‘Eh. You never know with foreigners.’
I wasn’t sure I liked being talked about like this.
‘He is more like zee eeenglish gentleman,’ said the plump woman behind the bar, who stood looking proprietorially over her customers. I presumed this was Madame Parle-Beaucoup. She wore a blue and pink flower-patterned apron-dress, and big, square glasses, like television screens.
Her intervention had the effect of shutting up the two old regulars at the end of the bar, and they got on with reading their shared copy of La Dépêche du Midi. Paul asked for a packet of tobacco and some cigarette papers.
Madame Parle-Beaucoup went behind the wrought-iron stand at the other end of the bar, which served as her tobacconist’s cabin. The selection was limited: the only tobacco was Drum, in its familiar blue and red pouches; the papers were the cheapest brand, OCB; there were cheap French cigarettes, Gauloises and Gitanes, with and without filters; more expensive foreign cigarettes, Marlboro and Winston; and for the discerning smoker, packets of Reinita small cigars.
Madame Parle-Beaucoup lived up to her name. She talked very quickly, going on about life in Péguilhan. The French have a fondness for talking about their ailments, and Madame Parle-Beaucoup was like a walking, talking register of the state of health of the village. She knew in detail who was ill, who was getting better, who had a strong constitution, and who had irregular bowel movements and was always pestering the retired doctor next door. I felt I was learning more than I needed to know about the lives of the Péguilhanais.
She stopped talking only when a customer interrupted her. She had more time to chat when she did a round of the tables to collect empty glasses. Although she spent so much time talking, she also gave the impression of being always busy.
Madame Parle-Beaucoup’s husband put in a brief appearance. He hardly said a word. I guess he would have been… Monsieur Parle-Très-Peu. Mr Talks-Very-Little.
Madame Parle-Beaucoup saw the Péguilhanais as an extension of her family, and anyone who was welcome in the café she thought of as part of that family too. She didn’t speak to me any differently than she did the locals. Some of her information was useful, like when the baker’s van or the grocer’s van would be coming to the village, who I should ask for a lift into town, and even what to do if I had a problem with my bowels. Unlikely, I hoped!
Madame Parle-Beaucoup was very well meaning, but she did go on. We stood listening to her until our eyes watered.
‘C’est un vrai moulin à paroles!’ Paul exclaimed, as we made an overdue exit. She’s a real word mill.
The black-and-white dog behind the fence barked at us as we passed, exactly as it had done on our way there. Then it stopped barking and returned to its kennel, satisfied that it had done its job and seen us off.
FROM FIELD TO TABLE
MY SENSE OF PLACE ASSOCIATED WITH THE LAND WAS deepening. Péguilhan lay in the heart of the area named the Comminges after the ancient tribe the Convenae. Hidden quietly away in southeast Gascony, the Comminges was described locally as entre plaine et montagne, between the lower hills of the plain of the Gers and the foothills of the Pyrenees. Its special charm was that it lay comfortably between extremes, neither too hilly nor too flat, neither too rugged nor too soft, neither too rich nor too barren, neither too arid nor too wet. The fields formed a varied patchwork of sunflowers, maize, wheat and pasture. Some fields were small, some swept out as far as the eye could see across a hillside or along a valley. The towns and villages lay far apart; the land rolled on, over open undulating hills, with only occasional signs of human habitation, until a church spire on a hill signalled the next cluster of houses. Travellers who headed for the more usual tourist destinations like the Gers missed the Comminges. The Gers was tourist Gascony, if you like, Gascony lite, while down here in the Comminges was no-compromise, full-fat, high-tar, Gitanes-sans-filtre Gascony.
The northern Europeans and other foreigners who ventured down to the Comminges were looking for escapism, for a world far removed from what they knew at home, slow paced, untouched by the trappings of modern tourism. By contrast, the French were looking for the roots of deep France, la France profonde, at the bottom of their own back garden, where the country ways were about rediscovery.
Péguilhan sat comfortably along an undulating hilltop. Woods surrounded most of the village on the slopes that rolled away from the backs of the houses. Looked at from a distance, the village and the hilltop seemed to embrace one another, as if they had grown together over the centuries.
One morning I set about cleaning the grill in the wall, where I would almost certainly be grilling magrets de canard later that day. I was shovelling out the dead charcoal ash when Jacques-Henri came out into the courtyard.
‘Martin, there’s a couple just arrived, they’re in the hall. I think they’re American, they don’t speak French. Could you come and talk to them for me?’
‘Of course, I’m coming,’ I replied, feeling useful as an interpreter. I wiped the ash off my hands with a cloth and followed him through to the front hallway. I normally worked behind the scenes and had very little face-to-face contact with the guests, so this was a change.
The Americans were both slim and soberly dressed in navy-blue tops and khaki slacks.
‘Hi there. You’re British!’ the man said, sounding upbeat.
‘Yes. Where are you from?’ I asked.
‘We’re from California,’ they said together, confidently.
‘We found this place just by accident,’ the woman said.
‘That’s right,’ her husband explained. ‘We hired a car and have been exploring this part of France for a couple of weeks now.’
‘This place looks very charming,’ his wife went on. ‘We’d gotten ourselves lost on these narrow roads when we saw the sign for the Auberge.’
‘Well, I’m glad you found it,’ I said, feeling more like the host than merely the interpreter.
All the while Jacques-Henri stood looking on, grinning broadly, not understanding a word that was being said.
‘So how long have you been working here?’ the man asked, a little surprised to come across an Englishman working in this far-flung corner of southwest France.
‘A few weeks now, it’s beginning to feel like home,’ I replied.
‘And what about your boss here,’ the man asked me, ‘is he good to work for?’
‘Oh, certainly, always joking.’
Jacques-Henri decided it was about time he took charge of things again. In his favourite role of attentive host, he ushered us through to the restaurant. ‘Venez, venez, asseyez-vous,’ he said warmly.
The Californians sat down at a table and looked at the menu. Then they turned to me. ‘It’s good you’re here,’ they confessed. ‘We don’t understand anything.’
‘This is traditional Gascon country cooking, la bonne bouffe gasconne,’ I explained. Good Gascon grub. ‘Family recipes, home-grown produce from the farm. The animals are reared in the open air, fed on their mother’s milk and on cereals grown on the farm. The fruit and vegetables are grown in the family’s own garden and orchard, picked by hand. And of course, everything is organically produced. Trust me, I follow the food every step of the way from field to table. I picked some of the vegetables myself this very morning!’
They were impressed. I think I was selling it well. I heard Marie-Jeanne saying something in the kitchen and Anja came out to take their order.
It was a hot day and the couple ordered an assiette gasconne and a bottle of Côtes de Gascogne, the easy lunchtime choice.
The restaurant was the old front dining room of the Auberge. It was quite small, with only about twenty places. The tables were covered with red-and-white chequered Vichy cotton tablecloths. The simple country chairs had wicker seats. The tableware was thick earthenware, caramel brown, highly glazed, with a yellow floral motif. The room had panelled walls; there was one small window to the front and to the side long, shuttered French windows, hung with lace curtains. Sce
nes of Gascon life, along with some more contemporary paintings, were on the walls. Rustic pottery, copper pans and a pair of pointed wooden sabots stood on the stone mantelpiece. The décor created a cadre authentique, an atmosphere conducive to good eating.
‘This is just so quaint,’ the Californian woman said.
‘What’s the shield over the fireplace?’ her husband asked.
I wasn’t sure so I asked Jacques-Henri, who explained, leaving me to translate. ‘That’s the shield of Gascony.’
The shield was a blue-and-red quartered escutcheon, with two golden sheaves of wheat and two silver lions rampant. Jacques-Henri insisted I tell them that the wheat sheaves and lions showed what the Gascons famously do best: farming and fighting.
The Californians took their time over lunch. When they’d finished they asked about the postcards pinned to the wooden beam over the kitchen door. These were from visitors who’d written to say how much they’d enjoyed the food. Some cards were from France, others from Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and even one from Quebec. The words they used spoke volumes about the food: appétissant… délicieux… succulent… saveurs extraordinaires… l’amour des saveurs. One visitor had styled himself un pèlerin-gastronome, a foodie pilgrim. The collection showed how the Auberge was becoming a magnet for gourmets keen to taste real Gascon food.
‘We’ll send you a postcard when we get home,’ the Californian man promised.
They genuinely wanted to talk to Jacques-Henri, but were frustrated at not speaking his language.
Jacques-Henri and I – the aubergiste and his trusty interpreter – accompanied them outside. They thanked us for the hospitality.
‘That was a quality experience, just what we’d been looking for,’ the woman said, as they lingered on the step, reluctant to go.
‘Maybe we’ll come back some day,’ her husband suggested.
They got into their hire car and drove slowly down the drive, pausing at the bottom to look back, raising their hands in a farewell salute.
‘OK, back to work!’ I said to myself, in English.
‘Eh?’ said Jacques-Henri, looking at me curiously.
‘Bon, au boulot!’ I translated what I’d just said into French. I went back to the courtyard to carry on cleaning out the grill.
Nicolas, who was home from school, had overheard the conversation with the Californians. Not used to hearing English spoken, he was fascinated. While I shovelled the ash, he started asking me questions.
‘Monsieur Martin, they were Americans, weren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘From New York?’
‘No, from California.’
‘Oh.’
Although Nicolas didn’t watch much television, he followed an American police drama set in New York, dubbed into French. The yellow taxis, which form the backdrop to any New York street scene, had obviously caught his attention.
‘Do they have yellow taxis in California?’ he asked.
‘Well, I think yellow taxis are more typical of New York,’ I suggested.
‘And do they have yellow taxis in London?’ he asked
‘No. London taxis are black.’
He thought hard for a moment, looking a little disappointed. ‘Ah!’
AMANDINE
JACQUES-HENRI WAS TURNING HIS FARM ORGANIC, ADAPTING new ideas about sustainability to fit in with his native wisdom about the countryside. For a Gascon farmer, organic farming represented a return to traditional methods rather than the introduction of new techniques. Going organic was another way of going back to nature. Jacques-Henri was only waiting for his coveted agriculture biologique certificate.
The bergerie was his model for his conversion to organic farming, where the transformation had been so convincing. The sheep did their droppings on the floor, and compacted them with their hooves to form a dense carpet. Jacques-Henri used to spray it regularly with chemicals to keep the smell down and shovelled it out every few weeks. Sometimes the stench was awful.
Two summers previously he had stopped treating the bergerie floor with chemicals, leaving it undisturbed for weeks. The smell became worse than it had ever been, but gradually nature took over, the sheep droppings began to compost steadily, the smell lessened and was replaced by a healthy hum, the same smell that had greeted me the first time I poked my nose in the bergerie. The barn was now a more natural place for the sheep to be. About every six months or so, when the cake of droppings reached about twenty centimetres, the floor was shovelled out. The organic droppings made useful manure.
We shovelled out the bergerie once during the summer. It was back-breaking work, but it was also strangely satisfying as I ran the shovel into the cake of droppings to cut a slice, then slid it underneath to bring out a nice, big, neat wedge, which I tipped into a wheelbarrow. Nicolas had a worse job, carrying the droppings in the wheelbarrow to the manure heap. He pulled a face as he pushed the barrow along. It was very heavy and wobbled precariously, and once it toppled over under the weight.
Most of the work on the farm was physically hard and the hours were long, but at the end of each day there was a great feeling of satisfaction. Gradually, as my body grew accustomed to the physical work, the initial aches and pains subsided and I felt invigorated and strong.
I was on a steady learning curve in animal husbandry. Jacques-Henri kept a small herd of about a dozen Gascon cows. La vache gasconne is silver-grey in colour, sturdy and square bodied. It has lyre-shaped horns, strong hooves for the hills and an obstinate temperament. The extremities of its ears, its muzzle and its tail are black tipped. Its lashes are long and pretty, to protect its eyes from the glare of the sun as well as keeping out the flies. Gascon cows were originally bred to pull carts or ploughs and provide milk. They have a naturally haughty look on their faces, and an attitude to match. They will stare challengingly at strangers, as if to say – this is my field, what are you doing here?
Gascon cows can predict the weather:
Corno pounchudo,
Horns down,
Tèrro henudo.
Earth baked.
Corno leuado,
Horns up,
Tèrro mouillado.
Earth soaked.
One of the older cows in Jacques-Henri’s herd wore a traditional Pyrenean cowbell, hanging from its neck on a collar made from finely worked strips of ash wood. The lower slopes of the field were out of sight, and when the cows had ambled to the bottom of the hill the bell could be heard clonk-clonking as if from nowhere. What a strangely comforting sound!
Donner aux vaches. Feeding and watering the cows was a twice-daily routine. I stretched the hosepipe across the track from the barn to refill their galvanised drinking trough through the fence. While the trough was filling up, I took forkfuls of silage to the feeding bay some way into the field.
One cow was dominant. She was much bigger and bulkier than the others in the herd, and she was the only one with a name, Amandine. She had a calf, which she protected fiercely. She viewed everyone with suspicion, people and cows alike. At the drinking trough, she shouldered the others out of the way or gave them a prod with one of her horns, lowing bellicosely, until she and her calf had drunk their fill. The rest of the herd just had to wait their turn.
The first time I climbed over the gate into the field with a forkload of silage over my shoulder, Amandine was standing between me and the silage bay, and her calf was standing next to it.
Amandine and I squared up to each other. I didn’t want to back down and wasn’t going to be put off by this bovine bullying. But she was obstinate. She lowered her head the way cows do when they’re angry or threatened. Her silver and black horns were pointing my way. I couldn’t help but think for a moment that the horns were quite stylish, but this was not the time for aesthetics.
Amandine spread her front hooves menacingly. This did not look good. Half a tonne of horn-topped Gascon cow was more than I could handle.
‘Meuh!’ she bellowed.
I decided to let
her have the last word and backed off, sitting on the fence until Amandine and her calf had moved off to another part of the field.
I told Jacques-Henri about Amandine, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all. The next feeding time he came with me. Amandine was near the fence. He leaned over and scratched her head between the horns. Amandine liked it: she rolled her eyes and looked calm.
‘You obviously have a way with cows!’ I said to Jacques-Henri.
When I tried it, she ducked her head and stepped back. The issue between us was never resolved.
In a field behind the main barn was a Gascon bull called Nelson. He lived on his own in the field, out of sight of the cows, to make sure he behaved himself. He was a massive beast, muscular like an Art Deco sculpture, darker grey than the cows, of pure Gascon pedigree.
Nelson was regularly hired out for breeding. The breeding agent came with a trailer to take him off to cows in the area whose owners had booked his services. We set up temporary fencing in the farmyard to direct him from his field to the open trailer. Nelson was very cooperative, trotting purposefully up the ramp without having to be led; he obviously knew where he was going. The ring in his nose glinted in the sunlight. When he was safely inside the trailer he gave a short grunt to let us know he was ready. The agent closed up the ramp and Nelson went off on his mission.
While he was away siring sturdy Gascon offspring, Paul, Bruno and I took the opportunity to clean out his field. Nelson covered his field with big pats, which we shovelled away from time to time to give the grass a chance to breathe. I wondered how he produced so much mess when he only ate grass and silage!
It was a good job I’d swapped my espadrilles for working boots, because my feet were covered in dung. It stank.
‘Ça pue, uh!’ said Paul, sniggering.
The following day it was my turn to laugh at Paul. He had been on shepherd duty and I had been working at the Auberge. Driving in the 2CV to the farm, I met him on the road. He was looking around anxiously in all directions, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, scanning the far corners of the fields.
A Summer In Gascony Page 8