"POULET JAUNE A CUIRE SANS ABAT"

i just bought the above at the marche...does 'abat' mean without giblets or without beating? Not getting a clear answer on Google translate.

TYI,
Boots in Provence

without giblets

Yellow chicken ready to cook without giblets. (abats refers to any sort of organ meat like tripe or liver...)

thank you

Also when you buy a baguette here in France, do you store the leftover in the paper packaging it came in or do you discard that and store it in plastic?

Merci en avance,
Boots en Provence

Don't store bread in plastic, it will go tough and soggy. Either eat it while it's fresh or if you have to keep some for later in the day see if you can find a linen bread bag to store it in. Some bakeries sell them, or keep it in the paper in which it came.
French bread doesn't keep longer than a day generally.

Neither paper nor plastic. Although it will not keep well in any case, it is best to wrap it in a dish towel.

My husband and I can never finish a baguette or any other loaf of bread except for a ficelle or a mini-pain, and no matter what you do with it it's just not great the next day. We do have a linen bread bag, and that helps a bit, but mostly we share with our birds or make croutons or breadcrumbs.

For bread larger than baguettes - we make toast with it on the days following the original purchase date. Also, we may use day-old bread to mop up the broth from steamed bouchot mussels.

Stu Dudley

Probably a lot of visitors to France do not know this, but it is perfectly acceptable to buy a demi-baguette. A lot of boulangeries in Paris bake a smaller format on purpose, but most of them just cut a baguette in half if you ask. In my neighbourhood, the price is 0.45€.

You could make pain perdu otherwise known as French toast.

We've done that too, but my pain perdu-loving husband prefers to use day-old croissants (and sometimes even day-old pains au chocolat) for that.

I always thought that the best French toast was made from challah (aka brioche), but using pain au chocolat gives me a vision of profound decadence.

I grew up with pain de mie (American style sandwich bread) for "French" toast, and I am remaining faithful to it; After all, it is one of the only valid things that one can do with that type of bread (besides PBJ or tuna sandwiches), so I try to respect my childhood. I actually always have some on hand but generally only to make a traditional BLT.

The concept of day old croissants, pains au chocolat or brioche does not compute -- I only buy the required amount when I have guests (I never buy that stuff for just myself.).

Well, we buy day-old ones at the Intermarché, usually in bags of 4 or 5, for 1€, just to make pain perdu. When we actually want to eat a fresh croissant or pain au chocolat on its own, we buy one at a time from our favorite bakery, or stop at a café.

baguettes IME from bloulangeries do not come in paper bags but a thin paper to hold it by.

my ex-wife was French and she would take day or two old breads and make Trompez au Lait (sp?) - old bread in milk -out of it for the 'petit goutez' (sp?) the little snack they have around 4 pm.

We don't get day old bread or anything like that for sale in Paris because it automatically goes to the NGOs for the migrant centers and other associations for the homeless. Obviously, in "small town" France, there is not always this outlet for all of the excess.

DH brought home two demi baguettes. I left them in the original paper bag, and we will either toast them or make pain perdu. I don't have any maple syrup for the latter (our preferred topping), but have honey and a small collection of mini jams/jellies.

Funny story - DD and I attended the last day of the annual Just Rose festival in Sanary yesterday. As many of you know, nearby Bandol is famous for it's roses (insert the e accent aigu because my keyboard won't). We had a delicious rose at lunch yesterday and so asked DH to see if there was a decent bottle at the SuperU Marche where he stopped to get the baguettes. So much for our much anticipated Bandol rose - he brought home a California one, the state we currently live in!

Oh well we had a good laugh, and we will look forward to seeing how it stands up to its European counterpart.

Boots in Provence

Califronia wines I believe in recent times stand up very well vs equivalent French ones - but in France to drink California wine? Hubby has a good sense of humor.

If you have a freezer, just put your leftover baguette in there (no wrapper necessary) right after dinner if you want to use the remainder the next day. It will keep and be just as fresh.

Don't think any real French person would put bread in freezer then eat it next day but sounds reasonable.