Provence has not been off the beaten path for decades, if ever. This sun-soaked land of artists, dreamers and rosé is France’s most popular destination for foreign tourists outside of Paris. Renderings of its idyllic landscapes hang in galleries all over the world. Its food is iconic. The life-in-Provence memoir is so prolific as to almost be its own genre. It seems that every famous person who went to France in the last 100 years decamped to Provence for at least part of the time and wrote about it. The last 100 years? Let’s try the last 1,000. Provence has been a travel subject at least since the time of Julius Caesar.
We also went there.
Our Provençal itinerary begin in the charming town of Uzés, which may not technically be in Provence but is the source of the water used in the Roman aqueduct that includes what is arguably the region’s most celebrated masterpiece of antiquity, the Pont du Gard.
Uzés is a lively market town. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, several streets in the center of town evict motorized traffic for glorious vendor stalls to take over. Food, clothing, crafts, hunting knives — you can buy it all.
Uzés is also a nice base for day trips to natural wonders, wine-growing areas and the best-preserved Roman sites in the world.
If prehistory is your thing, the Chauvet Cave, or rather its replica for tourists, is a short drive from Uzés. From there, you can journey through time to your heart’s content. Orange, Nîmes and Arles have Roman temples and amphitheaters, some of which are still in use.
We drove from Uzés to Nîmes to meet our son, who had traveled from Paris on the high-speed TGV train. A short walk from the station is the Arena of Nîmes, which was built during an era of chariots.
On the way back to Uzés, we stopped at the Pont du Gard, a marvel of engineering in any time.
Our time in Provence was unfortunately limited. We managed a drive through the Camargue on our way to Montpellier, but we didn’t get to visit Marseille, Avignon or any of the hill villages. We will go again.
I can recommend some books for the armchair traveler. Much of Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France, takes place in Provence. The second course could easily be Provence 1970, which provides another perspective of that time and the Childs’ inner circle. A somewhat bizarre memoir is Lawrence Durrell’s Provence, which may be hard to find but gives a deep, personal dive into Roman and medieval history.
My friend, Madeleine, offers small group tours of Provence during the winter months, pandemic restrictions permitting. I haven’t had the opportunity to go yet, but if her tours are as good as her chocolates, you will not be disappointed.
In wine, Provence is perhaps most associated with rosé. I haven’t tried them all, although if I live long enough, I may make that a goal. My favorite everyday rosé for the past few years has been the Galets Rosé from Chateau Mourgues du Grés. I usually buy a case of it when it arrives each summer at my local wine shop. I had the Chateau marked on my Google Maps for a stop while we were in Provence but unfortunately we ran out of time. Next trip!
What to eat with that rosé? Well, almost anything. Rosé is one of the most food-friendly of wines. It’s a nice accompaniment to the famous dishes of Provence such as bouillabaise (from Marseille, the oldest city in France) and ratatouille (a classic dish that predates the animated rat film). Make those if you have the time, but I’ll suggest an easy, weeknight dish from Provence that is perfect for all those late-summer veggies we’re about to lose: tian. Dorie Greenspan’s recipe will be just perfect with a bottle of rosé.
Next: Rhone-Alpes. I think there will be tartiflette.
We’re changing things up a bit. Maybe it’s because restrictions are being lifted and some people — those who don’t own old houses in need of expensive repairs — are now able to book their own flights to France and my frustration at still not being able to go makes writing about pretend travel too unbearable.
So this is what I’m going to do. For regions of France that I have not personally visited, I’ll share my research and curation skills to provide what I think are the most interesting resources about the place.
And I will continue to make food because that is what I do.
Corsica, pointing at northern Italy. By Greece_in_its_region.svg: TUBSderivative work
Corsica, or Corse as the French call it, is a large, distinctively-shaped island in the Mediterranean closer to Italy than to France, but it has been part of France since 1768. The following year, Napolean Bonaparte was born there, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The rest, for me, is the promised resources for learning more about L’île de beauté.
You can rarely go wrong by starting with The New York Times. This 2016 travel piece is a semi-insider’s introduction to Corsica’s history, culture, food, and scenic attractions.
One reason I’m scaling back my travel coverage here is because it seems pointless when I can just refer you all to the excellent episodes of Échappées belles. This French travel show has been to Corsica at least three times: an overview, a focus on Haut-Corse, and a gourmand special. Even if you can’t understand French, you’ll enjoy the scenery.
So after reading that, I googled for some herby Corsican recipes and decided on the simplest: a mint omelette. I can’t get the Corsican cheese, of course, so I opted for fresh goat cheese as a substitute and plucked the mint from my garden. That and 3 eggs gave me all the ingredients I needed:
ingredients
If you’ve never made an omelette, it’s easy. Crack the eggs into a dish, then beat them until well-blended. Heat an omelette pan or skillet (preferably non-stick) and add a little oil or butter if you’d like. Pour the egg mixture in the pan and cook over medium-low heat. You can stir the eggs gently with a fork to help it along, and once the bottom starts to set, if you don’t want your omelette very runny, left the edges up slightly and tilt the pan so the uncooked eggs move to the edges. When the omelette is done almost to your liking, add the filling. In this case, it was chopped milk and crumbled cheese. Then fold it in half and serve. Salt and pepper and any other seasonings can be added to the interior before you fold or sprinkled on the finished omelette.
A mint omelette, served with bacon.
I also made a Corsican soup recipe from Let’s Eat France, but I forgot to photograph. It was delicious! Basically a vegetable soup with red beans and lots of herbs, including more mint, and I finished it with a leftover mint sauce to bring out the herbaceous flavors. There are lots of variations of this soup recipe on the internet, and maybe it would be fun to try them all, or just riff on one with what you have on hand.
Coming next: Provence, with my own travel stories and photos
When I conceived the idea for a virtual tour de France, the Languedoc-Roussillon area was the halfway point but also my ultimate destination. All the roads in my mind lead to it. Our last visit to France was our first to this region, and it captured my heart. My goal is that in retirement, the Languedoc will be our home base for travel and other adventures.
Languedoc-Roussillon
This region, along with the Midi-Pyrénées, is now called Occitanie in the current administrative divisions of France. Culturally and historically, it was part of the region of Occitania that included most of southern France, parts of Spain and some of northern Italy. Occitan was its dominant language and still has some native speakers. For centuries, the hexagon we now call France was largely divided by language: the langue d’oïl of the north and the langue d’oc of the south. It is beyond my expertise to attempt a blog-concise summary of this relationship and history, but for those who enjoy historical fiction, some of Kate Mosse’s novels will get you acquainted.
For our visit in May of 2018, we drove from Carcassonne to La Tour la Pagèze, a winery that includes B&B guest accommodations. We found it through the Gites de France booking service, which we also used for our winery stay in Gascony. Five of five stars for both!
I can’t attribute any single experience for my continuing love affair with the Languedoc, but I can decisively say it started with Claudine, who owns La Tour la Pagèze with her family. Claudine welcomed us as if we were dear, long-missed friends. Her warmth and hospitality now define the south of France for me. We arrived weary after a week of traveling and a drive from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and Claudine’s remedy for that was a complementary bottle of chilled chardonnay on her balcony overlooking the vineyards. All of this, a large private room with a balcony, and an outstanding breakfast the next morning, for about 40 euros.
Claudine’s story is as beautiful as her hospitality. (I learned this in Franglish, so hopefully I understood correctly.) Her grandparents migrated from the Catalan region of Spain as laborers in the vineyards of the Languedoc, and her parents also worked in the vineyards. It was their family dream to one day have their own. About 20 years ago, Claudine, her husband Miguel, and her brother Jean-Marie, saved enough to make that dream come true and purchased the Domaine la Tour la Pagèze. My understanding is that the parents have passed, but the winery honors their memory with its Cuvée Joseph, one of the few bottles I packed in my luggage to enjoy at home.
Claudine’s generosity was not an aberration for the region. For dinner, we drove to the nearby town of Fleury d’Aude and wandered into a small café. The sign at D’ici et d’ailleurs referenced an intriguing globally-inspired tapas menu. The owner welcomed us, and our bad French gave us away as tourists, so where from? he inquired. Nous venons aux Etats-Unis. He was ecstatic: we were only the second Americans to dine in his restaurant! He explained that his menu was influenced by his wife, who hailed from Madagascar, and he kept bringing us delicious tidbits he wanted us to try. My only regret is that I was too busy chowing down to snap photos.
After a restful night’s sleep and a sunrise over the distant sea from our balcony, we ate our fill of Claudine’s generous breakfast of breads, cheeses, yogurt, fruit, and an egg or two. Worried that we might get hungry again (how could that be possible!), she packed us off with a loaf of cake for our day trip to Narbonne. “You must go to Les Halles!” she insisted. More food!
I have been obsessed with Narbonne ever since. A small city not previously on my radar, Narbonne basically ticks every box for me. A river, or rather a canal, runs through the heart of the city, connecting to the Mediterranean and the Canal du Midi. The central zone is pedestrian-friendly, with a plethora of restaurants and services. Its mild Mediterranean climate, wine-growing environs, and easy access to other destinations via the high-speed rail station could make it an ideal retirement base.
The city is steeped in history, serving as a provincial capital for the Romans. In the pedestrian center by the canal, a remnant of the Roman road reminds passers-by of this history.
Unfortunately, while visiting the magnificent year-round indoor food market, Les Halles, I was too overwhelmed to bother with my camera. The cheeses, the spices, the olives, the fruits, the fish! To think that could be my grocery every morning if I lived in Narbonne… ah.
I insist it was Les Halles that won me over to Narbonne, but my husband credits the gentleman at lunch. Although we weren’t in the slightest bit hungry, everything in Narbonne closes between 12 à 14 heures (noon to 2 p.m.) for the midday meal, so we joined in. We chose a canal-side restaurant, and while I do not remember what we ate, I remember what we drank, courtesy of a fellow diner. The couple at the next table heard us speaking English and ventured to inquire as to our origins. In a mix of Franglish, we understood them to have a son who lived in Chicago (as did we!), or perhaps he had just visited there. Anyways, the proud papa was a huge fan of Chicago as well as having great civic pride in his native city. He wanted us to try the local wine and gifted us with the remainder of his bottle. (I do love a country where people routinely order a bottle of wine for lunch).
Back to Claudine’s for the evening with our stash of bread, cheese, olives and fruit from Les Halles, and another complementary bottle from the winery, this time the excellent rosé.
John, on the balcony of La Tour la Pagèze
Leaving the next morning was the saddest departure of our trip, and we vowed to return, a promise we still intend to keep as soon as we can cross the Atlantic again. (I know, France has reopened to visitors, but unfortunately we own an old house that will be zapping our travel funds with repairs this year.)
We drove from Fleury to Uzès, a delightful town technically in Occitanie but on the border with Provence, so I’ll include it with that chapter in our tour. We returned to the Languedoc after Uzès for a few days in Montpellier, a city that may give Narbonne a competition for our future home base.
The best thing about Montpellier for me is its approach to transportation. The city center is a car-free zone except for a few permitted delivery vehicles, whose access is controlled by retractable barriers in the pavement. A system of colorful trams circles the perimeter of the district to provide access to points beyond.
Montpellier is a lively university city surrounded by beaches, vineyards and landscapes of outstanding beauty. It also has a TGV station where a high-speed train can put you in Paris in about 3 hours.
To remember our time in the Languedoc, I prepared a Bourride à la Sètoise, a fish stew from the fishing village of Sète near Montpellier, as well as a Crema Catalan in honor of Claudine’s heritage.
Both dishes tasted better than my photos would indicate (I must get better at food photography!), and I hacked them from a compilation of recipes. Here’s a starting point for the crema catalan, and for the bourride.
As for wine, the Languedoc has much to offer. In recent decades, artisan makers have been working hard to overcome the region’s reputation for mass-produced table wine. Some very interesting and delicious wines are now made in Languedoc-Roussillon, and because they can’t command the prices of more famous regions, such as Bordeaux and Burgundy, exceptional values can be found. (See Jancis Robinson’s summary here and here for more info).
My go-to wine for the past year has been Michel Chapoutier’s Bila-Haut from the Cotes du Roussillon Villages appellation. It is $13.99 at my neighborhood wine shop and seems to pair well with every food.
A Seattle wine shop (whose owners have a home in the Languedoc) imports wines from some of the best small producers there. I’m looking forward to my first shipment from The Princess and the Bear and will try to update this blog with a review.
Back on our virtual Tour de France (the only way most U.S. citizens can currently visit), we will make a brief stop in the south-central region formerly known as the Midi-Pyrénées.
The principal city of the counts and of the region is Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France and a hub for tech, culture, medicine and education. One of my regrets from our last trip is that we bypassed the pink city on our drive from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. No vacation is ever long enough to do everything one might want. A stopover in Toulouse would have necessitated removing another destination, and Toulouse was among many possibilities that did not make the cut. Since adding #toulouse to my Instagram feed, I’m sure not to bypass it again.
Technically, our only stop in the Midi-Pyrénées two years ago was a short walk-around the center of Condom. We refrained from snapping selfies with the town sign, and we didn’t linger as it was a drizzly day and we were eager to get to the sunshine of the Mediterranean. Our only photos of Condom are the cathedral exterior and mail delivery via bike.
Although not technically in the Midi-Pyrénées, the medieval walled city of Carcassonne seems to me most aligned with this region. Its claim to fame is its role as a Cathar center, and its rulers generally allied with the counts of Toulouse. The well-preserved castle and fortifications are one of France’s top tourist attractions and definitely worth a stopover. We had a great view of and access to the city from our AirBnB. While some of it is a bit kitschy, overall a visit to the cité is almost a magical time-travel adventure.
Views of Carcassonne.
Now for the food. The most iconic dish of the region is the cassoulet, a hearty slow-baked casserole of beans and meat. Toulouse and Carcassonne are both famous for it, and of course we ordered it for dinner in Carcassonne.
When the time came for me to try it at home, I had difficulties. I followed, to the best of my ability, Paula Wolfert’s recipe for Cassoulet de Toulouse. The most essential ingredient — the large, white Tarbais beans — are one of those protected French agricultural products that normally you would need to import at great expense, but checking that box on my cassoulet ingredients list was surprisingly easy. I hesitate to tell you people about this source, because wait times for shipments have already stretched to weeks this year, with many products being sold out, but I’m good to my readers and my friends. The amazing heirloom bean purveyor, Rancho Gordo, grows the bean in California from French seed stock as “cassoulet bean.”
Getting all the meat ingredients during a pandemic proved too much for my patience. I gave up on the plethora of pork products and settled for a pork shoulder and some bacon. I wanted to be lazy and purchase duck legs confit, but I couldn’t find that and made my own with the sous-vide as recommended by Paula Wolfert. I also failed to procure the toulouse sausages which made me furious at myself because I have a deli right in my neighborhood (Raduno) that makes these rare beauties, but I remembered I hadn’t picked them up about 30 minutes after Raduno had closed for two days and the beans were already cooking, so I couldn’t delay. And finally, I burned some of the beans on the bottom. I’ll need to try this again. I can’t even add my photo because it was so ugly. Well, here’s the duck legs:
I’ll leave you with a book recommendation. Historical fiction and fantasy fans may enjoy Kate Mosse’s Languedoc trilogy set in and around Carcassonne. I’ve only read the first one, but it helped me imagine what life was like in the medieval cité and I was grateful I had read it before visiting.
Also, I discovered there’s a strategy board game called Carcassonne. Comment below if you’ve played it and can recommend.
Next: the Languedoc with sunshine, the sea, and wine wine wine.
It’s been two years since we were last in France, and future travel is uncertain with Americans currently being banned in Europe and most of the world, so our pretend tour de France is back on!
When we last “visited” France, we were in the historic and magnificent region of Aquitaine, now called Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in the southwest. Because this region is so large and diverse, we divided our tour into three parts: Bordeaux and the Dordogne, Gascony, and the Basque country. The latter is all that remains for our tour of Aquitaine.
Many of us are feeling isolated in these days of social distancing. The Basque know something about that, although not because of viruses. The Basque language is an isolate, meaning it has no known relationship with any other language. Perhaps that is one reason some Basque people have sought independence from both Spain and France.
The bulk of the Basque region lies within the border of Spain. The French part is in the southwestern corner of the country, along the Atlantic coast and the Pyrenees.
A good base for exploring the Pays basque français is the lovely small city of Bayonne. It’s easily accessible by the high-speed TGV train from Paris, and le gare, like most train stations in Europe, is centrally located for accommodations, restaurants and touring Bayonne and its surrounds.
We stayed in an AirBnB in the old town and enjoyed two and a half days of walking the cobblestoned streets, taking in the sights, sounds and tastes of the historic city. We did not visit the famous nearby resort of Biarritz, mostly because the weather was cool and rainy, not tempting us to the beach. Also, Bayonne had enough attractions to keep us occupied.
A view of the old town from one of Bayonne’s many bridges.
We were delighted to learn that Bayonne considers itself the capital of chocolate in France. The Spanish brought cacao back from their pillages in the Americas, but they initially kept it to themselves. Jewish refugees fleeing from the Spanish inquisition in the 17th century made chocolate in Bayonne, and soon their Basque neighbors took up the craft and excluded their teachers from practicing it.
Eventually, chocolate-making expanded throughout France, Europe and the world. Bayonne may not be home to the most famous chocolatiers in France, but a visit to the old city is a sweet ritual beloved by many in the southwest. We enjoyed a cup of the famous hot chocolate at Cazenave, on the Rue Port Neuf, in the company of a mother and daughter from Pau; la mère told us she had made a yearly pilgrimage to the small chocolate café with her parents and was continuing the tradition with her daughter.
My daughter perhaps starting a tradition of a chocolat chaud at Cazenave. It was served with toast.A chocolate artisan on the Rue Port Neuf, Bayonne’s famous chocolate street.
One can’t live on chocolate alone, although Bayonne might tempt you to try. Fortunately, the city can satisfy savory meal demands equally well. Ham, or jambon, is a Basque country staple, and visitors to Bayonne will find it as ubiquitous on menus as is duck in other parts of the southwest. Bayonne even has a museum of ham.
Typical charcuterie board served at a Bayonne wine bar.
Bayonne is about an hour by bus or car from San Sebastian, which claims to have a higher concentration of Michelin stars than any city in the world. Alas, we didn’t cross the border to Spain, but that means we’ll need to return and have a more extensive tour of Basque country.
Meanwhile, we’re reliving our Basque experience with a couple of iconic dishes. Chicken with tomatoes and peppers is, aside from thinly-sliced jambon, among the most popular menu items in Basque country. Many recipes exist for this dish. I chose one from French chef Daniel Boulud, mostly because I just finished reading Bill Buford’s delightful memoir of his cooking life in Lyon, Dirt, and Boulud was frequently mentioned.
Basque chicken
I served this over slices of French sesame peasant bread from our excellent local bakery, Common Good. But I also had a hankering for Sarlat potatoes, which are not Basque but from the neighboring Dordogne region. I shared the recipe in the Bordeaux segment. It’s currently my favorite way to cook potatoes.
Sarlat potatoes
Finally, I spent most of the day working on a Gateau Basque. Many, many recipes exist for this delicious pastry cake. I used Paula Wolfert’s from her Cooking of Southwest France (sadly, out of print), and it’s definitely more involved than most recipes available online. It required early-in-the-day preparation of three components: Basque Aromatics made from steeping lemon peel in Armagnac and other liquids, pastry cream, and dough. The cream and dough were flavored with the aromatic liqueur and chilled for a few hours. Then I rolled out the dough into two rounds, spreading the cream between the layers and baking it for about 45 minutes. It was lovely and delicious!
Gateau basque. Basque chicken and potatoes Sarlat.
Our time in Bayonne and Pays Basque was much too short, but we’ll be back!
Leaving Bayonne via the drawbridge across the moat outside the city walls.
Gascony, like most of southwest France, is the land of duck. Among the duck-related menu terms encountered in the southwest are magret de canard (duck breast), confit de canard (usually duck legs cooked in their own fat and preserved in a jar under a layer of that fat), and the most famed of all, foie gras (fattened liver of duck or goose). Duck fat is also liberally used in cooking.
I can personally vouch for the deliciousness of Gascon cuisine. During our visit to the region last year, we enjoyed the best meal of our trip -indeed, one of the best meals of our lives – at Le Cadet de Gascogne in St. Justin. Considering that the three of us had three courses, including wine and aperitifs, for less than $100 total, it was also a fantastic bargain.
Leah’s duck at Le Cadet d Gascogne
To celebrate Gascony at home, I splurged on duck breasts and turned again to Paula Wolfert’s masterpiece, The Cooking of Southwest France: Recipes from France’s Magnificent Rustic Cuisine. The following two recipes are not difficult to prepare; however, you will not find the moutarde violette at your neighborhood grocery. I had despaired of procuring a jar until I found it on Zingerman‘s website – and included in the summer sale! So I bought a case of 6 and now need more recipes using it since I can’t afford duck breasts very often. Fortunately, Paula Wolfert suggests adding it to a salad vinaigrette, another delicious option. I’ve also added it to homemade mayonnaise.
Moutarde violette is an ancient condiment from southwest France that had been nearly forgotten until a French family reintroduced it to the market in 1990. The mustard is enhanced with freshly pressed red or black grapes, a byproduct of wine-making. And it is fabulous with duck, of course!
Duck Breasts with Moutarde Violette
Adapted from The Cooking of Southwest France by Paula Wolfert
2 boneless duck breast halves, 1 to 1 1/4 lbs each
1.5 tablespoons minced shallots
1 tablespoon rendered duck fat
3/4 cup red wine
pinch of fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon moutarde violette
1 tablespoon heavy cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper
About 1 hour before serving, use a thin long-bladed knife to shave off the thinnest layer from the skin to remove the little bumps from the duck breast (if your breasts have them — mine didn’t, at least not that I could see), then make very small crosshatch marks at a 45-degree angle all over the skin side. Peel away the tendon underneath and reserve for some other purpose. Wipe the breast dry; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Heat a large heavy skillet over moderate heat. Add the duck breasts, skin side down, and immediately reduce the heat to moderately low. Sauté the breasts until crisp and brown, about 8 to 10 minutes, tilting the skillet and spooning off the fat 3 or 4 times. Flip the duck breasts over, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and finish cooking for 3 to 5 minutes to brown the flesh side and crisp the skin. With your thumb and middle finger, pinch the meat under the skin side to test for doneness. If it springs back quickly, the meat is rare; if there is some give, it is medium. Remove to a caring board, and let it rest for at least 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the shallots and duck fat to the skillet and cook over moderately low heat, stirring, about 2 minutes. Add the wine and herbs to the skillet and heat until reduced by half. Turn off the heat and stir in the mustard and heavy cream. Adjust the seasoning.
Thinly slice the meat crosswise on the diagonal and arrange overlapping on a serving platter. Spoon the sauce over the slices and serve immediately.
Cèpes in the Style of Gascony
1 ounce dried French cèpes or Italian porcini
1/2 cup French olive oil or a light Italian olive oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh garlic
2 tablespoons prosciutto
1 pound fresh button mushrooms, quartered or sliced
salt and freshly ground pepper
1.5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Soak the dried mushrooms in 2 cups lukewarm water for 30 minutes. Drain by lifting them out of the liquid. Rinse under cool running water and drain well by pressing on them lightly. Ladle the soaking liquid through a paper coffee or several layers of cheesecloth.
In a large nonreactive skillet, heat the olive oil over high heat. Add the drained mushrooms, then reduce the heat to moderately high. Add the garlic and prosciutto; cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, until the garlic begins to color slightly. Immediately add all the strained soaking liquid and bring to a boil. Slowly cook down to a glaze, about 15 minutes.
Add the fresh mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the lemon juice. Sauté, tossing over moderately high heat, until all the moisture in the pan has evaporated, about 7 minutes. Serve hot with a sprinkling of parsley.
Finally, our virtual tour takes us to a region we have visited in reality. We were fortunate and delighted to spend a couple of days in Gascony, le Gascogne, in May 2018. We are eager to return for a longer visit.
A quiet village in Gascony.
Gascony is the home of d’Artagnan, the young hero of Alexandre Dumas’ marvelous adventure novel, The Three Musketeers. The fictional d’Artagnan was inspired by the life of a real 17th century Gascon, and both legends are amply honored throughout the region.
Dumas was one of the best storytellers ever to take pen to page, and The Three Musketeers has endured for its entertaining blend of swashbuckling adventure, romance, villainy, friendship, palace intrigue and history. Read it for all of that, but you won’t learn much about Gascony as the young d’Artagnan leaves his home at the beginning of the tale.
Joanne Harris’ novel, Chocolat, was also set in the region, although the film version starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp used a Burgundy village for its exterior scenes.
Gascony is not well-defined as a region, and although some visitors describe it as the “most French” part of France, that’s probably due more to the relative sparsity of tourism (even Rick Steves hasn’t found its back door) that makes “unspoiled” seem synonymous with “authentic.” Indeed, Gascony is quintessentially French in the sense that the nation of France was formed from many kingdoms and duchies that had their own culture, language and identity. McAninch writes in Duck Season: “As was the case with much of southern France, rural Gascony and its subregions were essentially countries unto themselves almost until the twentieth century: loose assemblages of isolated and self-sustaining peasant communities conducting their daily life almost completely outside the purview of the French national identity.”
The Gascons and the neighboring Basque people share a heritage. In pre-Roman times, the inhabitants spoke a language related to modern Basque, which is an isolate unrelated to any other known living tongue. Wars and invasions of the Early Middle Ages split this part of southwestern France and northern Spain into separate identities of Basque and Gascon. From the Middle Ages until well into the 20th century, the Gascons spoke a dialect of Occitan with many regional variations.
Our first foray into Gascony last May was on the wind-swept Atlantic coast. We rented a car in Bayonne and drove north into Armagnac country, stopping for lunch at a seaside restaurant near Ondres.
On the beach near Ondres, France. A blustery day on the Atlantic coast.
Domaine de Paguy
By evening we arrived at le Domaine de Paguy, an ancient estate nestled among the vineyards in the Landes area near the village of Betbezer. Our hostess, the charming and generous Myriam, operates her family’s Armagnac distillery as well as the bed and breakfast accommodations. We highly recommend this accommodation if you’re ever in the area. We enjoyed a tasting of the full range of Bas-Armagnac produced by the domaine, comparing the spirit at 5 years of age, 10 years, 20 years, and so on. Armagnac can be difficult to find outside of France as very little of it is exported, but those who love it will seek it out even if they have to special order it or ask their son to bring a bottle up from Chicago.
We were most enchanted by a local fortified wine which we had not even known existed prior to our arrival at Domaine de Paguy. Myriam poured us a taste of Floc de Gascogne, which she said translates from the Occitan language as “flowers of Gascony.” It’s made from a blend of grape juice and Armagnac, and when I tasted it, I knew I would be checking bags on the return flight. We purchased three bottles, and only one remains. I’ve been hoarding it for a special occasion, and that will be our dinner à la gascogne next week.
Breakfast at Domaine de Paguy
Aviary at Domaine de Paguy
Le Cadet de Gascogne, St. Justin, France
Le Cadet de Gascogne dining room, a bit of a modern Scandinavian vibe
Lamb
Strawberries in thyme sauce
Our stay at the Domaine de Paguy was peaceful, delicious and beautiful. We had the best meal of our entire trip at the restaurant Le Cadet de Gascogne (a reference to the famous musketeers in the nearby village of St. Justin.
La jeune femme (Leah) at le Domaine de Paguy
The Gascon countryside has its share of beautiful bastide villages, Roman ruins, vineyards, market towns and a peaceful ambiance. We explored the medieval village of Labastide d’Armagnac and just east of there stopped at Notre Dame des Cyclistes, a 12th century Knights Templar chapel that now houses a small museum honoring bicyclists and Tour de France champions.
Notre Dame des Cyclistes
Labastide d’Armagnac
Join us next week for a Gascon feast of canard (duck) and accompaniments, and, hopefully, a video episode.
So summer sidetracked the project a bit, but let’s get back to it.
This week’s video.
As I mentioned last time, the northern part of the Aquitaine region is probably best known for Bordeaux, France’s most celebrated wine. Indeed, its global fame helps keep the premier cru out of the price range of ordinary mortals. For a fascinating film on this subject, check out Red Obsession, a 2013 documentary about the nouveau riche in China paying insane prices for the Bordeaux luxury brands.
Happily, all is not lost for the budget-minded wine enthusiast. Bordeaux has thousands of wineries and most of them are ignored by the Chinese. Not all of them produce excellent wine, but a good wine merchant can steer you to the values. My neighborhood wine shop stocks multiple wines we have enjoyed from Bordeaux for less than $20/bottle; for some vintages, such as 2015, he tells me that even mediocre producers had great success.
Most Bordeaux is red wine blended from several grapes, and the region is divided by the river Garonne, which creates the “Left Bank” and “Right Bank” subcategories of Bordeaux. Books have been written on the breadth and diversity of Bordeaux wine classifications, and I won’t attempt to write another one here. For a good, concise primer, check out these 10 essential facts from Vincarta. Easy! Now off to the wine shop.
The city of Bordeaux, which is supposedly the second most visited city in France after Paris, is a must stop for anyone wanting to explore the region’s viniculture in person. In 2016, the world’s most eye-popping wine museum opened in Bordeaux. La Cité du Vin is likely to be a premier cru destination for the wine tourist.
La Cité du Vin. Alice Veaux [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
Bordeaux is also a hub for booking tours to the area chateaux. Expect to be set back about $90 per person for a half-day tour.
If you take my advice and get into the Bruno books, you’ll undoubtedly want to explore the neighboring wines of Bergerac. These share roughly the same climate and soil as Bordeaux, but not the same prices. You may need to go to France to try some, however. They aren’t easy to find in the United States. Here’s a funny story about Bruno and Bergerac from California. My neighborhood wine shop, which specializes in French wine, had nary a bottle from Bergerac at my last visit.
In France, wine is an integral part of a meal and rarely consumed without food. In southwestern France, we have entered the land of duck, or le canard. Duck is to this region as lobster is to Maine. The most iconic dishes are duck confit and foie gras, but the French have probably prepared le canard in every imaginable manner.
Duck can be harder to find in the United States, and here in northern Michigan, it is expensive. We’ll splurge for duck when we explore Gascony. For our northern Aquitaine menu, we made chicken and potatoes.
I’m fortunate to own a copy of Paula Wolfert’s masterpiece, The Cooking of Southwest France: Recipes from France’s Magnificent Rustic Cuisine. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, so if you want your own (and if you have more than a passing interest in le sud-ouest, you should!), you’ll need to find one in the used book market, and I recommend doing it quickly as this classic is likely to become more elusive and expensive the longer it remains out of print.
For our meal from the upper Aquitaine, I prepared two recipes from the book, and I’ll share my edited version here. Both were simple and received effusive praise from our guests.
The chicken dish specified sour green grapes, which is a thing one can get in the Dordogne but not in northern Michigan, so I used green table grapes. However, Black Star Farms in northern Michigan sometimes makes verjus. And, if you’re in Traverse City, Maxbauer has duck fat.
Sarlat potatoes on left, chicken à la dordogne on right.
Chicken Legs with Sour Grape Sauce in the Style of the Dordogne
4 lbs chicken legs, at room temperature
salt and pepper
4.5 tbsp unsalted butter
12 plump unpeeled garlic cloves
1/3 cup dry white wine
6 to 7 tbsp verjus
3 cups unsalted chicken stock, reduced to 1 cup (I used goose stock because I had it)
3 dozen sour green grapes
1.5 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Trim away excess fat from the chicken legs. Dry well and rub with salt and pepper.
Set a large, deep skillet over moderately high heat. Add 2.5 tbsp of the butter, then the chicken, skin side down, and the garlic cloves. Brown for 1 minute each side, shaking the skillet to keep the chicken and garlic from sticking.
Reduce the heat to low, cover the skillet tightly, and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover the skillet, tilt, and skim the fat off the pan juices. Turn the chicken over. Add the white wine; cover again, and cook slowly for another 10 minutes.
Uncover the skillet; add 5 tbsps of the verjus and quickly cover the pan so that chicken pieces absorb all the aroma and flavor. Cook slowly for 5 more minutes.
Add 3/4 cup of the stock and cook for 5 minutes. Raise the heat; add the butter and the remaining stock and verjus. Swirl over heat to combine. Add the grapes and just warm through. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.
Arrange the chicken, garlic and grapes on a warm platter. Pour the sauce over the chicken. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve hot.
Sarlat Potatoes
2 pounds red potatoes (waxy potatoes are best)
3 tbsps rendered duck or goose fat, or fat scraped from duck confit
2 tsps finely minced fresh garlic
1.5 tbsps minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
salt and freshly ground pepper
Directions:
About 30 minutes before serving, peel and rinse the potatoes. Using a mandoline or food processor, cut into 1/8-inch slices. Do not wash the slices.
Heat the fat in a well-seasoned, 10-inch cast-iron skillet over moderately high heat. Add the potatoes and let them brown for an instant. Cook, turning with a spatula to coat well with the fat and avoid sticking, for about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to moderate. When some of the slices begin to brown, press down on the potatoes with a spatula to form a flat round cake. Reduce the heat to moderately low, cover the skillet with a tight-fitting lid, and cook for 7 minutes.
Raise the lid to allow steam to escape. Wipe away any moisture on the lid. Toss the potatoes gently so the crisp bottom pieces mix with the rest of the potato slices. Gently press down again with the spatula; cover and cook for 7 more minutes, shaking the skillet to keep the potatoes from sticking.
Repeat #3. Then remove from the heat and let stand without uncovering for 30 seconds. Remove the cover quickly so the moisture doesn’t fall onto the potatoes. Wipe the inside of the cover dry. Tilt the skillet and spoon off and reserve any excess fat.
Cover the skillet with a plate and invert to unmold the potato cake. Return the reserved fat to the skillet and set over moderate heat. Slide the potatoes back into the skillet and cook, uncovered, until the second side crisps, about 3 minutes. The potatoes should look somewhat like a cake and be puffy, crisp and golden. Transfer to a heated serving platter and sprinkle with the garlic and parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
I could start by writing about the famous wine region and the world heritage city often called “Petit Paris.”
But this is my space and I’m most eager to tell you about Bruno.
For the uninitiated, Bruno is Benoît Courrèges, and he doesn’t really exist. Bruno is the chief of police of the fictional village of St. Denis in the lovely Dordogne Valley area of France. He’s Andy Griffith with a French accent, and he never lets solving the crime get in the way of a good meal.
Bruno is the creation of Martin Walker, a retired journalist turned mystery novelist. Mr. Walker and I shared the same employer (United Press International), although not at the same time. He is an Englishman who has a holiday home in the Dordogne and, according to a New York Times profile, modeled his hero after a real local police chief.
I’ve been so enthralled with Bruno and his lovely country that I had pegged the Dordogne as our main destination on our family trip to France last year. But then April happened in Michigan, with unrelenting blizzards (yes, really), just as we were making reservations, and we had a family consensus that we needed to go as far south as possible. The Mediterranean won out over the Dordogne.
In my part-time bookseller gig, I often recommend the Bruno books to fans of Louise Penny, who also writes a mystery series with recurring characters and a village setting. I don’t know which charming town has a higher murder rate, Louise Penny’s Three Pines or Martin Walker’s St. Denis, but I would happily take my chances as a resident of either, if they existed.
For those who want to visit Bruno-land, sometimes called Dordogneshire for its popularity among the British, Mr. Walker proposes a seven-day itinerary on his website.
This week’s video
The relationship between England and this region of France, also known as Le Périgord, is a long one. Several centuries long. The English had claims to the land from Alienor d’Aquitaine (remember her from two weeks ago?), and it was a bone of contention during the medieval Hundred Years’ War. The legacy of this period of conflict is the stunning, picturesque landscape known as the Valley of 1000 Castles.
Beynac Chateau. BY KRZYSZTOF GOLIK – OWN WORK, CC BY-SA 4.0, HTTPS://COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG/W/INDEX.PHP?CURID=65604631
Another prime attraction of the region predates castles and feuding monarchs by many millennia. Paleolithic humans left a substantial legacy. The Vézère Valley in the Dordogne region has 147 prehistoric sites and 25 decorated caves that are a UNESCO World Heritage site. The most famous are the Lascaux cave paintings, which had to be closed to tourists to prevent damage; a replica site nearby is open to the public.
I also must mention that one of our favorite movies was filmed in the Dordogne. Ever After, a feminist retelling of the Cinderella story starring Drew Barrymore, is a fun way to get a look at the place from afar.
Finally, Bordeaux. The sixth-largest city in France, affectionately nicknamed “Little Paris,” boasts a stunning center of historic architecture that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s also a port of entry for exploring the famous wine region, which we will do next week.
Last week, we obsessed a little about Eleanor of Aquitaine (Alienor d’Aquitaine) and mostly ignored any other attraction of Poitou-Charentes. With Eleanor dead for some eight centuries now, some updating of the region’s charms may be in order.
Mais alors, non. Even the Wiki travel page for Poitiers notes “there isn’t a lot to do” in this pleasant, small city. It is the opposite of the tourist town lament, “a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” Poitiers and other towns in Poitou-Charentes, such as La Rochelle, may be great places to live, but they don’t attract many tourists.
If one lived there, what would one eat? What did Eleanor eat? Likely she dined on some of the same delicacies still served in the region today. With a long Atlantic coastline, the Poitevins have long relied on les fruits de mer for sustenance. Oysters, mussels cooked in wine or cream, fish, eels and cuisses de grenouilles (frogs’ legs). The region also is rich in agriculture, so animal meats, cheeses and produce are fresh and plentiful.
This week’s video
Poitou-Charentes’ most celebrated contributed to world gastronomy is cognac, the exquisite brandy made from white grapes. It is not an ancient spirit; Eleanor almost certainly did not know it. Although wine historians say cognac may have been produced and consumed locally in the early 15th century, it didn’t really get going until the 16th century when Dutch merchants sought a better method of preserving wine for their long journeys home. Enter distillation, then later a double distillation, and the discovery that the resulting product was quite delicious before being diluted with water as the Dutch had intended.
Cognac is aged in oak barrels from the Limousin province directly to the east of Poitou-Charentes. Both Poitou-Charentes and Limousin are now part of the administrative region called Nouvelle Aquitaine, and as I think we’re unlikely to revisit Limousin on this tour, we’ll make a brief mention now. Limousin is a forested region renowned for timber, beef cattle and chestnuts. It also gets promoted frequently to British people as a cheaper alternative to the neighboring Dordogne region, sometimes called Dordogneshire due to its popularity for cross-channel second homes. The English have been in this region for centuries, ever since Eleanor’s days!
Back to cognac. Victor Hugo called it “the liquor of the gods.” Napoleon liked it, too. We have a bottle of Courvoisier, which claims to have been the emperor’s favorite.
Today, cognac is enjoyed worldwide, mostly in China where it is a symbol of luxury, and also by American rappers. According to a recent e-magazine feature, cognac is currently experience a resurgence of popularity – perhaps thanks to Jay-Z and P. Diddy – although not in France. The French protect it with an appellation d’origine contrôlée but only keep about 3 percent for their own consumption, unlike armagnac, a brandy from the Gascogne which is hard to find outside of France. (We have a bottle of armagnac, but we’ll get to that in a few weeks.)
As I have always thought of cognac as an after dinner drink, I decided to pair it with a cheesecake specialty from Poitou-Charentes. It worked well together! The cake, called tourteau fromagé, is quite simple to make, although mine did not achieve the traditional burnt crust, perhaps because I have a gas oven which is notoriously hostile to browning.
Despite its unburnt crust, it was delicious, and as my husband said, the lack of burning gave us more to eat.
I used a fresh local chèvre, or goat cheese, that was already quite dry and did not need to be further drained. I followed this recipe. Also, I did not have the proper mold, so I improvised with a small springform pan (for the one pictured above) and my English pudding steamer for the second one. They were equally good.
I’m also too lazy to trim my pastry crust to look pretty.
With a small glass of cognac, this was an excellent treat!
