A Summer In Gascony

by Martin Calder

  An official notice of the Fédération de la Chasse displayed on the front of the Mairie stated the duration of the open hunting season, classified by the type of game. Small native game: partridge, pheasant, rabbit and hare. Big game: wild boar, deer and izard. Migratory birds: turtle dove, ortolan, quail and woodcock. Water fowl: duck and teal. The rules for fishing were less strict. They take their game hunting seriously in Gascony. Fur, feather or fin, in Gascony it’s fair game!

  All was still and peaceful. Above us house martins darted gracefully, swooping and climbing, then disappearing under the eaves. The only traffic through the centre of the village was the occasional small van coming and going, a tractor hauling a trailer of round hay bales, or one pulling a manure spreader, encrusted with muck around the back end. Van and tractor drivers alike waved to us as they drove by.

  A small herd of goats lived in a yard behind a solid wooden fence, beside a house near the centre of the village. We knew the goats were there without even looking over the fence, their natural goat’s cheese smell was nose-wrinklingly strong.

  In another garden stood a pomegranate tree, studded with bold scarlet flowers. Fruit trees grew well around Péguilhan: peach trees with their elegant leaves and velvety fruit, damson trees raining bloomy purple fruit in August, and fig trees with their shapely leaves. Trees grew by the roadside throughout the village and along the surrounding lanes, the half-wild offspring of orchards and gardens, the fruit was anyone’s to gather when it started to fall.

  We walked on to the other side of the village, to a road neither of us had ever ventured up before. We passed a big farm with grapevines trained as a hedge around the yard. Rambling, open-fronted barns were used as stores for wood, hay and machinery. The barns stood slowly disintegrating, the wood of the walls weathered to silvery grey, the tiles on the rooves coming loose.

  Suddenly we heard a noisy diesel engine start up. Out of the barn drove Monsieur Fustignac on his vintage green tractor. Sitting on the side seat over the wheel arch was Madame Parle-Beaucoup from the café. So the rumours were true! Monsieur Fustignac was wearing his beret and a red-and-white neckerchief. Madame Parle-Beaucoup was wearing her best flower-patterned dress. Her plumpness spilled over the sides of the small seat. Despite their age, they seemed like a couple of teenagers out on a joyride.

  An old tractor was a common sight beside many of the houses in Péguilhan. Even if the tractor didn’t run any more, it showed the owner’s agricultural credentials. Jacques-Henri’s old Renault tractor was a good example. Monsieur Fustignac’s was the best we’d seen, the oldest and the shiniest – and it still worked. The single-cylinder engine throbbed heavily. Sticking up vertically at the front beside the engine was a tall exhaust tower, with a bulbous, onion-shaped top that vibrated and spluttered puffs of smoke. Fustignac did a few reckless circuits of the farmyard, sending chickens clucking and scattering. The make of the tractor was Percheron, with a stylised red Percheron draught horse moulded into the front. The horse design was very appropriate. As the prancing black stallion on a Ferrari badge expresses the speed and temperamental nature of the Italian sports car, so the sturdy Percheron horse expresses the solid pulling power of the old tractor. In Péguilhan, driving a vintage green Percheron tractor was like cruising in a classic red Ferrari Gran Turismo. Only slower. It obviously did the trick for old Fustignac.

  The luvved-up couple gave us the thumbs-up as they came our way. Before they got themselves too overexcited, Monsieur Fustignac drove the tractor back into the barn, stopped the engine and helped Madame Parle-Beaucoup down from her perch. Giggling between themselves they disappeared from sight, leaving us with mental pictures we would have preferred not to have.

  LES-GENS-DU-CHTEAU

  THE MAIN ROAD THROUGH PÉGUILHAN SWERVED TO GO ROUND the crumbling, moss-covered wall that encircled the grounds of the château. Set behind massive iron gates, the château stood almost in the centre of the village, but defiantly apart from it. It was a private home and the gates were nearly always locked. The building stood on an elevated terrace. It had a forbidding, unwelcoming appearance. The front was long and flat, with repetitive rows of green wooden-shuttered windows along each storey; the shutters were mostly closed. It was the biggest building in Péguilhan, although everything is relative: it was a very small village, and this was more a manoir than a full-sized château.

  The owners were still spoken of by the villagers in Péguilhan with a sense of feudal reverence as les Gens du Château, the people from the château, the folks at the big house. The phrase was said as if it was all one word, les-gens-du-château. The owners were away for most of the year and only descended on the village occasionally. They were quite distinct from people in the village. There were les-gens-du-château and les-gens-du-coin or, as they said in the local accent, les-gens-du-cwaing.

  When they returned in July, Monsieur and Madame from the château phoned to book a table for dinner in the restaurant.

  ‘Les-gens-du-château, they’re coming to dine at the Auberge!’ said Jacques-Henri, as he put down the phone.

  This was a coup. It was more important than ever to create a good impression. Les-gens-du-château had booked a few days ahead and asked for something typical. Jacques-Henri and Marie-Jeanne had a long, animated discussion about what to prepare, and in the end they decided on daube d’oie, casseroled goose, a rich and hearty peasant stew.

  The dish took a day and a half to prepare. Generous pieces of goose were marinated in a whole bottle of red Madiran wine, flavoured with herbs, bay leaves, cloves and seasoning. After marinating them overnight, Marie-Jeanne fried the goose pieces in goose fat, along with onions, carrots and celery. She poured the marinade back over the meat and left the daube to simmer for about three hours in a big marmite, adding a bouquet garni of fresh herbs tied with string. As the slow-cooking daube bubbled gently in the pot, the lid rattled quietly from time to time, as if to let us know that all was well. The kitchen was filled with the most enticing smell, which drifted into every corner of the building.

  ‘Ça donne de l’appétit!’ Marie-Jeanne remarked, noticing me sniffing the aroma.

  While the daube was simmering, Marie-Jeanne made a croustade aux pommes for dessert, with a good splash of Armagnac on top and crème anglaise to go with it.

  Jacques-Henri wrote out by hand two copies of a souvenir menu, one for Madame, one for Monsieur. Using an old-fashioned black-and-gold fountain pen, his strong farmer’s hand produced surprisingly neat handwriting. He signed both copies of the menu with lou paisan gascoun. By signing himself the Gascon peasant, Jacques-Henri wasn’t putting himself down, he was showing how he belonged there, how his place in the village was as certain as that of the people from the château. Besides, he hoped they’d tell their friends about the excellent food. It could only be good for business.

  Marie-Jeanne was in the kitchen giving orders.

  ‘Can you prepare those vegetables?’ she said to Florence.

  ‘Can you rearrange the tables to make more space?’ she said to Paul.

  ‘And now can you lay the tables?’ she said to Anja.

  ‘Pattes – dehors!’ she ordered Pattes.

  At about half past seven, everything was ready.

  Les-gens-du-château drove the short distance through the village from the château to the Auberge in their Range Rover, la Range. It was important to have the right transport.

  Jacques-Henri and Marie-Jeanne greeted them at the front door, shaking hands very cordially, and showed them to their table by the front window.

  Monsieur was tall, with an aquiline nose and an aristocratic mien. He was dressed carefully casually in an Argyle-pattern sweater. Madame had long dark hair tied back in a neat French plait. She was dressed more smartly in a slightly old-fashioned charcoal-grey New Look dress. It was hard to tell how old they were. Their impassive expressions gave little away.

  All the proper formalities were observed; well, as formal as formalities ever were at the Auberge.


  ‘Madame, Monsieur, asseyez-vous,’ said Jacques-Henri, pulling out their chairs.

  As soon as they were seated, he presented them with their handwritten menus.

  First, an aperitif. The classic Gascon aperitif is floc de Gascogne, a blend of Armagnac and grape juice. Floc means bouquet of flowers in Gascon. At the Auberge some things tended to be improvised. Jacques-Henri made a homemade version of the drink. He uncorked a bottle of grape juice, poured out a glassful, carefully poured in a glass of Armagnac, then pushed the cork back in, gave the bottle a swirl and served the aperitif.

  It accompanied the starter of whole foie gras, with puréed apricots and fingers of bread. A composition for refined palates.

  ‘I would like to propose for you a very good Madiran wine,’ Jacques-Henri suggested, pronouncing Madiran as Madiraing, and showing them a bottle of Madiran Château Vézac. Monsieur graciously accepted the proposal.

  Marie-Jeanne and Anja brought out the main course of daube in a big serving dish. As Marie-Jeanne lifted the lid of the pot, meaty nuggets of goose trembled ever so slightly in the still-simmering stew. Dinner was served.

  ‘Je vous souhaite un très bon appétit,’ Jacques-Henri said respectfully, stressing the word très.

  Monsieur and Madame from the château took their time over their meal. Jacques-Henri talked with us in the kitchen. He’d had a few slugs of Armagnac by then; after all, the bottle was open…

  Jacques-Henri was a wily peasant. He saw through the rituals associated with food and the play-acting of eating out in restaurants. He said that restaurants as we know them are a modern idea, so everyone can afford to go out sometimes, to be waited on and play the role of the petitmarquis. In a funny way, he observed, Monsieur and Madame were doing the opposite, stepping out of the château to enjoy peasant fare at the inn.

  When they’d finished their meal, les-gens-du-château retired to the terrace outside for a petite pause and a relaxing Armagnac digestif. In the end they showed themselves to be quite unassuming. They asked questions about the food, and seemed pleased that the restaurant was open and doing well, right on their doorstep. I think the experience was something of a novelty for them: it was the first time they’d been able to eat out in Péguilhan. Les-gens-du-château went home impressed. The evening had gone well. Jacques-Henri and Marie-Jeanne were pleased with themselves. The meal was perfectly composed: foie gras as a mark of respect for their status and daube for a taste of true peasant fare.

  Foie gras is as essential to Gascony as the haricot and the beret. You can join the debate over which birds produce the finer foie gras, ducks or geese, but in Gascony there is no debate over whether or not it has a place on the table.

  VALLEY OF THE LIZARDS

  PÉGUILHAN HAD NO POST OFFICE OR POST BOX. THE POSTMAN came to the Auberge every morning in his yellow van, giving a quick beep-beep on his horn to let us know he was there. He delivered the letters, collected the mail to be sent and sold the stamps, all without getting out of his seat.

  My twenty-third birthday was in August. The postman delivered some cards sent from England a few days before. ‘It looks like someone’s having a birthday soon,’ he said.

  Marie-Jeanne prepared a surprise birthday lunch for me. We had gigot of lamb, cooked in white wine and garlic. The lamb was tender and flaky, it fell away from the bone and almost melted in the mouth. I’d learnt to appreciate the fine meat on the bone. The white wine sauce was delicious, with a strong but subtle flavour.

  When we’d nearly finished and only the sauce was left in our plates, Jacques-Henri announced, ‘Right, time to faire chabrot!’

  Literally, faire chabrot means ‘to do the goat’. Jacques-Henri poured some wine from his glass into the sauce on his plate, gave it a broad swirl, then raised his plate to his lips and drank the thinned sauce from the edge of the plate. We all followed suit. Doing the goat rounded off the course with a great feeling of satisfaction.

  Marie-Jeanne baked a birthday cake for me. Because I was English, she made a Victoria sponge. She’d looked up the recipe in a book. This type of cake was well outside her usual repertoire. She added a layer of her own plum jam in the middle and spread white icing on top, finished off with a small red, white and blue striped candle. The cake was a thoughtful gesture and quite touching. I blew out the candle and everyone sang Joyeux anniversaire. I felt a little self-conscious at being the centre of attention.

  I was given the afternoon off work. Sometimes it was difficult to know what to do with free time in a village so far from anywhere.

  Jacques-Henri said casually, ‘C’est ton anniversaire, il faut en profiter!’ It’s your birthday, make the most of it.

  I asked if Anja could also have the afternoon off and Jacques-Henri agreed. We decided to go off and do something touristy. We went to see the ruins of the Roman villa at Montmaurin, in the valley of the river Save, a few kilometres to the south of Boulogne-sur-Gesse.

  Standing en couple by the roadside looking foreign we found it easy to hitch lifts, first from Péguilhan to Boulogne-sur-Gesse, then to Blajan and on to Montmaurin.

  Montmaurin stood on a hill. From the edge of the village we could see the remains of the Roman villa down on the broad, flat valley floor. The ruins were vast, in the shape of an arrowhead, surrounded by trees amid open fields. It was a long walk down to the villa. The valley was completely uninhabited, the air was still and quiet, the only sounds were the faint babble of the river Save, the distant low-pitched hum of a tractor working a field, and the chatter of the crickets that jumped in the long grass wherever we walked.

  At the entrance to the villa we paid the twenty franc admission fee to the guardienne, who sat in a small office set against the back wall of the ruins. We were the only visitors that afternoon and she kindly offered to come outside and give us a personal tour of the ruins.

  We stood in one corner of the villa, by the remains of a low stone wall.

  ‘The villa dates back to the first century AD,’ the guardienne told us. ‘It was the home of a wealthy Gallo-Roman and his family. He chose this site here in this sheltered valley because it was such fertile farming land and there was a constant supply of cool water from the River Save, which you can hear…’

  She stopped for us to listen.

  ‘The villa grew into a sprawling complex,’ she continued, ‘with about a hundred and fifty rooms. It was like a self-contained small town, with private apartments, terraces, gardens, kitchens, a gymnasium and a temple.’

  We walked around the edge of a colonnaded bath. Now shaded by an oak tree, it looked like a cool refuge from the afternoon heat.

  ‘This was the thermal wing. It contained a sequence of cold, warm and hot baths, which the Romans loved. C’était le bon vivre de l’époque, the good living of the age. The height of indulgence was the icehouse, under there,’ she pointed, ‘for storing fresh shellfish, brought all the way from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.’

  ‘What type of shellfish?’ asked Anja, curious.

  ‘They’ve found oyster, mussel, scallop and clam shells,’ the guardienne explained. ‘Life in the villa was good for about a hundred and fifty years, until it was destroyed by a flood. It was rebuilt, then about a hundred years later it was destroyed again, this time by fire. After this second catastrophe, it was abandoned for ever.’

  The whole place was alive with small, slim grey-brown lizards. Some were tiny; some of the bigger ones were as long as my hand. Undisturbed, they lay spreadeagled on the walls, clinging on with their dainty feet, warming their bodies in the hot sun. At our approach they scurried in all directions so quickly we could barely see them, darting like streaks of quicksilver in and out of the ruined walls, around the columns and across the mosaic floor. When they stood still again, the dull patterns of markings on their backs looked like miniature mosaics.

  I remarked to the guardienne about the number of lizards running everywhere in the ruins.

  ‘It’s their home now,’ she replied, casually.

>   The villa at Montmaurin suffered the same fate as many great Roman villas in Gascony following the collapse of the Empire. With attacks by the Visigoths, the Moors and the Vikings, the pleasant setting in the valley by the river was no longer safe, and the villagers retreated to the nearby hilltop where the present-day village of Montmaurin stands. They would have recycled much of the stone from the villa for building materials. The remains of other villas probably lie still undiscovered across Gascony.

  MARKET DAY

  IN GASCONY DURING THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, UNDER English administration, about two hundred bastides were built across the countryside. These mediaeval fortified ‘new towns’ were constructed to foster trade and encourage population growth. Most were built on hilltops for safety. Bastide comes from the Gascon word bastida, meaning bastion or fortress. They were mainly very small, more like walled villages than walled towns. The founding of a new bastide was advertised far and wide, with criers travelling across the country announcing the real-estate opportunities on offer.

  Vast tracts of land in southwest France were uncultivated or swathed in forests and the bastides brought life and prosperity to the countryside. People came from other parts of France, from England and elsewhere in Europe, for the promise of a better life in new surroundings. The settlers, known as voisins, built the town walls and the communal buildings. In return for their labour and skills, each was given their own building plot. These plots were all the same size, to ensure equality among the townspeople from the outset. There was an agreed schedule for completion: the first storey was to be built within the first year, the second within the following year, and the third storey when they were able. Each building was slightly different, according to the individual needs and taste of its owner, although all were variations on the same idea.