Emily In France Exclusive 🇫🇷 My 25 Bites to Try in Paris... Part 3: Snacks

The French don't believe in snacking... and yet...

A few weeks ago, a New York Times story began making the rounds of Paris foodie Instagram: a collection of the 25 essential dishes in Paris, curated by some of the best palates in the city. I read it with interest, bookmarking more than a couple for later visits, and then, Sara Lieberman, one of the journalists who contributed to the original (and the author, among other things, of the newsletter Overthinking It...) released her own list of the 25 essential dishes to try in Paris, as far as she and a handful of her nearest and dearest were concerned. I think you know where this is going.

While I had initially set my heart on rounding up my top 25 places in one big email, I realized it might be more palatable (and easier to digest) if I broke things into meals. Two weeks ago, I addressed breakfast, which, as I explained, is a far smaller affair in France than it is in the Anglo world. Last week, lunch was the star of my roundup.

It would be understandable if you assumed that I'd be delving into dinner this week, but before I do, I need to linger over le goûter, le quatre-heures…

The snack.

By and large, the French don't believe in snacking – at least, not the way I snacked growing up. The oldest of four children, I spent my childhood secure in the knowledge that a Ziploc bag of Goldfish crackers or a green apple (yes, I come from a fruit-as-a-snack household) was never far – and, indeed, usually in my mother's consequential purse. (Folks wonder where I get it.)

But snacking is a very un-French habit, a generalization I nevertheless confirmed in a conversation with French food journalist Emmanuel Rubin while researching a story about the evolution of the grammar of French meals. He informed me that not only is the structure of French meals sacred (and, for that matter, protected as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO), but so too is the structure of the French day built around its meals: small, sweet breakfast; consequential four-course lunch between noon and two; smaller-but-still-substantial four-course dinner at around eight.

But between the latter two, another opportunity for nourishment arises.

The French approach to snacking is, to me, best encapsulated by the fact that the country boasts two distinct terms for the notion. Grignoter is perhaps more adequately translated as “to graze;” this is the habit most French people consider too American (and perhaps best eradicated.) By comparison, le quatre-heures or le goûter refers to a snack served, as one of its two names suggests, at around four o’clock. Originally envisaged as an after school snack, when its most common form would be a simple square of dark chocolate and a bit of baguette, this fourth meal has nevertheless pervaded Millennial culture, and I recall many of my former colleagues pulling out a sweet snack to enjoy with a 4pm cup of coffee.

So no matter your age, if you too are on the lookout for a way to tide yourself over between lunch and dinner in the capital, here are a few of my favorite bites.

1. Citrus Gâteau Basque from Carl Marletti

As someone more attracted to savory flavors than sweet, I tend to prefer my pastries balanced with the richness of salted butter or the acidic hint of citrus. So Carl Marletti's play on a classic gâteau basque is kind of perfect for my palate, sandwiching the traditional shortbread not around the pastry cream or black cherry jam preferred in more traditional iterations found in France’s southwest, but rather around a citrus cream positively bursting with brightness. A slightly glazed top provides the ideal sticky surface for a smattering of colorful lemon, lime, and orange zest.

While this is a staple of Marletti’s eponymous 5th arrondissement shop, it’s also often available at Fou de Pâtisserie, the pastry shop without a pastry chef whose mission is to spotlight the best of the city’s pâtissiers, one pâtisserie at a time.

Carl Marletti (51 Rue Censier, 5th)

2. Lemon Choupette from Les Choupettes de Chouchou