
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Joanna Robertson is a journalist and mother who has lived in five foreign countries, where she has observed that local shopping habits tell you a lot about the place. In these Essays, she argues that when people go shopping, they don't just purchase goods, they also buy into something else. Joanna Robertson takes us shopping with the locals and explores these ulterior motives and what they reveal about the residents of five cities: Rome, New York, Berlin, Tirana and Joanna's current home, Paris.
When Parisians shop for, or sell, traditional, locally produced high-quality food, it's not just because they revere it, but also because it's part of a deeply entrenched culture that dates back to the nineteenth century. Owners of specialist food shops like Madame Acabo and her to-die-for chocolates are the heirs of key individuals like the lawyer, politician and gastronome of genius, Brillat-Savarin (whose Physiology of Taste, published in 1825, has never been out of print), and the aristocrat Grimod de la ReyniÃre who wrote not only gastronomic almanacs and journals, but also reviews of the new phenomenon called "le restaurant" - one of which, a very successful one using only locally sourced ingredients, he set up himself.
Producer: Arlene Gregorius.
By BBC Radio 34.2
8282 ratings
Joanna Robertson is a journalist and mother who has lived in five foreign countries, where she has observed that local shopping habits tell you a lot about the place. In these Essays, she argues that when people go shopping, they don't just purchase goods, they also buy into something else. Joanna Robertson takes us shopping with the locals and explores these ulterior motives and what they reveal about the residents of five cities: Rome, New York, Berlin, Tirana and Joanna's current home, Paris.
When Parisians shop for, or sell, traditional, locally produced high-quality food, it's not just because they revere it, but also because it's part of a deeply entrenched culture that dates back to the nineteenth century. Owners of specialist food shops like Madame Acabo and her to-die-for chocolates are the heirs of key individuals like the lawyer, politician and gastronome of genius, Brillat-Savarin (whose Physiology of Taste, published in 1825, has never been out of print), and the aristocrat Grimod de la ReyniÃre who wrote not only gastronomic almanacs and journals, but also reviews of the new phenomenon called "le restaurant" - one of which, a very successful one using only locally sourced ingredients, he set up himself.
Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

7,913 Listeners

143 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

5,576 Listeners

1,808 Listeners

303 Listeners

1,729 Listeners

1,018 Listeners

1,952 Listeners

488 Listeners

585 Listeners

70 Listeners

410 Listeners

306 Listeners

756 Listeners

841 Listeners

129 Listeners

62 Listeners

241 Listeners

55 Listeners

52 Listeners

181 Listeners

4,186 Listeners

3,245 Listeners