Marmot Max Buys Some Cheese

Hey, everyone!  It's Marmot Max and this morning, I'm going to the dairy.

In Nans, we don't buy cheese at the grocery store like you do in the US, we go to the dairy.

A dairy is a place in town that makes butter and cheese and you go and buy it directly from them.

This is my friend Margarite, she makes the butter and cheese.  She promised to take me on a tour and show me how cheese is made sometime soon.

Every morning, the cows go right by the dairy and out to the fields to eat grass.

It doesn't get any fresher than that!

We do the same thing for meat and bread.  In larger cities in France, there is a market in the town square where people sell everything all at once.  Olives, cheese, oil...just about everything you would need.  Sometimes they only do this once a week.  In larger cities they do this every day, like this one in Dijon.

The market in Dijon takes place in a beautiful hall designed by Gustav Eifel--the same man who designed the Eifel tower!  Here, they sell just about everything you would like to eat.  Fruit, vegetables, bread, meat and, even though Dijon is far from the sea, fish.

Of course, you can also buy things at the supermarket, which is pretty much like a US supermarket, but buying food at the market helps local businesses and is much more fun.  You never know who you will meet or what strange things might be for sale.  The food is fresh, but you kind of have to get used to the crowds, the sounds and the smell of a French market.  It also takes longer to shop this way.  But the food is delicious!