COTTON CANDY

Olfactory memory

Tuileries Gardens

Now I want to tell you about a city that made me dream and inspired many of my projects. Here thousands of olfactory memories could be written. A place where all you have to do is walk around and look around to be struck by the art deco of the rooms, the nineteenth-century galleries that have remained intact, the bistros with their little tables where you can sip very expensive glasses of wine… it’s a bit like walking through history…

But let’s come to that afternoon in the Tuileries gardens, from which I was passing on my way to the Musée d’Orsay to see the paintings of the Impressionists. As I walked I was distracted by the laughter of two girls sitting on a bench who were eating a giant pink-colored barbe à papa, basically cotton candy. I was struck because it seemed like an image from another time: cotton candy…but who eats it anymore!!!? At that point, intrigued, I approached and asked where they got that cloud of sugar. They pointed me to the markets at the beginning of Avenue des Champs Elysées, the ones they set up before Christmas where you can find all kinds of food and sweets. There was a stall there where a chubby gentleman with a potato nose and a fake mustache was contentedly rolling his cotton candy creations on wooden sticks: how to resist the temptation …à Paris…