Alsace, Mulhouse, 5.6.2025: Black-Eyed Peas and Soupe à l'oignon

Marché de Mulhouse, Mulhouse, Alsace, France

Since W. was still attending his conference, Steve, K., and I walked this morning to the Marché de Mulhouse. The walk was longish, nearly two miles, but very enjoyable, with the skies sunny and a cool breeze blowing. Google maps provided courtesy of my iPhone kindly took us up this rue and down that one on a winding pathway until we finally arrived at the market. 

The walk also took us into a different Mulhouse than we’ve seen, one with many people from non-European nations, many women in hijabs and some in colorful African clothes with tignons on their heads, and also one more economically depressed than the old town would leave you to believe Mulhouse is. 

The market: not really fabulous, but very interesting, with everything under the sun: fruits, vegetables, olives, garden plants and flowers, and, inside in a covered hall, meats and sausages and pâtés, fish and seafood, cheeses, pastries: you name it. I was rather surprised to see packages labeled black-eyed peas, peas of Feneos, from a Greek vendor. Several of the boucherie-charcuterie places were advertised as halal vendors, and were crowded with customers. “Native” French people, in fact, seemed to be very much in the minority in the market. The bulk of those shopping were Muslim people with immigrant backgrounds, and we heard Middle Eastern languages more than French as we walked around.

A section of the market also sells clothes and tawdry bright jewelry, clothes made from sleazy bright fabrics that evidently appeal to shoppers who frequent this market, with many of the stands also featuring heads of mannequins clothed in hijabs. A very interesting shopping expedition to see “another” Mulhouse….

As we walked back to the hotel from the market, we spotted a blackboard for a small restaurant, Restaurant le Dix Sept, in the old city. The offerings looked good, so we decided to sit and have a noonday meal. Since the daily offering and a menu posted next to it enticed us, we followed the arrow down Rue Palle until we found the restaurant and asked if it was open for a midday meal.The place seemed just to be opening, but they kindly seated us at a comfortable outside table and we ordered some Alsatian Riesling, which turned out to be very good — I never saw the label, so don't have that information to share.

Steve ordered the plat du jour, a faux filet of beef served with potatoes dauphinoise and mushroom sauce, with a dessert of pineapple crumble. K. and I ordered onion soup. The waiter told us the soup would take some ten minutes to cook, but the actual waiting time was more like forty minutes — and that was fine with us, because we enjoyed sitting outside and were not in a rush.

When the food came, we all thought it was outstanding, as was the pineapple crumble that followed, which we all shared. It was clear that the onion soup was cooked to order, since it took so long to prepare and we could smell the onions simmering in butter while we sat at our outside table. The crumble was also so well-baked and obviously made with “real” ingredients. It was buttery, crunchy, and really delicious.

The afternoon and evening: resting for the long drive tomorrow to Orange.