Do button mushrooms really come from Paris? Answer elements for the “Behind our labels” section.
He has a recognizable style, with his round hat. And if we trust its name, it is the most French of mushrooms. But is the Paris mushroom really from Paris? We looked behind our labels. In a supermarket in Seine-Saint-Denis, there are big price differences per kilo. 4.58 euros, 5.98 euros, 7.96 euros, and origins not always as well informed. Enough to sow doubt among some. “In my head, he comes from Paris. Now he can come from somewhere else too“, says a customer.
Be wary of products that have a city name on the label
To try to understand, we head to a market in the 15th arrondissement of the capital. Here, only one stand offers button mushrooms from France, at 5.40 euros per kilo. A few meters further on, a greengrocer says, he struggles to obtain supplies of French mushrooms. So is the Paris mushroom just a variety? Some pure-bred Parisian consumers are categorical: the Paris mushroom has grown well in Paris. But that was in 1969. In 2023, the Ile-de-France stone quarries are still there, but few are active.
It’s not just the button mushroom whose name can mislead us. What are the tips for choosing well? “Be wary of products that have a city name on the label“, says Dorothée Lachaud, on the set of 13 Heures de France 2, Tuesday October 17. “The Sainte-Maure log, for example, may well bear the name of a town in Touraine, but when we look at the label of this cheese, the goat’s milk comes neither from Touraine nor from France, but from ‘European Union“, adds the journalist.