Thursday Market in Aix (and a museum).

1/23/20

(Above: Thursday market in Aix.)

Active Summary: After waking up this morning, I performed calisthenic exercises, wrote for an hour, and then ventured out to the Aix farmers’ market. There were even more stalls there today with an even greater variety of produce. In addition to this, there were added ‘confectionery stalls’ where the fresh fruits had been preserved through candying, a baker’s stall with freshly wrought baguettes, and clothing stalls composed of myriad shapes, sizes, patterns, and colors of garb or unadulterated bolts of cloth. Out of all these stalls, we stopped at:

A citrus stall where we procured about 5 pounds of oranges (tangerines, navels, and a Clementine) for 5 euros.
A confectionery table where we purchased 2 lbs of candied fruit for 10 euros.
A produce stall where I procured 1.5 pounds of on-the-vine tomatoes for 3.5 euros.
A bread stall where we got our lunch baguette for 90 cents.

Lunch ensued, consisting of a salad made from Tuesday’s leftover lettuce/onion and few of today’s tomatoes/tangerines. We also ate the fresh baguette with some of Tuesday’s cultured butter on it. Thus far, today’s baguette was the best we’ve had in France.

(5:04 PM Update:) My brother and I have just returned from a walk around Aix where we visited a Museum of art and artifacts (the Musée Granet), a cathedral (still active), and a couple small bakery shops.

A cathedral quite near the Musée Granet.
A line of busts – one of which did not appear enthused at our appearance.
A bronze of some sort depicting a sphinx, a man, and a distant woman.
Bust of Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Épée. He was known as ‘Father of the Deaf’ because he believed that deaf people could learn how to speak/understand and thus receive Holy sacrament (and not go to Hell on mere account of their condition). Though his reasons for inventing the language may seem strange to an agnostic individual, the results were and still are very effective.
Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Épée invented a language based in hand signals.
An intricate relief sculpture.
Statue of a man wearing some very detailed cloth looking over at… another sculpture.
Statue of a soldier peering down at my brother.
More very-realistic clothing – all sculpted from marble.
A stone tablet with text etched into it.
Statue of a man holding a baby lamb above its mother ewe.
Sly Mary.
A minstrel enjoying his guitar.
This is why I have to crop out some of the picture frames….
Ancient iron tools from the early 100’s AD.
Brother standing by the exhibit of heads.
A closer look at the heads exhibit.
A chest with an odd pattern at the center.
A close-up of that interesting pattern.
And another closeup of the interesting pattern (this time with flash).
A description of the room’s artifacts. Alas, it was all in French.
Cathedral outside of the museum’s gallery.
A large painting of Zeus, Hera, and some others.
A very dark picture of vivid detail.
People have been touching what they are not supposed to touch (brown marks on her bum).
A cathedral in Aix.
The pipe organ in Aix’s Cathedral.
A image from the base of the cathedral.
Mangoes at a fruit stall we found on the way back to the room. We would have gotten some, but there were many people in line already purchasing miscellaneous fruit.
A diagram of the candies we procured for home (for future reference).
Some highly rated baked-then-fried ‘cakes’ that we procured from one of the most popular shops in Aix. 6 for 3 euros.
A rum-raisin cake. It was tasty but by no means the best delicacy we’ve had thus far. I think that these French people just are not used to fried food, and so it is much more novel to them.

(8:18 PM Update:) This evening, we at Piacere: Little Italy again, and once again it was a very pleasing experience. We dined for a total of 23.50 euros, and that was with an additional tip. Below, there are images of the food that we acquired, along with the desserts we procured for our evening sweetfest. I think one of the desserts may end up being used for tomorrow’s breakfast along with a fresh orange.

Penne noodles topped with buffalo mozzarella, pancetta, and arugula. Dressed in a savory tomato sauce.
My brother’s pizza-crepe filled with pancetta, tomatoes, mozzarella, red sauce, and a little bit of chorizo-like sausage.
It may not be classy, and it may not even be real tiramasu, but this so-called Oreo Tiramasu was delicious.
Apple filled doughnuts – either tonight’s snack or tomorrow’s breakfast.
Chocolate flatcake – Apple filled doughnuts – either tonight’s snack or tomorrow’s breakfast.

TIL: Today I finally found the spelling and meaning for a few French mystery-words I’ve been hearing quite a lot lately.

Bonsoir (bon-swah) means “good evening”.
Merci beaucoup (sounds like Mare-see boo-coo… though up until recently I really did think it sounded like Mare-see boo-poo… or even more strangely Mare-see poo-poo) means “thank you very much”.
Au revoir* (awh rev-wah) means “goodbye”.

Commentary: Earlier, I was unsure if the people of Aix could outdo the Tuesday market, but somehow they did. As for additional commentary, I have two minor subjects to mention. The first interesting tidbit is that yesterday’s political protests either continued until about midnight or were somehow reenkindled right about the time I was going to sleep. I discovered this, for as I was falling into the slumberlands, I was started awake by someone yelling at the top their lungs. It was a somewhat surreal experience to be awoken in such a manner, venture to the window, and then witness a whole mass of banner-bearing people pound about the lamp-lit square (they were stomping / beating some sort of drum).

The second, and much more interesting and positive experience was trying out the candied clementines/lemons that my brother and I procured at the produce market. These fruit were candied via maceration, which is where the whole and slightly under-ripe fruits were plunged sequentially into hot and ever-thicker baths of simple syrup. The heat and sugar eventually broke the oranges/lemons down (peel and all) to such a point that the entire fruit was rendered into a soft, rich, and flavorful sweet. One candied Clementine was enough to stave off my entire morning appetite.

The other side of the Thursday market in Aix.
‘Loot’ procured from the Thursday market. We weren’t originally going to buy more fresh oranges, but the seller gave us samples, and those samples proved the oranges to be far better than I’ve had in the United States as of late.
Market salad made from a combination of today’s and Tuesday’s ingredients.
Another view of the colorful market salad.
A candied Clementine orange.
The inside of a candied Clementine orange.
A closeup of an earring that my brother had me pick up from beside a gutter.