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Paris's Catacomb Mushrooms (2017)
In the 1800s, farmers cultivated mushrooms in abandoned quarries underneath the French capital.
Documents Mairie de Paris-Inspection générale des Carrières/All Rights ReservedFrom the Louvre museum to the sculpted façade of Notre Dame to the quintessential six-story apartment buildings with their grey-beige blush, Paris is built of local limestone, extracted from quarries that thread beneath the capital like the holes of a Swiss cheese. While locals have used these natural resources since Gallo-Roman times, it wasn’t until the massive medieval churches (such as Notre Dame) were built that Parisians quarried underground—a tradition that continued for centuries as they expanded and beautified the city. According to his story, Paris mushrooms were first grown underground near the site of the Eiffel Tower, when deserters of Napoleon’s army hid inside the galleries below Chaillot hill.
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