French supermarkets look ordinary enough—until you wander up to the special counters. Suddenly you’re in another world where everyone else knows the script: what to ask for, how to say it, and even how to wrap things up with a tidy c’est tout. Me? I was still trying to remember if “poisson” meant “fish” or “poison.”
The Main Characters
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Le rayon charcuterie (à la coupe) – The deli counter: hams, pâtés, saucissons sliced with reverence.
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Le rayon fromage (à la coupe) – Cheese by the slice, wedge, or mysterious lump. Don’t cut corners here—literally.
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Le rayon boucherie (à la coupe) – The butcher counter. A vocabulary minefield: bavette, entrecôte, rumsteck.
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Le rayon poissonnerie – The fish counter, glittering with creatures that remind you how little you know about marine biology.
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La boulangerie – The bread station. Resistance is useless.
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La pâtisserie – The pastry trap. Enter at your peril (and leave with a box).
The Encounter at the Poissonnerie
I thought I was safe if I just pointed. I spotted a long silvery fish and told the fishmonger:
“Euh… ça, s’il vous plaît.”
He nodded. “Entier ou en filets ?”
Panic. Entire? Filets? My brain froze. Before I could answer, a kind woman behind me leaned in and whispered, “C’est du merlu.”
Merlu? To me, it looked like a generic fish with commitment issues. To the French, it was hake—common, beloved, and apparently something every child here recognizes by sight.
Seeing my confusion, the fishmonger smiled and held up one finger. “Un filet ?”
I latched onto the word with relief. “Oui, un filet de… merlu.”
He wrapped it neatly, wrote MERLU across the paper, and handed it over like a vocabulary flashcard.
🐟 Poissonnerie (Fish Counter)
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Merlu – hake, very common in France but little known in English-speaking kitchens.
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Bar – European sea bass (not the same as American bass).
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Dorade – gilt-head bream. You won’t see this name on a U.S. fish menu.
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Lotte – monkfish, often nicknamed “the poor man’s lobster”.
“Comment ça s’appelle ?” (What’s that called?)
Nine times out of ten, you’ll walk away not only with dinner but also with a new word scribbled on butcher paper.
The Lesson
That day I didn’t just buy dinner. I learned that “hake” exists, that it’s called merlu in French, and that French supermarkets are less like shopping trips and more like surprise language exams—with tutors disguised as fishmongers and kind strangers.
And now, every time I walk past the poissonnerie, I nod at the merlu and think: that’s the fish that taught me my first real word.