After most of the tourists have left the region, around October, things start to return to normal.
Restaurants don’t need advance booking, and we can park the car more or less where we like without being trapped between two enormous Dutch-owned ‘people-carrier’ type vehicles. Staff in the shops look calm and friendly instead of tired and over-worked.
Just as important I can cycle – even on the larger roads in the region – without having a motorhome sneak up behind me and follow in my slipstream for several kilometres. At least, I assume that’s why they like to drive close behind me without overtaking.
In the light of this peace and quiet, Mrs B insisted we went out for lunch at one of our favourite restaurants yesterday. Usually I pull a long face at the prospect of pleasure in any shape or form, but I tried hard to look pleased at the suggestion, and in the event (as always when I’m dragged away from the keyboard for a little while) I managed to enjoy myself.
I’ll spare you the details of my menu, envy being a terrible thing, but I will tell you, as if you didn’t already know, that fresh foie gras, lightly fried, is far and away the best food in the world. On a scale of 1-10, if foie gras gets 10 then anything else you’ve ever had can only muster a poor 7. And that is for confit de canard. Fresh foie gras pate, by the way, scores a creditable 6, just behind a good steak or a well made chocolate mousse.
Cast your moral objections aside, just once, and you’ll be an enthusiast for life.
(If you live in the UK, incidentally, you can get fresh foie gras delivered to your door from London Fine Foods Group – expensive but worth every penny. I noticed they also sell goose fat with the claim that it makes great roast potatoes – they are completely right, although we usually use the goose fat that comes in a tin of confit de canard, rather than just buying a tin of fat!)
Just so you’re not too jealous, I have to admit that the starter came with a curious long, thin, rectangular lump of pork that was a bit reminiscent of the inside of the pork pies I used to hate so much when I was young. A local speciality, we were told, so it’s a bit strange that we have lived here six years and never come across it before…
(If you want to follow me at slow speed, or explore the rest of the French countryside at your leisure, you can reserve a motorhome in France yourself!)
I went along to Samatan this morning, to the foie gras market. It was all a bit intimidating, farmers in berets and their wives either buying or selling numerous polystyrene boxes full of whole, seemingly pulsating duck and goose livers. My French isn’t wonderful, but after a poorly understood conversation with one of the vendeurs, I decided to buy one. A cultural experienece and I will invite my French neighbours over to share it. Sixty euros worth! The problem is I’m not sure how to cook it. She did say something about sterilizing it with salt, then boiling for an hour. Now I have read that it should be deveined, where is this vein?
Any advice would be very welcome.
Wow Cathy, you’re brave, hopefully someone can help – whenever we have bought it, it just needs slicing and frying, perhaps someone else has done all the ‘deveining’ already!
Try also at answers.yahoo.com where there are often people who know some unexpected things…
I had a wonderful experience with Foie Gras. Punching the supplier in the face during the meeting I set up was extremely satisfying. Running them out of town after six months of continued pressure even more so.
Be warned foie gras people, the despicable methods that you turn away from in order to produce and eat this stuff can’t be ignored. Look over your shoulder.