Alysa Salzberg's blog

  La Joute des mariniers  by Nicolas Raguenet   ( image source )   Researching the past isn’t easy - and I’m learning that certain time periods are even more difficult to visualize and understand than I might have expected.   What I hope will be my next novel is taking me to a different time in Paris’s history, and I’m trying to get down to the depths of it, to be able to see and hear and smell it (even though it apparently smelled pretty gross) -- as much as someone who didn’t actually live then, can. One thing I can be sure of: The traditional shape of a brioche hasn’t changed in centuries, as this 18 th  century painting by Chardin attests!   Detail from   La Brioche by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin   ( image source )   This need to do some serious time traveling to a different era means that I’ll be taking a break for a few months from posting on this blog.   I will always be fascinated by the Siege of Paris, and I continue to r...

Paris, December, 1870: Under siege by the Prussians since September 19, the city has run out of a number of basic cooking ingredients, including most common sources of meat (cat, rat, dog, horse, and for the extremely wealthy, zoo animals, are usually substitutes), as well as milk and cheese.  Flour is also in short supply; the bread distributed by the city’s boulangeries is becoming a repugnant mix of assorted grains, dried peas, and even straw.   So what can you make for Christmas dinner?   Christmas of 1870 is considered one of the saddest in Paris's history. Besieged residents couldn’t leave the city to visit or reunite with family and friends, and food and heat were in short supply. Still, many citizens must have made the most of it.   We have a few menus that have survived from this time (yes, restaurants stayed open during the Siege - this is Paris, after all), including the most famous, that of the restaurant Voisin, which shows an array of different meat opt...

Located near the busy Gare Montparnasse (Montparnasse train station), le Musée de la Poste (The (French) Postal Museum) contains one of the best collections of objects related to the 1870-1871 Siege of Paris anywhere. You may be wondering why.   Out of necessity, the Siege of Paris was a part of the development of several mail-related phenomena:   ~ The first regular airmail service. From late September 1870 to January 28,  1871, sixty-six hot air balloons left Paris, carrying correspondance (and carrier pigeons) from besieged Parisians. Although balloon flight was tricky and many of the balloons ended up way off course, most arrived safely, with only two fatal crashes and five balloons captured by the enemy.   A letter sent by hot air balloon during the Siege, on display at the Musée de la Poste. ~ The popularization of the pigeon post. While there was a high rate of failure (more on this below), pigeons were the most reliable way for Parisians to receive correspond...