My Twenty-Five Years in Provence

by Peter Mayle

  Weekend lunches are, if anything, even more strictly observed, particularly on Sundays, when the working-week two-hour break can easily extend to three hours or more. Very often, Sunday is a day when two or three generations of the family get together, and we have noticed how well behaved the young children are. It’s not easy to sit quietly for three hours without a glass or two of wine, but there they are, good as gold, reading or, more likely, mesmerized by some electronic novelty.

  As you will see from the short list below, we prefer simplicity to the complicated pomp that so many restaurants adopt in an effort to justify inflated bills. One sure sign of this is waiters in white gloves. Another giveaway is when the waiter murmurs in reverential tones describing what you have just ordered and what he has just put in front of you. This is inevitably accompanied by his pointing, with his cocked little finger, at the items on your plate. At one memorable dinner we were invited to in Paris by a couple of friends the ritual started with four waiters in attendance, each with a covered dish. These were placed with great ceremony in front of us, and all four covers were simultaneously removed with a flourish. Alas, there must have been a breakdown of communication in the kitchen, since we each found ourselves looking at food we hadn’t ordered. We left shortly afterward.

  There is no chance of this kind of culinary tragedy happening at any of our preferred restaurants. We’ve been going to them, often for several years, without finding a single white glove. What we have found is imaginative food served by friendly people in a relaxed atmosphere. What more could you want?

  LA CLOSERIE, ANSOUIS

  We became even more fond of this restaurant when it was awarded a Michelin star—and nothing changed. There were no frantic refurbishments, no huge price increases, and no ornamental dishes added to the menu; it stayed as it had always been, fresh, well balanced, and consistently good.

  While food and service are excellent throughout the year, there are two seasons when Olivier, the chef, lets nature do an important part of the work. The first is spring, a time for asparagus in all its forms to make its annual appearance: with a dusting of Parmesan, roasted with garlic, drizzled with butter and balsamic vinegar or the classic vinaigrette, or a dozen other imaginative variations. These are best enjoyed outside, on the restaurant terrace, in the sunshine.

  The second bonus from nature, the black truffle, comes at the end of the year, starting in November and going through until early February. This is the season when the crouched figures of truffle hunters and their dogs can often be seen in the woods around our house, trying to look as though they’re just out for a stroll. I once made the mistake of asking one of these gentlemen if he had found any. At once, he became the picture of indignation. “Truffles?” he said. “Moi? Jamais!” Even his dog did his best to look innocent. After all, truffles are among the most expensive mushrooms in the world, and it would never do to let amateurs like me know where they might be found. If you are ever fortunate enough to come across one, slice it up, put it in an omelette, and eat the evidence.

  PERON, MARSEILLE

  There are 1,837 restaurants in Marseille, but none with a more glorious view: the vast blue sweep of the Mediterranean and the four Frioul islands. The most famous of these is the Château d’If, once the prison where Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo, spent several years before escaping disguised as a corpse (for the full story, read the book by Alexandre Dumas).

  The view may be more famous than the menu, but the food comes a close second. Peron is known for its fish, although carnivores can always find their fillet of beef. But it would be a pity to miss the catch of the day, the prawns, the stuffed squid, and the many other delights provided by the neighboring sea. One dish above all gives you the traditional taste of Marseille, and that is Peron’s specialty: the pedigree bouillabaisse.

  This is perhaps the only dish on the menu that should carry a warning. You need to dress for it, and wear something that cleans up easily. Bouillabaisse is not something that can be eaten in neat bites. It is part soup, part fish stew; delicious, but difficult to control. Many an immaculate shirtfront has suffered from garlic-scented stains, and it is a wise customer who asks for two large napkins.

  It all started several hundred years ago. Marseille’s fishermen, coming back hungry after a hard day at sea, needed to eat. They put aside their most expensive fish to sell in the market, and instead found a way to use rockfish, shellfish, and fish that were more bone than flesh, and thus no good for restaurants. These were cooked in a cauldron, and seasoned with garlic and fennel. A contribution from America came in the seventeenth century in the form of tomatoes, until then unknown in Marseille.

  Bouillabaisse made its slow but steady progress into restaurants and private kitchens, adding refinements along the way—olive oil, saffron, thyme, bay leaf, and onions—and, of course, the various fish. These are transformed into a broth and served with bread spread with a thick coating of rouille, a mayonnaise of olive oil, egg yolk, saffron, and crushed garlic cloves.

  Those are the basics; there are many variations, all tasty and all messy. Keep a spare shirt handy.

  LE COMPTOIR, LOURMARIN

  Here is one of those pleasant surprises you sometimes find in Provence: a café with a chef. It is not unknown for customers to come for breakfast, linger through the morning watching the village come to life, and stay for lunch. There is a simple but varied menu that starts with open sandwiches and works its way up to the chef’s specials of the day, which always include various forms of freshly made pasta.

  Good as the pasta is, my own favorite dish is bresaola, and the way it is served. Bresaola is lean, top round beef that has been air-dried, salted, and left to age for two or three months until it is hard. It is then cut into thin, almost transparent slices. What happens to it after that at Le Comptoir is what makes it special. First, the sliced beef is laid out until it covers the plate. A little olive oil is added, followed by generous flakes of Parmesan. Tiny roasted potatoes are placed around the rim of the plate, a glass of good red wine is poured, and conversation comes to a halt as the first mouthful is taken and the taste buds spring to attention. For me, beef has never tasted so delicate.

  But lunch is far from over. Some room must be left for a slice or two of fiadone, the Corsican version of cheesecake. The key ingredient is Corsica’s favorite cheese, brocciu. This is mixed with milk, eggs, the zest of fresh lemons, and a nip of brandy. The taste will make you feel like hopping on a plane and going to Corsica for dinner.

  LE NUMÉRO 9, LOURMARIN

  Known simply as “Neuf” to its regular clients, this was a recent discovery—a small, charming room with a short, imaginative menu. If I were the restaurant’s owner, I’d be tempted to keep the chef under lock and key; he’s that good.

  Neuf is run by two smiling ladies who have the priceless gift of providing smooth service without ever seeming to be rushed. You want to ask a question, change your mind about the wine, or reserve your dessert in advance (always a good idea)? Either Lyse or Patricia will be there. I suspect they have eyes in the back of their heads.

  As for the food, I can’t do better than invite you to share the menu we had on our last visit.

  The meal started with bouillabaisse, but not the classical version that you find at Peron. This one was a perfect miniature, with all the complex flavor of its larger colleagues, but without the challenge of juggling the various elements. You could eat it with a soup spoon, and forget about feeling that you should take a shower afterward.

  For the main course, the choice was between cabbage that had been stuffed with quail and decorated with a slice of fresh foie gras, and tuna steak served on a bed of zucchini and covered in the most delicious sauce I’ve ever had. This was condiment grenobloise, an inspired mixture of brown butter, capers, croutons, parsley, and lemon. The thought of it makes my mouth water.

  But all was not yet over. We paid a visit to the cheese board
for something to help the last of the wine go down, and then it was time for the traditional ending to a lovely meal: tarte fine aux pommes, which is apple tart taken to a celestial level. The apple, sliced very fine, is arranged in a flat spiral on a thin base of puff pastry and brushed with butter, honey, vanilla, and Calvados. The result is a joy to look at and a memorable way to end what is always a memorable lunch. Bravo, chef!

  * * *

  One of the joys of traveling through Provence is finding yourself in the middle of one of the countless food and wine festivals that start in the spring and carry on through summer and fall. These are informal, good-natured affairs, organized by people whose sole desire is to give you a taste of pleasure, whether your particular weakness is a fresh sardine or an elderly cheese. Naturally, they’d like you to buy something; to persuade you, they have developed the best of all sales techniques: a free trial. It is quite possible to have a junior version of a three-course lunch as you wander through the stalls—a slice of saucisson here, a slice of pizza there, a mouthful of goat cheese, a tempting fragment of apple tart, and, if you look thirsty, the odd glass of wine offered by the local vignerons who are waiting, corkscrews at the ready, for you to come along.

  Most of the villages and towns in Provence have some kind of event to celebrate food and wine, even if it’s only an extra few stalls in the weekly market. But, for the festival connoisseur, there are larger and more sophisticated celebrations. Here are just a few.

  FÊTE DU RIZ, ARLES

  Arles in the summer is one long festival: concerts, bullfighting, parades, and processions, even gladiator contests. And then, in the middle of September, three days are devoted to the glories of rice. The festivities start with the arrival of the “Ambassador of Rice,” who has come up the RhÔne by boat to open the proceedings. After that, it’s rice in all its diversity, with plenty of music and entertainment.

  FÊTE DES OLIVES VERTES, MOURIÈS

  In the village of Mouriès, near Saint-Rémy, the young green olive has its annual moment of fame. The festival takes place during the second weekend in September, and it may be the only event in the world where you can watch a contest to decide who is the fastest olive crusher. And that’s not all. As a change from olives you can watch a cocarde, in which bunches of rosettes are placed on a bull’s horns, and the valiant cocardiers—young men dressed in white—try to remove the rosettes without being gored, perhaps by distracting the bull with a handful of crushed olives.

  FÊTE DES TRUFFES, AUPS

  Every year, on the fourth Sunday in January, a distinctive and expensive aroma permeates the village of Aups. This is a reminder that today is the annual truffle festival, when the normally secretive truffle hunter offers a glimpse of the tricks of his trade. There is a demonstration of the hunt—the sniffing, digging, and ultimate discovery—and a truffle dog competition, to find the most sensitive nose. There is, of course, a truffle market. And the village restaurants will all have truffles on the menu. An overdose of paradise for truffle lovers.

  * * *

  · · ·

  There are dozens of other festivals, of varying sizes and spectacles, and the passionate festival enthusiast can find something throughout most of the year. For instance:

  MENTON, February/March—lemons in all their glory

  VENASQUE, early June—cherries

  CAVAILLON, June/July—those wonderful melons

  PIOLENC, late August—garlic

  RASTEAU, early November—chocolate and wine

  Almost anywhere, at almost any time—wine of all colors, signaled by roadside notices and posters

  * * *

  —

  This brief selection supports the widely held conviction that, wherever you are in Provence, you need never go hungry.

  Twelve

  Read All About It

  One of the unexpected results of writing a well-received book is the sudden interest shown by journalists in the nonliterary aspects of your life. In my case, all kinds of things seem to interest them: what you eat for breakfast; whether or not you miss those dearly beloved aspects of English life like proper tea, the climate, and cricket; whether or not you still have English friends; and dozens of other matters that have nothing to do with books and writing. I once asked a journalist why he felt it necessary to bring these subjects up. “Readers love background,” he said, nodding wisely.

  “Now—about those dogs of yours. How long have you had them?”

  During the past twenty-five years, I have sat through hundreds of interviews. Most of them took place on book tours, often on television, and what highly organized, precisely timed episodes they were, even if they did only last six minutes. Distinctly impersonal minutes they were, too, because as soon as the interviewer had asked his question and was no longer on camera, the host’s attention would wander. He’d be making signals to his producer, looking at her signals to him, and, for all I knew, trying to decide where they should have lunch. I often felt that I was talking to myself.

  Press interviews, of course, are very different, and it was a pleasant change to have people to talk to instead of a black camera lens. Journalists started to arrive in May and June, their numbers peaked in August, and they disappeared during the winter, just like vacationers. A couple of them indicated that I was not a serious journalistic subject, but a welcome relief from their normal assignments. As one of them put it, after a second glass of rosé, “If you had the choice between listening to a politician drone on about his agenda in some damp corner of Westminster or coming to sunny Provence for a few days, which one would you pick?” He was unusually frank, but I suspect he spoke for many of his colleagues.

  The newspapers and magazines they worked for obviously influenced their questions. Journalists from what was often described as “the popular press” (celebrity gossip, football, pinups, and minimal news) would ask if I had any famous readers, or if we had any famous neighbors. At one point, they had heard that Princess Diana had a property in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Apart from her, in those days almost all the well-known people with homes in Provence were French. This usually provoked a slight curl of the lip, and an evident drop in the attention level. When, in answer to the next question, I had to admit that I had never been to watch the local football team, Olympique de Marseille, the interviewer could barely hide his disappointment at failing to find a fruitful subject to discuss. We were left with my most recent book, which most journalists had been too busy to read.

  Next in line were the food journalists, who had come, knife and fork at the ready, to comment on the restaurants and all things edible that I had written about. It was a relief to find a subject of common interest, and naturally, these interviews had to take place over lunch, which made them pleasantly convivial. I enjoyed them, even when I was frog-marched into the kitchen to pay our respects to the chef.

  It was interesting to see the effects that these visits by English journalists had on the chefs and owners of the restaurants we went to. These were never sophisticated establishments jockeying for another star in the Guide Michelin, but simple country restaurants where we were regular customers, and the chefs were clearly flattered and impressed that a journalist had come all the way from England to sample their cooking. To this day, I am likely to be offered a glass of marc on the house at the end of the meal by way of appreciation for the increase in British customers.

  One unique experience was with the sports editor of a small suburban newspaper in Surrey, a prosperous area close to London. The sports he covered reflected the athletic preferences of his well-to-do, mostly middle-aged readers: golf (of course), tennis, and the venerable game of bowls, played on a tailored surface of immaculate deep green grass by stately ladies and gentlemen dressed in white. It’s about as far from soccer as you can get.

  The sports editor, who had come to the South of France to assess the golf courses, had been told that boules, a French version of
bowls, was very popular in Provence. And so, sensing a sporting scoop for his paper, he had decided to leave the Riviera and come up to investigate. I told him what I could: the game had been invented in Provence, where it is called pétanque (derived from the Occitan dialect petanca, meaning feet fixed, or planted on the ground), and I told him what I knew about the rules. That wasn’t good enough; he wanted to see a match. We agreed to meet that evening at a nearby village where I suspected boules would be on offer.

  An essential adjunct for any serious boulodrome location is the café, where exhausted players can refresh themselves, and where spectators can sit comfortably on the café terrace to watch the drama unfold. This is a tradition dating back to the early 1900s, and one that adds considerably to the game’s popularity.

  When we arrived, the journalist from Surrey was shocked to see the terrain, or the playing areas—rectangular courts of flattened earth or crushed stone. “They play on that?” he said, his voice a study in disbelief. “How can they gauge the run of the boule?” I was saved from having to answer by the start of the game in front of us, and he saw at once that it was a different kind of skill from the one required on smooth Surrey grass.

  As the game continued, he became more and more interested. He admired the graceful throwing action of the players, the long, looping flight of their boules, and the ferocious accuracy with which they bombarded any of their competitors who had landed too close to the cochonnet. There was a lot to take in.

  I saved the best until last by telling him the traditional way of marking a 13–0 result—the loser is expected to kiss the barmaid’s bottom. “Good grief!” he said. “They’d never do that sort of thing in Surrey.”