ParisPostcard from Paris 1

By Richard Wallace

From my apartment I can hear the bells of Saint-Eustache, the sixteenth century church where the future Louis X1V received first communion, Moliere was married and Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV and intermittent friend of Dr Who, was baptised Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. The bells are dignified, deep and sonorous. They remind me of the weight and substance of time and the passing of so many gun-metal grey centuries. They must be huge and weigh a ton to boot. Liszt’s Messiah was premiered here in 1866 but more importantly St Hubert’s Mass is performed annually to mark the opening of the hunting and shooting season.

Saint-Eustache is a funny church. During the day it is attacked by hordes of school children chattering away on the steps before they are marched inside to feast their eyes on the Rueben’s, the large Ducroquet/Gonzalès organ and the de Champaigne windows. In the evenings it doubles as a soup kitchen in full view of the Irish pub on the corner and the iconic twenty-four hour restaurant au pied de cochon. On Friday nights it hosts a small food and vege market behind its back in rue Montmartre while all around it lounge chic boutiques and luxury charcuteries stuffed with everything from foie gras to Modena hams and Moroccan olives. It is also the hub around which three of Paris’s most famous kitchenware suppliers congregate.

E. Dehillerin on the corner of rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau and rue Coquilliere is perhaps the city’s most famous materiel de cuisine (the others are Mora, established in 1814, and Simon both in rue Montmartre). Julia Childs in her memoir My Life in France was smitten the first time she was taken there in the early 1950s. Her eyes were deglazed by the “gleam of obsession” upon entering this workshop of gastronomy: Eventually we arrived at Dehillerin. I was thunderstruck. Dehillerin was the kitchen-equipment store of all time, a restaurant-supply house stuffed with an infinite number of wondrous gadgets, tools, implements and gewgaws…Julia goes on to describe what gewgaws are, namely pots and pans, chefs equipment etc. etc.

The unique green façade and dusty interior of the present store does indeed seem a throwback to those chrome and Bakelite times. From the ceramic duck in the window (which a quaint, handwritten card tells you is not for sale) to the shiny copper cockerel and eccentric hodge-podge of aluminum, steel and copper utensils, I’d say gewgaws is the perfect word to describe the stores eclecticism. It’s been going since 1820. In 1818 the first coffee percolator was invented by a metal smith named Laurens in Paris. No doubt the first mass produced version was displayed to the world in Dehillerin’s sparkling windows.

Rule Number #1: the best day to avoid going there is Saturday. Saturday is chaos. Saturday is like the morning after St. Hubert’s mass in rural France: a cacophony of yelping, baying and growling. And that’s just the tourists blinded by the gleam of copper, trying to negotiate the narrow aisles and voluminous stacks while simultaneously describing the experience to their friends in Sydney and Washington and Hong Kong via their iPhone. Try Tuesday instead (it’s closed Sunday & Monday). Tuesday gives you the chance to wander at leisure, especially in the basement where the wonderful and bizarre is absent mindedly hidden away in dark recesses and corners.

The last time I had occasion to visit Dehillerin was when my old Mauviel egg skillet started losing its Teflon coat in skin-like flakes. I don’t often cook, having the rue Montorgueil so close by. An omelet and a glass of wine is my limit when I can’t be bothered going out. So off I went in search of an inexpensive but sturdy, non-stick frying pan before the next downpour kept me indoors.

Rule Number #2: never underestimate the Dehillerin effect. I should have gone to Mora. I would have been in and out of there in minutes. But no, I had to go to the altar rather than content myself with a pew. Pretty soon I was foraging around like Indiana Jones hacking his way through cobwebs and weird aluminum stuff hanging from the ceiling like jungle vines. In no time at all I was climbing up ladders fiddling with copper and aluminum Turbot kettles, feeling the weight of enormous copper saucepans with two hands, marveling at a duck press (a snip at over sixteen hundred euros) that would have been the envy of La Tour d’Argent, letting my fingers caress the hammer beaten sides of a copper oval champagne bucket, and finally digging out a “Le Rouet” vegetable slicer only to be completely mystified how it worked.

Rule Number #3: don’t bother the assistants with questions about price. There are no pricelists, or if there are they don’t give them out. Instead, the store runs on three or four massive books placed here and there in the most unlikely places which list all the products and prix. An hour later I emerged from the experience with a twelve euro steel-handled skillet, dirty hands and a desire to buy a Turbot and cook it in one of Monsieur Dehillerin’s kettles that evening. I wandered over to the Café des Inities to ponder my technique. Luckily, by the time I had almost worked my way through a bottle of chilled Chablis, it had started to rain.