Old-Fashioned Candy in Paris

Guest Blogger Vanina Marsot loves sugar in all forms.  But it seems that everything, including candy, is sweeter in Paris:

A shameless consumer of sugar in all forms, I take a particular delight in old-fashioned French candy stores, inspired by childhood visits to my French family.  My favorites back then were shiny black licorice tubes stuffed with a sugary paste, that I still find in my local boulangerie.  Since then, I’ve developed an appreciation of the many varieties of French candy.  Here are three sweet shops I’m sweet on.

A La Mère de Famille, though a venerable confiserie founded in 1761, always feels cozy, the kind of place adults have been taking awestruck kids for generations.  I like the big store on the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, from its cement tile floor to the glass cases displaying everything from chocolates to nougats to jellied fruit.  They also sell a lot of specialty hard candy: les bêtises de Cambrai (literally, the “stupidities” from Cambrai), roudoudous (candy poured into plastic seashells that you lick off) and boiled berlingots and rigolettes from Nantes.

Not far away, Confiseur G. Tétrel’s small store, with its wooden candy cubbyholes, feels like something out of the 19th century.  I was lured in by the impressive variety of decorative candy tins in the window.  There are seemingly

hundreds of varieties of such sweets in France, from violet-flavored, sugar-coated anise seeds from Flavigny (whose manufacture dates back to the 8th century) to lemon and honey candy for sore throats to the three flavors of Cachou LaJaunie in the iconic round tin.  I stumbled upon a sophisticated treat: green and gold tins with belle époque style writing containing absinthe-flavored treats.

At Le Bonbon au Palais, decorated to look like a pristine schoolroom with a blackboard and desks, candy is displayed in enormous glass apothecary jars.  The owner carries only the best of France’s regional artisanal candy, and is happy to share his knowledge of quenelles from Lyons, menhirs from Brittany, jacquelines from Dijon, and the Angélique from Niort.  There are also various candied flower petals, including poppy, and a wide selection of licorice and salted butter caramels.

Addresses:

A La Mère de Famille, 33 and 35, Rue du Faubourg Montmartre 75009 (plus other locations in Paris: )

G. Tétrel, 44, Rue des Petits Champs 75002

Le Bonbon Au Palais, 19, rue Monge, 75005

Vanina Marsot is the author of Foreign Tongue.