Beurre, œuf, fromage (butter, egg, cheese; BOF)[1] is an old French acronym for the food trade from the central food halls of
Les Halles[2] to creamery retailers that sold the three staples of the French diet—butter, eggs and cheese—and were referred to as Les BOF.[3] Its meaning became a pejorative term in France during the
German Occupation during
World War II and the following years after the war, when ration cards were much sought-after on the black market.[4]
By extension, BOF came to designate a person making money on the black market during this period. The
Jean Dutourds novel The Best Butter (Au bon beurre), considered the best known and most-cited work on the black market in occupied France,[5] features the satirical adventures of a BOF couple, the Poissonard family[6] who work in a Paris dairy shop during the German occupation and think only of getting rich.[7]
In the immediate post-war period, the black market's capture of food shortages continued, triggering demonstrations throughout 1947, notably that of November 12 in Marseille,[8] during which a young 19-year-old worker, Vincent Voulant, was shot dead[9][10] and four other demonstrators, also victims of gunfire from the same night bar, were seriously wounded, two of whom underwent surgery and were still in critical condition the following day.
^Mouré, Kenneth (23 March 2023). Marché Noir: The Economy of Survival in Second World War France. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 79.
ISBN978-1-009-20767-6.
^Ardagh, John (1969). The New French Revolution. New York: Harper & Row. p. 99.
^Mouré, Kenneth (2014). "Black Market Fictions: "Au bon beurre, La traversée de Paris", and the Black Market in France". French Politics, Culture & Society. 32 (1): 47–67.
doi:
10.3167/fpcs.2014.320104.
ISSN1537-6370.
JSTOR24517624.
^Desanti, Dominique (22 April 1976). L'Année où le monde a tremblé, 1947 (in French). Albin Michel. p. 178.
ISBN978-2-226-23345-5.
^Horn, Gerd-Rainer (19 March 2020). The Moment of Liberation in Western Europe: Power Struggles and Rebellions, 1943-1948. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 233.
ISBN978-0-19-258286-7.
^Verne, Jean-Michel (12 May 2022). Les Nouveaux mystères de Marseille (in French). Groupe Robert Laffont. p. 129.
ISBN978-2-221-25683-1.