Our Airbnb host in France told us there was a Picard right down the street. We figured it was just like any other grocery store. But no, Picard Surgelés is an ALL frozen food grocery store!
Chris and I walked in and started to browse. My first thought was, “Odd, they are starting with the frozen food when usually that is near the door as you leave a store.” And just as I was finishing this thought, Chris and I both looked up and realized it: the ENTIRE store was chest freezers of frozen food!
And not just basic frozen food. Super fancy frozen food! Each chest has a set of photos and prices on the top and it is a glass lid. So you pick out your items using the photos and then open the lid and grab that item below. These were the type of dishes you would find at a fancy dinner party or a restaurant. This wasn’t like a typical frozen food meal with a pretty photo on the box and what looks like a frozen brick of wet dog food inside. Everything is just as pretty when you open the package. Then you either thaw the item (like the ceviche I tried one day) or cook the item.
One of the fun items I saw and had to try was Snails/Escargot. I cooked them in a pan using one of our induction burners. They were SO good! Chris wasn’t so sure about them so that meant more for me!
Uncooked snails:
Ready to eat snails:
Look at this pretty rainbow cake Picard sold. Some items like this were full size and others also offered a slice or a tiny version. If they would have sold a slice or a tiny rainbow cake I would have tried it. But with just two of us, a whole cake is just too much cake!
There was a whole “Hello America” theme of items in store when we shopped. Some of the items were typical American like hot dogs and wings. But the BBQ bagel was a bit odd to me. Hey, at least they had bagels! Fresh, soft bagels in Europe have been impossible to find!
This was another odd item on the Hello America menu. Bouchées Nachos Cheddar. Bouchées are a french bite – usually puff pastry filled with cheese. So are these pastries filled with nacho cheese and rolled in Nacho crumbs? I don’t know. I didn’t want to try them. They were WEIRD.
Cupcakes and Doughnuts. Oui et oui.
Mini Cheeseburgers – Very USA! But we don’t usually see poppy seeds on top of our burgers. It is usually sesame seeds on our burger buns.
