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When the French talk about abandoning the charms of nouvelle cuisine for good old country cooking, cuisine du terroir, southwest France is often the first terroir that springs to mind. Intensely rural, a land of small traditional family farms, overflowing with the good things of the earth, it serves hearty dishes so delicious that eating and drinking are two of the most compelling reasons to visit. Indeed, everyone is so pleased with the local fare that it can be hard to find a restaurant that serves anything else.
Perigord and Quercy
For all the talk of tradition, the dishes that bring hungry
Parisians down here en masse only date as popular fare from the 19th century; before then, local barons were so rapacious that the peasants’ diet was based on red cabbage, chestnuts, turnips and fruit, plus fish if they lived near the river; hunting was a priviledge of the nobility. These days, perhaps to make up for the past, meat is liable to appear in every course except dessert. The otherwise calorie- and cholesterol-conscious can take courage from recent studies showing that the basic southwest diet, with all its duck and goose fat, garlic, red wine, is actually good for you and your heart. Many natives live well into their nineties.
The best place in which to tuck into a traditional meal is a ferme-auberge, or farm restaurant, where most of what you eat has been raised on the spot. A typical meal in a ferme-auberge or a good traditional restaurant may start with an aperitif or a fenelon. Then comes the tourain, an onion and garlic soup cooked in a broth with duck or goose fat and lard, ladled over slices of country bread and cheese. The proper way to finish up the dregs is faire-chabrot: pour in a dash of red wine, swish it around, and drink it directly from the bowl.
The next dish is generally a page, often of duck or goose, or rillons or foie gras, perhaps studded with truffle. Foie gras usually comes prepared in a terrine or half-cooked in a frying pan, served with thin slices of toast and a chilled glass of sweet white Sauternes, Loupiac, or Monbazillac. Goose is finer and more delicate; duck is tastier. Other popular starters include a salad of gizzards, cooked and sliced with lettuce, walnuts, and croutons, or a plate of charcuterie. In the spring, asparagus often makes an appearance. In autumn and winter, Lalbenque in the Lot hosts one of the biggest truffle markets in France, but don’t expect to find any bargains.
Main courses often feature yet more duck in the form of confits. These are the southwest’s traditional way of keeping meat; thighs, legs, or wings are cooked and then potted in their own fat, and reheated when it’s time to eat. Magretes, a relatively new cut of meat on the market, are steak-like fillets of duck breast, simply grilled and served with a very light cream sauce with parsley and garlic, or a fruit sauce. Cou d’oie, goose neck stuffed with a truffled minced pork and foie gras, and demoiselles, carcasses of fattened ducks grilled on a wood fire, are traditional rural favourites that occasionally make it on to pricey restaurant menus. The duck or goose fat that preserved the confits is the essential ingredient for preparing pommes de terre sarladaise—sliced potatoes sautéed in fat, with garlic and parsley, and cepes in the autumn. It’s a combination that lifts the humble spud to culinary heaven. Another main destination for confits is cassoulet, a dish that reaches its epiphany in Toulouse.
Poultry—free-range Gascon chickens with black feet, or guinea fowl, capon, pheasant and pigeon—is always delicious, occasionally served in a fricassee, in a ballottine or alicuit, a traditional gascon ragout of poultry giblets, wings, potatoes, carrots, and onions. Occasionally on the menus of fermes-auberges you’ll see a mique, a dumpling of maize flour cooked in bouillon that was long a staple in old Quercy and Perigord.
Game dishes appear in season—venison, pheasant, boar and marcassin. Beef dishes are fairly rare, outside of tournedos—fillet of beef with a rich sauce of foie gras and truffles—in Perigord. Lamb, especially agneau de causse, grazed on Quercy’s limestone plateaux, is very popular but is often served too rare for many Anglo-Saxon tastes. Pork appears in sausages—the omnipresent fat saucisse de Toulouse, or thinner chipolatas and spicy merguez—a contribution of a southwest’s Spanish immigrants. Andouillettes are chitterling sausages; much rarer are pinkish anguettes, made with turkey’s blood, unappetizing to look at but much appreciated fried in goose fat, with a spoonful of vinegar, garlic, and nutmeg. In the Lot-et-Garonne, pork is often cooked with prunes and wine in a delicious sweet and savoury combination. Trout, pike, and ecrvisse (crayfish), sandre (pike-perch), alose (shad), and salmon are the principal fish on the menu, and increasingly you’ll see sturgeon, which is delicious smoked.
The classic salad is made of curly lettuce and walnuts, seasoned with walnut oil, and forms the perfect accompaniment to the famous goats’ cheese of the region, little rounlets of AOC Rocamadour or cabecou. The Lot also produces a bleu des Causses, similar to Roquefort, while the larger weekday markets offer a variety of sheeps’ and cows’ mild cheeses produced on family farms.
The locals love their sweets, and in some restaurants the desserts are the stars of the show. Traditional specialties often involve walnuts (tarte aux noix, walnut tart; gateau aux noix, walnut cake, sometimes coated with bitter chocolate) or prunes (in a tourtiere, marinated in Armagnac and orange-blossom water and topped with layers of paper-thin pastry called pastis, of one part butter to four pars flour). A flognarde is a clafoutis (batter cake) with pieces of apples, pears or plums, light crispy echaudes are flavoured with aniseed liqueurs, vieille prune (old prune) or eau de noix (made with green walnuts). A toureau is a Sunday or holiday bread-like cake in a ring served as a dessert, flavoured with orange-blossom water, lemon, oranges, run, vanilla and Grand Marnier, with home-made jam (leftovers are good toasted). Fresh strawberries in season appear in a wide variety of desserts, melons, peches de vigne (peaches grown between vines, now rare), apricots or cherries in Armagnac round off a meal in style.
The Bordelais
Cross over into the Bordelais and menus take on a whole new
cast of ingredients, beginning with the oysters of Arcachon, traditionally served on the half-shell with buttered bread and little grilled sausages called crepinettes. Mussels, coques (cockles) and clams are other tasty local shellfish; from the Gironde estuary come pibales (tiny baby elvers fried in oil), shrimp, shad, eels, salmon, salmon trout and, perhaps a bit shocking to the uninitiated, lamprey, a dish so prized that the canons of St. Seurin in Bordeaux gave up all their rights to property in the city in 1170 in exchange for 12 good fat lampreys a year.
If garlic is the totem everywhere else in the Midi, shallots are just as essential to the Bordelais: a la Bordelaise means topped with a hachis of parsley and shallots. Much passion is reserved for cepes, and hunting them in the autumn, especially on someone else’s property, can lead to slit tyres, dog bites, and gunshots. There are two kinds: the true cepe bordelaise and the less tasty cepe de pins. Asparagus, but green and white, is one of the joys of spring in the region.
A specialty revived since 1985 is mild-fed lamb, or
agneau de Pauillac, which holds pride of place among
meat dishes along with the beef from Bazas and capons from Grignols; in the autumn, wood pigeon is a favourite dish, although few would countenance the way they are caught—netted a flock at a time. Amongst the sweets, look for compote de vigneron, apples melted in red Bordeaux; in the big city itself, try a canele, a delicious pastry made according to a recipe invented by people living around the port of Bordeaux from the remains of flour left in the holds of ships after the main cargo had been unloaded, then adopted and made popular by the nuns of the Annonciade in the 16th century.
Markets, Picnic Food and Snacks
In most villages, market day is the big event of the week, and rightfully so. Brimful of fresh farm produce, and often just as brimful with local characters, they are fun to visit on their own, and become even more interesting if you’re cooking or gathering
the ingredients for a picnic. In the larger cities they take place every day, while smaller towns and villages have markets just one day a week, which double as social occasions for the locals. Most markets finish up around noon. In summer keep your ear open for the newly popular marches gourmands—once a week in the evening in pretty rural settings, villagers set up tables and various producers set up stands selling soup, salads, potatoes, main courses, and desserts and wine, which you can pick and choose from to make up your own meal, often for only a few euros.
Other good sources for picnic food are the charcuteries or traiteurs, both of whom sell prepared dishes that are sold by weight in cartons or tubs. Cities are snack-food wonderlands, with outdoor counters selling pastries, crepes, pizza slices, frites, and a wide variety of fillings stuffed into long thin crispy baguettes.
Drinks
Cafes serve drinks, but they are also a home away from home, places in which to read the papers, play cards, meet friends and just unwind, sit back and watch the world go by. Prices are listed on the tariff des consummations: note that they are based on whether you’re served at the bar, at the table, or outside.
French coffee is strong and black but lackluster next to the aromatic brews of Italy or Spain. If you order un café you’ll get a small black espresso; if you want milk, order un crème. If you want more than few drops of caffeine, ask them to make it grand. For decaffeinated, the word is deca; in summer try a frappe (iced coffee). The French only order café au lait when they stop in for breakfast. There are baskets of croissants and pastries, and some bars will make you a baguette with butter, jam or honey. If you want to go native, try the Frenchman’s Breakfast of Champions: a pastis or two, and five non-filter Gauloises. Hot chocolate is usually good; if you order the tea, you’ll get an ordinary bag: an infusion or tisane is a herbal tea. These are kind to the all-precious foie, or liver, after you’ve indulged at the table.
Mineral water is available in both sparkling and still versions; if you feel run-down, Badoit has lots of preppy magnesium in it. Apart from bottled fruit juices, some bars also serve freshly squeezed lemon and orange with a jug of water. The French are also very fond of fruit syrups.
Beer in most bars and cafes is run of the mill big brands from Alsace, Germany, and Belgium. Draught is cheaper than bottled beer. Nearly all resorts have bars or pubs offeringwider selections of draughts, lagers and bottles. Smarter bars and cafes in the cities sell cocktails—even mojitos are starting to breech the mighty walls of southwest traditions.
The strong spirit of the Midi came in a liquid form called pastis, which was first made popular in Marseilles as a plague remedy; it’s name comes from the Latin passé-sitis, or thirst quencher. A pale yellow nectar flavored with aniseed, vanilla and cinnamon, pastis is drunk as an aperitif before lunch and in rounds after work. The three major brands, Ricard, Pernod, and Pastis 51, all taste slightly different; most people drink their pastaga with lots of water and ice.
Wine
One of the greatest pleasures of traveling in southwest France lies in discovering new wines and drinking them for a fraction of what you’d pay at home. Buying wine direct from the producers, the vignerons, is half the fun and will save you money as well. Don’t pass up a fete du vin—buying a glass and tasting your way around the stands is a quick way to hone in on the ones
you like best. Because the joy of France is that no two estates are alike.
The wine region of Bordeaux, the largest in the world, covers 117,000 hectars in the department de Gironde, and produces more than 500 million litres a year, enough to launch a battleship. Nearly all of this area is AOC: divided into 57 different appellations, including some of the most prestigious in France—Pomerol, Sauternes, St. Emillion, Pauillac, Margaux—encompassing about 3,500 red and white crus. Each cru, or growth, results from a unique combination of the soil, climate, location, vine, and grower’s
skill. A premier cru or grand cru is the top of the top: a Chateau Lafite, Latour, d’Yquem or Ausone that aren’t
designated as crus are now better than ever, thanks to the introduction of new techniques and care.
Similar improvements have been made to other AOC wines of the southwest—Cotes de Duras, Buzet, Cahors, Bergerac and the sweet white wine of Monbazillac. Many were famous in the Middle Ages, and even preferred to Bordeaux wines, but because they were upriver they were for centuries denied access to northern markets—by the Bordelais, of course. If you like to visit winderies or chais, those of the Haut Pays tend to be friendly and easy to get into without booking—for a look around and a tasting, often with the proprietor.
Make sure you don’t neglect wines bearing less exalted labels, especially those labeled VDQS or vin de pays at the bottom, which may not send you to seventh heaven, but it’s good and it’s cheap. Check out Cotes de Quercy, Vin du Tsar, and vin ordinaire.
If you’re buying direct from the producer, you’ll be offered glasses to taste from various bottles, each older than the previous one, until you are feeling quite jolly and ready to buy the last, and most expensive, vintage.
A good many producers sell loose wine. This is often good AOC stuff that you can take home and bottle yourself or just drink. You will need to invest in an expensive plastic container with a tap housed in a cardboard box. It collapses as you use it and preserves the wine for a few weeks. The containers come in various sizes, up to 33 litres; if they’re not available in the vineyards, they can tell you where to get one.
Restaurant Basics
Restaurants generally serve between 12 and 2 and then in the evening from 7 to 9 with later summer hours. In the southwest people tend to arrive early, to have a better choice of dishes, and to get a crack at the specials—turn up at 1 for lunch or 8 for
dinner and your choice may become more limited. All post menus outside the door so you’ll know what to expect; if prices aren’t listed, you can bet it’s not because they’re a bargain. Most restaurants have a choice of set-price menus. If you have the appetite to eat
the biggest meal of the day at noon, you’ll spend a lot less money—the best way to experience the finer gourmet temples if you’re on a budget. Eating a la carte will always be much more expensive; in most average spots no one ever does it.
Menus sometimes include the house wine which is usually quite drinkable; in fermes-auberges as often as not the bottles or carafes will just keep reappearing until you pass out. If you choose a better wine anywhere, expect a big mark-up. If service is included it will say service compris or s.c., if not service non compris. Some restaurants offer a set-price gourmet degustation—a slection of chef’s specialties, which can be a great treat. At the other end of the scale is the plat du jour and the no-choice formule, popular in cafes.
A full French meal may begin with an aperitif, hor d’oeuvres, a starter or two, followed by a main course, cheese, dessert, coffee and chocolates, and perhaps a digestif to finish things off. If you order a salad it may come before or after but never with your main course. For everyday eating, most people condense this feast to a starter, main course, and cheese or dessert. Vegetarians often have a hard time in the southwest, but most establishments will try to accommodate you somehow.
When looking for a restaurant, homing in on the one place crowded with locals is as sound a policy in France as anywhere. Don’t overlook hotel restaurants, some of which are absolutely top notch. To avoid disappointment, be sure to call ahead to reserve a table, especially in the summer.
