Thank you, Chris O’Brien, for this lovely tale from French Crossroads.

The big news in France this week was that I found eggs with white shells.

Living abroad means constantly trying to find the right balance between embracing a new culture and holding tight to the traditions of the homeland. The latter includes coloring eggs on Easter. Alas, outside the U.S., it’s a brown, brown, brown eggshell world.

Coloring brown eggs is deeply unsatisfying. The colors simply don’t blend and pop in the right way against the darker shells. It’s like looking at the colors with sunglasses on. Look, I get that this does not rank high on the scale of human rights disasters. But there is something to be said for the comforts of tradition and the familiar, and their ability to lift the spirits just a touch when needed.

Photo: Public domain.com via Wikimedia Commons

And so, each year, we undertake the quest to find eggs with white shells. Last year, we came close. A thread in a Facebook group for Americans living in our area in the North of France noted a couple of places that were selling them. But I got there too late.

However, I made a note of these locations. And so taking a break from work last week, I drove to a nearby Auchan (a generic French grocery store chain) that had them last year. I scanned the egg section and saw none. It’s always worth asking someone who works there because the logic of shelving in French stores is not always, well, logical. So I asked the man working in the egg section: Avez-vous des oeufs avec des coquilles blanches?

The concept of eggs with white shells was simply so foreign that he had no idea what I was talking about. It’s not that he didn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth. Rather, he had no reference to grasp such an absurdity. White eggs shells? But despite whatever stereotype you may have, the French are eager to be helpful.

And so this man, seeing that I was in search of something egg-related, proceeded to give me a 10-minute lecture explaining every variety of eggs available. This one is free range, and this one is organic and that one has…. He even took various eggs out of the cartons to show me the numbers stamped on the eggs which correspond to their nutritional value (this was indeed a new one to me!).

I thanked him and left eggless.

Photo: Chris O’Brien

In the car, I scanned the Facebook thread again and saw a mention of a place called Ferme Saint Hubert. Ah, a farm, I thought. Well, that could be quite nice. It’s a sunny day. I’m already out, and it’s just 15 minutes away. I called and a woman, clearly versed in the ways of Americans and their eggs, responded that they had just received a shipment of white eggs. “Beaucoup, beaucoup!” she proclaimed.

Off I went. I plugged the address into Google Maps and went rolling past fields and meadows and a couple of small villages, imagining that I would soon be pulling up to some rustic spot where there would be little farm animals milling about. Just a minute away, the route took me under an overpass and then up a hill, and then…straight into a monstrous shopping mall.

Not just a mall, but a Westfield mall, a hellscape of commerce and bad design. The parking garage is so Byzantine that once you enter, a 20-minute loop is required to exit via all the narrow, one-way twists and turns. This is how murderers are made. Even on a Tuesday afternoon, there was not a single spot available, so I had to exit and find a parking spot about 10 minutes away and then walk back.

Photo: Chris O’Brien

Navigating the mall was also daunting, but after exiting and re-entering several times, I finally found the small corner that was home to Ferme Saint Hubert. And there, I spotted the motherlode. Stacks of cartons filled with white gold. How many to get? 100? In my euphoria, I thought maybe I should get one for every single American I know in France.

Probably overindulgent. I grabbed six cartons of six eggs as the French-American Egg Expert nodded with approval. Then I sent triumphant WhatsApp photos to family members.

On Saturday, we colored about 18 eggs. It was immensely satisfying as we listened to a selection of Easter music.

Photo: Chris O’Brien

For Easter festivities, we visited the Château de Breteuil, located near Choisel in the Yvelines department, about 40 minutes south of Paris. Built in the 17th century, it belongs to the family of Louis de Breteuil, who was a financial adviser to Louis XIV, aka the Sun King.

Breteuil had an employee named Charles Perraut, who was a lawyer and later was also in finance. He also advised the king, including on matters related to constructing Versailles, and had a lifelong interest in myths.

Photo: Chris O’Brien

Perraut lost favor with his patrons over time and eventually began to focus on his writing. This included developing a number of longtime myths and tales into what came to be known as “fairy tales.” You’ve probably heard of several of his works: Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, and Bluebeard. The Brothers Grimm would later further develop some of these stories.

In 1697, he published a number of these in a book called Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé), subtitled Tales of Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye). This is the first recorded use of “Mother Goose.”

Château de Breteuil has embraced this somewhat tenuous link between their ancestor and this writer and turned the grounds of the chateau into an homage to Perraut and his legendary tales. Including a rather terrifying rotating statue of Mother Goose in the gardens.

Photo: Chris O’Brien

Still, we had a wonderful afternoon wandering the grounds and forcing our daughter to participate in the Easter egg hunt for kids, which she did in good humor. I particularly enjoyed the pair of statues in front that depict wild animals mauling each other. Nothing like carnage to make guests feel welcome.

Photo: Chris O’Brien

We bought some food for a picnic in the sun and strolled around a bit more before making the sleepy drive back home.

Chris O’Brien is an American journalist based in the Paris region, where he writes about technology, travel, culture, and politics. Before moving to France in 2014, he spent 15 years covering Silicon Valley for the Los Angeles Times and The San Jose Mercury News. He is as surprised as anyone that he is now a French citizen.

Subscribe to Chris’s newsletter here: