The Party's Over

September 21, 2024
Posted by Jay Livingston

“Two pair wahr,” said the young woman next to me in the Place Aristide Briand in Carpentras. We were both there for the marché aux truffes, a truffle market held every Friday morning in the cold months. The waitress at the restaurant Thursday night had told me about it, so Friday morning I was up early to make the half-hour drive. I was early. A few dozen people were standing in a loose circle. The farmers, with their baskets of truffles and their hand-held balance scales, stood in the center. At 8:45, someone blew a whistle and trading started.

I had come just to see the market and take some photos, but I started talking with a couple of young women standing near me, and after a few minutes they were helping me buy a half kilo of truffles. I told them that I wanted to take them back to my friend in Paris, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to keep them for several days in the paper bag I was now holding.
    
They told me that I should go to the grocery store and get some rice, then to the droguerie (housewares store) and get “two pair wahr.” My so-so French had been adequate to the task so far, but here was a French word I did not understand. “Two pair wahr,” she repeated, and mimed prying a lid off a container.

Tupperware. Of course. You put the truffles in and fill it with rice. It won’t smell up the car, and when you do get back to Paris, whatever dish you decide to use the truffles in,, you’ll also have the best tasting rice you’ve ever had,

It was the only piece of Tupperware I ever bought.

Last week, Tupperware filed for bankruptcy.