Writing about food: Emile Zola's "The Belly of Paris"
"Lettuce, escarole, and chicory, with rich earth still stuck to them ... . Bundles of spinach, bunches of sorrel, packets of artichokes, piles of peas and beans, mountains of romaine tied with straw, sang the full greenery repertoire ... a continuous range of ascending and descending sales that faded away in the variegated heads of celery and and bundles of leeks. But the most piercing note of all came from the flaming carrots and the snowy splotches of turnips ... . At the intersection of rue des Halles were mountains of cabbages. There were enormous white cabbages that were hard and compact ... and red cabbages that the dawn seemed to change into exquisite flowery masses the color of wine, crimson and deep purple. At the other end ... the route was blocked by swollen-bellied orange pumpkins crawling across the ground in two lines. The varnished brown of onions shone here and there in baskets and the bloodred heaps of tomatoes, the muted yellow of cucumbers, the deep purple of eggplants, while thick black radishes in funereal drapes still held memories of the night ... .
"First of all, close to the windowpane, was a row of crocks full of rillettes alternating with jars of mustard. The next row was nice round boned jambonneaux with golden breadcrumb coatings. Behind these were platters: stuffed Strasbourg tongues ... next to the pale sausages and pigs' feet; boudin coiled like snakes; andouilles piled two by two and plump with health; dried sausages in silvery casing lined up like choirboys; pates, still warm ... ; big, fat hams; thick cuts of veal and pork whose juices had jellied clear as crystal candy. ... Between the plates and dishes ... were pickling jars of sauces and stocks and preserved truffles, terrines of foie gras, and tins of tuna and sardines. A box of creamy cheeses and one of escargot, wood snails with parsley and butter, were casually strew in opposite corners.
"A sunbeam streamed through the glass roof ... lighting up the rich colors ... the iridescent hues of the shellfish, the opalescence of the whiting, the pearly mackerel, the gold of the red mullets, the lame suits of the herring, the great silvery salmon. It was as though the jewelry boxes of a sea nymph had been opened there -- a tangle of unimaginable baubles, heaps of necklaces, monstrous bracelets, gigantic brooches, huge barbaric gems of no imaginable purpose. On the backs of skates and dogfish seemed to be huge dull green and purple stones set in some dark metal, while slender eels and the tails and fins of smelts suggested the delicacy of fine jewelry.
"A Parmesan added an aromatic pungence to the heavy smell. Three Bries on round boards were sad as waning moons. Two very dry ones were full. The third, in its second quarter, was oozing, emitting a white cream that spread into a lake, flooding over the thin boards that had been put there to stem the flow. Port Saluts shaped like ancient discuses had the names of the producers inscribed around the perimeters. ... The Roqueforts, under their glass bells, had a regal bearing, their fat, marbled faces veined in blue and yellow as though they were the victims of some disgraceful disease that strikes wealthy people who eat too many truffles. Alongside them were the goat cheeses, fat as a child's fist, hard and gray like the stones rams kick down a path when they lead the flock. And then there were the smells: the pale yellow Mont d'Ors released a sweet fragrance, the Troyes, which were thick and bruised on the edges, were stronger-smelling than the others, adding a fetid edge like a damp cellar; the Camemberts with their scent of decomposing game; the Neufchatels, the Limbourgs, the Maroilles, the Pont l'Eveques, each one playing its own shrill note in a composition that was almost sickening."
