people have swapped their clothes and shoes for fruit and vegetables over the years. What a delightful little shop.

Bergson said...

Au début je pensais que c'était la femme sur l'affiche qui servait
Dommage mais je vais prendre un plateau de nectarine à Tristan.

Daniel Chérouvrier said...

Tu ne nous parles pas de son Yseult . Est elle toujours présente ?

M. CHRISTOPHE said...

Ahh le charme des petites boutiques où l'on trouve des légumes du coin qui ont un goût incomparables....

PeterParis said...

Les abricots ont l’air parfaits ! Peut-être que son commerce pourrait être repris quand’ même ? Certains prédisent que d’ici une dizaine d’années, à cause des problèmes énergétiques, on verra la petite agriculture et le petit commerce local revivre. Plus de voitures, plus d’avions, plus de production gaspillant l’énergie… Bon, de prévoir le futur… !

Anonymous said...

Le nom de la boutique : Kidur ! (depuis plus de 40 ans...)

claude said...

Il est polyvalent Tristan ! Au fait Boulbon je connais (ma Soeur y a tenu un resto).Est ce que Triant est aussi bon cordnnier qu'il est vendeur de bons fruits du soleil ?

Anonymous said...

Il m'est déjà arrivé de lui prendre des pêches mais je ne connaissais pas son prénom, c'est chose faite; quelle merveille de penser que ce sont des fruits qui viennent directement du producteur, ça m'a pas de prix et ces prix sont d'ailleurs tellement en dessous de ce qu'on voit dans les magasins traditionnels...
Il n'y a pas à hésiter!

Sally said...

Hi Nathalie,

re your comments on WYD:

I'll try to post more, but quite frankly I find many of the photo ops really, really boring. I took a whole heap on Sunday in Hyde park, and in the end, people in groups with flags wrapped around them didn't turn out too well! But there are more this week....and I will try to get about at lunchtime and see.


Pentecostalists are a sort of fundamentalist Protestant lot I guess. From what I can work out, not unlike the "charismatic" movement in Catholicism. Wars have been fought over the difference between Protestant and Catholic sects :-)

As far as I can work out the differences range from acceptance of the pope’s infallibility to the obvious like celibacy, and in church transubstantiation (wine into blood, biscuit into flesh) which doesn’t exist in Protestantism - they merely REPRESENT blood and flesh of jesus. And very "important" things like in the Lord’s prayer, Catholics say “…who art in heaven” and Protestant “…which art…”, disagreements about whether Mary and Joseph had other children....

Merchandising. Strange you should ask.. I read this in today’s paper: “ Our sales have been growing between 20 and 50 percent every day since we opened last Saturday.” Said John Cooper, chief executive of Event management Group, which is handling all the merchandising.
“It’s going a bit better than we had optimistically hoped for.”
Among the top sellers were Guy Sebastian albums, flags, “widgets” (souvenir charms) T-shirts and Pope-adorned memorabilia such as rosary beads and jerseys.
EMG will share an undisclosed amount of the profits with the World Youth Day organisers.”

Anonymous said...

Eh, ce n'est pas la rue du Portail Matheron, c'est la rue Carnot...

Anonymous said...

That photo and your description is remarkable. I would also point out that the top photo would not be the same without the sign in the window with the lady looking over her shoulder.

Your description of the shop and the contents reminded me of old Abe Bloom's shoe repair shop in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His daughter was, by the way, an opera star who went nuts when her parents refused to allow her to marry her lover.

Forever afterwards Margaret Bloom roamed the streets in long black dresses and scrafs and stopped to pee under her skirt by spreading her legs. She was not right.

But everyone knew her and she knew everyone and could tell people how many were in their family and their ages and who married who and so on.

Jane Hards Photography said...

That is an amazing store, and local too. We need more of this kind of multi purpose shop taht is not owned by one of the big name brands. Waht a find!

M.Benaut said...

You can say that again.

The big name brands have you queuing to go through a check-out. When you try to converse with the check-out-chick,,,, forget it !!

But at these little stores (here in Adelaide) you can talk to Roberto in one's "pig-Italian" and be transported to San Miniato Basso and Empoli and hear tales of catching fish in the river Arno, back a zillion years ago.
When Roberto speaks his Toscane Italian, it's like music.

Any town is the richer for places like these. - And the apricots look delicious !!

freefalling said...

It's so good to know these kind of places exist in the world.

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