THE FOOD
The food of southwest France is an integral part of life,
possibly more than any other region. Old traditions day hard, in Britain
we say everything stops for tea, but in the Lot, and I’m speaking from personal
experience, everything most definitely stops for lunch!
Who can blame them
really, lunch isn’t just a sandwich and a bag of monster munch, it’s a 2 hour,
four, or possibly five course gastronomic feast. You shouldn’t expect to pay much more
than eleven or twelve euros, and this includes a half
carafe of wine. See a sample lunch menu below, this is from a local café,
priced at ten Euros fifty. If you’re not familiar with the area, the secret of
finding a good, inexpensive restaurant is just to look for a collection of white
work-vans parked in front. The workmen arrive at 12 midday sharp en masse, thus you may
need to check it out the day before, but they do serve lunch until 2pm, and they
don’t seem to mind if you don’t arrive as late as 1.30pm.
Duck is king here in the southwest and they make sure that they use every part
of it, from magret (duck breast) to confit (preserved duck leg),
gesiers (gizzards), foie (liver) to saucisse (sausage) and you
can guarantee that absolutely all
the restaurants will have it, in some form, on their menu. The delicious farm cheeses of the region
are also world famous, the soft cheese is usually made of goat’s milk but also
some is made of cow’s milk, the firmer cheese is usually made from ewe’s milk.
Every where you look there are walnut groves that produce aromatic walnut oil
and walnut meats to be incorporated into all manner of dishes. Just down the
road in the Lot-et-Garonne are the plum orchards, whose fruit is dried to create
famous prunes for patisserie or used fresh to make eau-de-vie de prune.
Apples, Armagnac, chestnuts, aperitifs made from peaches or walnuts, massive crusty
loaves of bread, sausages and cured hams from the Auvergne are just some of the
long list of specialties of the region.
Typical country restaurant lunch set menu
Country vegetable soup
Smoked magret salad with walnuts
Roast pork with Sarladaise potatoes
Cheese board
Dessert or ice cream
Coffee
Small carafe of wine
www.frenchfoodfreaks.co.uk - Fantastic French food website, have a look and order all your south west region specialties.
THE MARKETS
It seems like every village, no matter how
small, has a food market and the quality is just fantastic. I have
two favorite markets, one being the Saturday morning market in Cahors, which
sells mostly
fruit and vegetables, although you can also
get meats, fish, wines, freshly pressed oils, cakes and patisseries, spices,
soaps, cut flowers, actually you can get just about anything you need! The market is open every
Saturday morning from 8 until 12.30 (it starts winding down just after noon),
but don't worry if you miss it, there is a lovely indoor fruit and vegetable market
open everyday, except Monday (with the exception of lunch time, of course!). After the market I can suggest
a very nice little restaurant that specialises in galettes (savoury crepes made
from buckwheat flour - delicious!), you can sit outside
on the shaded terrace sipping your glass of rosé and watch the world go by, very
nice indeed. Cahors is a very interesting historical town dating back to
the Roman occupation, with much of the existing town constructed in
medieval times. It boasts a huge variety of local shops, restaurants and bars,
including some very good regional specialty food shops - and of course
clothes and shoe shops (but let's leave that to the ladies....best to find a nice bar to sit and
people watch!)
The other big favourite is the Market
at
Sarlat in the Dordogne, it is set in the heart of the medieval city in front of the 12th century
church. This is truly the king of the markets in the region, there are over 200
sites all selling quality foods and
specialties
of the region. You can easily loose yourself for the entire morning taking in
the sights and the smells, not to mention the bargains to be had. After the
market there are any number of great inexpensive restaurants hidden amongst the
myriad of winding back streets, the local Sarladaise inhabitants are very
friendly and will always give you their time.
There are
many markets around the region that specialize in the products of the season,
there is a fantastic flower market in Cales in May, if you miss that one, not to
worry, there is an equally nice flower market in the grounds of the 12th century
Abbey Nouvelle just outside of Gourdon a couple week later. Also in the month of
May there is a strawberry market/festival
with some great live entertainment in the village of Nabirat.
April in Cahors also plays host to a
horse market, you can purchase anything from a racehorse to a pair of riding
boots, the later being significantly easier to take back home with you.
Throughout
the summer there are various night markets in the region, Gourdon holds it's
night market in the car park of the post office, whereas Cahors takes
over the main street that runs through the town. There is quite a different
ambiance to the day and night markets in Cahors, the air is filled with
smells of cooking food and the cool evening breeze off the river Lot
makes the perusing of the stalls a much more enjoyable experience.
Occasionally they
will
have fairground rides set up as well, I will post the dates of the night
markets on my news scroller on the front page of this website.
In the autumn there is a truffle and wine market in Cahors, along with bushels full of autumnal fruits just off the tree. In Gourdon there is a mushroom market in October and in that same month, just outside of Gourdon, there is a donkey and melon market - don't ask, I've never been but it sounds interesting, I'll have to try it this year.
The specialty market season finishes with the Christmas markets in December, there are two absolute fantastic Christmas markets, one being in Toulouse and the other in Bordeaux, definitely not to be missed!
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