Choosing a basket from hundreds....

A festival of baskets – for shopping or storing, for fishermen and for cooks – fills a medieval Périgord village to the brim on a July Sunday every year.  Annual fairs, whatever the theme, can be fun or boring…. same old winemakers, same old tomato or melon vendors.  To go to a melon fair year after year, one must have a dedicated interest in the fragrant fruit.  To go to a basket fair every year (don’t count, says the vagabond after fifteen-plus fairs), my interest in woven willow verges on passion.  One Sunday in July, the weekly market in Issigeac – always colorful on its own – adds another attraction: baskets.  Stretching across the shady Place du Château between the town’s gray stone church and a medieval bishop’s palace, basket makers from many regions of France display their own wares for the shopper’s choice.  The entry fee of 2 Euros not only gives you a chance at a tombola - drawing for a prize, a basket – but helps fund the organizing of this ambitious event.

Children crowd around to watch a vanier (basket maker) coiling a wrapped rye straw basket, while at another stall, the technique involves steamed chestnut slats to construct a sturdy basket for gathering nuts.  An artisan from Brittany shows us how to make a fish trap basket and a woman chats with bystanders while deftly looping caning across the seat of an antique chair.

Chestnut strip baskets...strong, versatile, and écologique: I was heartened to see a wizened artisan from the Corrèze again this year with his elegantly finished, slatted chestnut baskets and trays.

The flexible and sturdy dark willow baskets of the southwest are in the majority at Issigeac’s fair, in an age old traditional oval form.  From the nearby village of Molières, I spotted the well known basket maker, René Carrier…over ninety and still shaping practical baskets.

Fill them with logs, grapes, plums or potatoes...

There are classes offered in the basket maker’s craft in the southwest, but my thoughts turned to the speed and finesse of these artisans’ work, wondering who will carry on the tradition.  To make hefty working baskets for wood, light, oval baskets to fill with fungi, shallow baskets for serving bread or cheese – each takes a trick or six to master the technique.

Shaping the sides of a large basket…

Of the sixty artisans at the Foire aux Paniers et à la Vannerie, many work steadily through the day to demonstrate techniques of their craft.  A simple panel banner by each stall announces the region, whether it is the Loire Valley, the Ariège or the Ardennes.  One year a basket maker from Sardinia make the journey to the foire, another visiting artisan was from Spain.  So, there are new faces every year, and hopefully the old masters will continue to bring their well woven baskets of all sizes and materials.

Baskets woven of honeysuckle roots - for tiny treasures

More basket fairs coming up! If your travels this month lead to the heart of France, the Auvergne, take a day for the Fête des Paniers in Montsalvy. This popular event in a Cantal town south of Aurillac opens with giant marionettes, and winds up with a Soirée Dansante on Saturday, July 31st 2010.  Willow growers and basket makers get together on October 2nd & 3rd in northern France in Reilly, east of Rouen for a Fête de l’Osier et de la Vannerie Française. – don’t miss the afternoon parade of the brotherhood of the noble willow, la Confrérie des Façonneurs du Noble Osier.

14th of July, a special breakfast

This is what the vagabond has been asking, taking a running survey of what  French culinary tradition calls for to fête Bastille Day.  What ?  Not anything special? One friend says, ….”nope, it’s turkey or capon for Noël, lamb for Easter and veal for Pentecost, but eat whatever you like for the 14th of July!” On this theme of menu independence, a French friend reflects that he remembers no particular foods associated with their national holiday. It seems that independence rules, as does the season’s ripe, fragrant melon and a good stack of steaks or chops for the grill.  Not satisfied to wait ’til dinner for something appropriately seasonal and French, we start the day with a handful of raspberries with yogurt and still-warm croissants.  Pour the coffee, I’m ready for a day in the garden – and much later, a glass of bubbly with apéros before watching fireworks over the Dordogne….after dark.

Next up: A basket-lover’s fair….and more on melon.

Basics for a quick chop of persillade

Maybe you could call persillade a condiment, for it heightens flavors of vegetables or meats – but it isn’t in the strain of sauces or relishes, much simpler in fact.  The vagabond has encountered this traditional southern seasoning pressed into lamb chops, sprinkled over magret/duck breast, and divinely stirred into fried potatoes Sarladais just before serving.  Great results with just two ingredients:  finely chopped fresh garlic (now is the hour) and parsley leaves (also tender in early summer).  Days when the canicule/heat wave calls for a “the simpler the better” approach, and persillade is just that.  Ingredients finely chopped or minced with a sharp blade are basic, and my  tool of choice is a two-handled hachoir.  This can be done with a whizz of the food processor’s blades, but it tends to chop in a blink to the point of mashed parsley. Not my favorite, but use it if you don’t mind washing up; a sharp knife is the ecological choice, non?

All chopped together, put it in a jar for later use

Whether you refer to them as haricots verts, French beans or simply string beans, market stalls this month are heaped with them, straight from the bush.  The vagabond heads out early to get haricots fins – the skinny little ones loaded with flavor – before these delicate beans wilt in the heat of the day.  What could be simpler than a handful of  beans for each serving, nipped and snipped, then  steamed for a few minutes?  Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, a drizzling of good olive oil (okay – or sweet butter if you please).  This is obvious, a classic everyone knows how to set before the queen or king with tonight’s grilled chicken, fish or ribs.  Not that I am into gilding the lily of the beans’, natural flavor, but observing traditions in the French southwest, I have picked up some other enhancers.  Slivered and seared meaty smoked bacon (called ventrèche fumé in the southwest) is great tossed with the beans in a bowl to serve….with lemon, bien sûr.  But for our small mountain of haricots verts tonight, I’ll mix up a savory persillade .

Simple, light, and delish...

To make persillade, I follow the basic proportions given by Kate Ratliffe in  A Culinary Journey in Gascony (10 Speed Books, 1995). Two thirds flat-leaved parsley leaves – reserve the stems to mince into a tomato sauce – to one third new garlic:  3 plump cloves chopped up with 1 cup leaves is about right. If you are garlic-shy, cut it back – otherwise, venture into the garlicsphere with a ratio of half and half.  Choose beans that are about the same length and thickness for uniform cooking.  Wash and trim green beans, allowing about 1 handful for each serving, with 1 or 2 white onions, quartered. Put them in the top pan of a vegetable steamer, to steam until you taste one that meets your own measure of crunch, cooked tender or….al dente. Turn them out into a serving bowl or plate them and sprinkle the persillade over the steaming beans; add a twist of sea salt & cracked pepper – a squirt of lemon if you like.  A fine side for a summer night… or a main plate for lunch.

The French word, persil, is the origin of persillade, but that doesn’t seem to deter chefs and cooks from adapting this classic to all sorts of variations with other herbs.  Chef Ivan Flowers at Fournos in Sedona, Arizona uses butter as a base, makes a persillade with basil (a basillade?), rolls it up to chill and slices up the seasoned butter to garnish meats.  A persillade in the hands of Ina Garten becomes a seasoning for a butterflied leg of  lamb by adding bread crumbs, lemon zest with two cups of chopped parsley to three cloves of garlic (chopped in a processor) – all to enhance the lamb.  Another cook does a mint persillade (a menthiade?) over pork, as other cooks scatter more classic persillades over a bowl of mussels or sautéed gambas shrimp. So, once you start chopping, allow enough for tonight’s haricots – but make a good batch so a jar is in the fridge to bring a touch of southern France to your daily fare.

Note: For more on Serious Chopping tools, see Dorie Greenspan’s recent post on mezzalunas – to answer any questions on how Italian cooks mince the fillings for ravioli and tortellini – not to mention persillade’s cousin gremollata – so efficiently.  See her post of 7 July on: www.doriegreenspan.com . Put her new, upcoming book on your autumn cooking (for release 8 October 2010) list:  Around my French Table.

Gather lavender early, just as blossoms form

Lavender lore credits the Romans for bringing both their bathing rituals and the cleansing, antiseptic lavender plants to Apta Julia when this trading crossroads center was founded.  Originally a military camp, the town grew to assume importance as an administrative center on the Domitian Way from Rome to Narbonne. The climate was right for lavender, cultivated for its medicinal and antiseptic values, and the plant took hold.  Soldiers carried it to cleanse wounds and found the scent relieved stress.  I sometimes wonder what a citizen of ancient Apta Julia would say now when gazing across expanses of lavender fields between Apt, the high country of Sault, and east towards Forcalquier – before surveying the seemingly endless fields of the Valensole plâteau.  If the lavender fields now seem to stretch to the horizon, the reason today is in part commercial:  this region of Provence leads the world in lavender production.

Within this genus, Lavendula augustifolius, there are thirty-nine species. Spikes with flower tips wave above the round, bushy plant – and easily cross-pollinate, so many variations exist.  Blue, lilac, violet or white lavender all draw bees, and lavender honey is one of the region’s specialties.  To discover lavender country, the market at Sault - on Wednesdays since 1515 – is not only overflowing with Provençal vegetables, but vendors offer honeys and soaps, pastries and essential oils, all with a hint of lavender. Take a moment to ramble around Sault’s old streets and admire the vistas from its promontory overlooking the valley.  Be tempted by nougat, both black and white (both a part of the Christmas Eve Treize Desserts tradition) of local almonds and lavender honey.

A fleeting moment in the lavender fields

Pick lavender just before blossoms are completely open to maximize the natural oils.  Tuck a few into your pillow case, a bag of sweaters sealed away for winter, and in closets to repel moths and refresh the air. Using lavender in cooking takes restraint – one too many blossoms can impart a bitter taste:  remember, it is an antiseptic.  A little caution is due for the relaxing, de-stressing effect of lavender under your pillow:  it slows the nervous system to some extent, a natural for inducing sleep.  Its essential oils are effective in aromatherapy and in beauty products as well as the classic, refreshing lavender eau de toilette.  If you travel across Provence in late July and through August, you may see the lavender harvesters at work, machines rolling through fields gathering the blossoms destined for distilleries to extract lavender’s essential oils.  In Sault’s August Lavender Festival, watch a lavender-cutting competition, all a blur of scythes in action.  But for a few sprigs to infuse in a refreshing sorbet, a simple panna cotta or a custard with summer berries, now is the time to snip lavender.

For more on Provençal lavender, visit: www.avignon-et-provence.com tap Tourism, then scroll to Practical Information to tap:  Markets.  In www.saultenprovence.com/gb you will find details on lavender-related events, and at www.provencebeyond.com , a variety of travel information.

Busy plant market in Bergerac's old town

Along with a few peppers and tomato plants, I had an uncommon herb on my list for this season’s plant markets and fairs.  Surely, browsing all the vegetable and flower stalls, I could dig up a source for lovage.  So I inquired: Livèche ou ache de montagne? Rare, madame, très rare – I was told by one plantsman; “go to a specialist nursery” said another.  It was Deborah Madison’s www.culinate.com article on this large culinary and medicinal plant that spurred my search.   She described the herb so enticingly that one corner of my potager has been cleared for a potentially gigantic lovage plant.  The idea of stirring up a cream soup of lovage, topped with frizzle/seared strips of prosciutto made my mouth water.  This seems a perfect starter for a cool spring evening’s dinner.  Having struck out at the Bergerac plant market, my search is not over…perhaps I will find one in the US in a round of Marin markets with my sister in California later in May – or in upstate New York with my daughter.  Going west or east, the quest continues.  Stranger ingredients have been known to find their way into my luggage on return from past trips.  Meanwhile, enjoy your herb-shopping, with the promise of summer meals enhanced with aromatiques straight from your own balcony or herb patch.

Jazz on the corner, a toe tapping interlude for plant shoppers

Click on distant chapel to view photo gallery of  Castillonès market.

This département, the Lot-et-Garonne, rests between Gascony to the south and the Périgord to the north, quietly going about its business which is largely agricultural. As a region slightly off the beaten path, the Agenais is worth a detour:  for Romanesque chapels rising above slopes sponged with white plum blossoms in April and nodding sunflowers through July,  it is a revelation.  And off season, the markets are among the region’s most authentic, least gentrified or tourist-trammeled in the entire Aquitaine.  From mid-May to late September expect crowds, which could be said of any part of the French southwest – unless, like the locals, you grab your basket and shop very early when everything is dew-fresh.

Like Monflanquin and Villefranche-du-Périgord, the town’s focus is on an arcaded market square, where weekly markets and monthly fairs have come and gone for centuries. What was the vagabond looking for on an April morning in Castillonès Tuesday market?  Asparagus, bien sûr, and bedding plants for potagers (vegetable gardens), to be choosen from flats of lettuce, tomato, peppers and squash (lots of vigorous courgettes). We always hunt for honey, and here I not only did we score with local tilleul/linden flower honey, but with a light-on- acidity honey vinegar.  I was delighted to find white cherry tomato plants and other unusual varieties sold by a young couple specializing in biologique/organic plants.  In fact on this visit, I noticed more biologique products lining Castillonès Grande Rue, the lively market street leading off the central square.  Cheese vendors offer a gamut of specialties from firm to crumbly Auvergne Salers and Cantal tommes to local chèvre as well as excellent fromages Corse. Two vendors tempted me with samples of Italian cheese, as well as olives, tortellini and pastries.  With such enticing products, and a lazy day ambiance of having coffee (and a flaky, rum-cream filled pastry) in the shade of  Castillonès arcades, I vowed to return…when stalls groan under loads of melons, tomatoes and freshly picked plums.

Note:  Watch for more on bastide markets in June, for a supper stop in a night market or two…quite a different interpretation of “market”. We will sample the ambiance of  just a few of the 300 bastides scattered across southern and southwestern France.

This week, suddenly sariette’s tender shoots are ready to be clipped,  strung up in the attic to dry – and while I’m snipping, the peppery fresh taste will also perk up a bean salad for lunch today. Associations with beans – fresh fève or dried cocos- are so strong that in German, it is referred to as the bean herb: Bohnenkraut.  Whether you call it winter savory, sariette des montagnes, savourée, or poivre d’âne, this ancient potherb goes by many names. Greeks dedicated the spicy leaves to Dionysos, dubbing it Herbe à  Satyre for what they considered to be  savory’s aphrodesiac effects. Egyptians used it in medicine for anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, and Romans carried savory with them as they settled into far flung lands* and islands  of Europe. Clearly, it was a highly appreciated aromatique.

Poked into a bottle, the herb flavors vinegar

Running through a list of savory’s virtues, I found not only the peppery flavor (giving a bite to Italian salami), its antibacterial effects valued by beekeepers (the chemical thymol in savory used against the varoa mite), and best known is the natural antiflatulence effect of savory cooked with beans and cabbage (as we were saying…Bohnenkraut).  Used before peppercorns were shipped into Europe, as well as during war times when spices were scarce, savory replaces pepper as a seasoning for those with a pepper intolerance.  In Quebec, savory is whisked into mashed potatoes to spark up the purée.  So, if sprigs of this simple herb do everything from aiding digestion to providing more anti-oxidants than many fresh vegetables, why – I wondered – is sariette not more commonly used?  For iron, calcium, manganese, and magnesium, a little savory in salads or snipped into a pot of butter for seasoning vegetables does us all kinds of good. Minced with other herbs, it seasons discs of fresh chèvre – a favorite, I discovered, in markets around Banon where poivre d’âne grows wild in the rugged Provence uplands. Closer to home, take a handful of tender new savory shoots to fill a sterile bottle, fill it with white wine vinegar and cap tightly – then let the sun accent the infusion by putting it on a windowsill for a month. Don’t wait until late in the summer to collect savory, for by then the leaves turn to stiff little spears (not a gum-friendly seasoning at that point)….April is savory harvest time!

The vagabond’s  last note on this ancient herb is a quote from Jean Giono’s  novel set in Provence, where he evoked the power of sariette’s aroma in Le Serpent d’étoiles. Children were bedded down for the night on layers of herbs…”and the weight of their movements released fragrances of savory and lemon balm.”

….”et, sous le poids de leurs gestes, jaillisaient des odeurs de sariette et de citronnelle.”

*A point for gardeners:  Satureja montana grows in zones 6 to 10, and is winter hardy with some protection against long periods below 0°c/32°f.  It becomes a low woody bush and needs pruning both before and after delicate white blossoms appear in May.  The annual, summer savory, has pink blossoms and is easily grown from seed.  For more on the savories, see:  www.herbalcuisine.com/savory.html

Pear blossoms, an April pleasure

The gnarly old pear tree – said to be one hundred years old – is a reassuring sign that April is on track.  This year it is laden with blossoms, which will drift onto the flower bed below before summer’s warmer days bring a cover of greenery.  The variety is a hard winter pear to be picked and ripened in the shade during autumn months. But my attention now turns to the ground, to the potager calling to be spaded and prepared for tomato and pepper plants.  These and lettuce sets are already available at the weekly market, so I am running behind.  In April’s chilly mornings and warm afternoons everything shoots and sprouts at once.

New rhubarb and oranges sanguine...

For weeks, I watched the pink rhubarb stems like a hawk, noting more bundles of leaves ready to unfurl and shoot out from the rich soil near our potager compost heap. It had been a cold winter – just the trigger rhubarb needs for energetic production.  One more day of growth in the clump was all it needed before enough could be pulled to cook, enough for a dish or two of rhubarb sauce, whip, or fool.  So, a dish of  rhubarb sauce lightened with a dash of orange zest is in the picture for our first spring supper outdoors.  Having trimmed and cleaned the slim stalks, I chopped them up to measure almost 2 cups.  A cup of water sweetened with a tablespoon of honey and slivers of orange peel – all heated in a saucepan, ready to simmer the rhubarb, covered, for 10 to 12 minutes – was all it took.  Since oranges sanguine (blood oranges) are still available, I squeezed the juice from a quarter of an orange to give color to the sauce.  This is just enough for 2, but if drained and folded into whipped cream (and a sprinkling of shaved, toasted almonds) it could stretch to serve 4.  With almond cookies, of course.  Longer spring evenings invite a walk ’round the garden after supper – to discover more signs of spring.

Earliest wild orchids - in poor, rocky places

In between intensive culinary programs, a cooking school in the Périgord relaxes with guests for a week of adventures outside the kitchen.  In 1998, when Wendely Harvey left culinary publishing in San Francisco, she embarked upon a new challenge:  organizing classes with top American and Australian cookbook writers and teachers in a French country cooking setting.  But this Australian woman’s energy and enthusiasm for the Périgord overflows into just two or three weeks each season, especially designed for curious travelers.  Beyond a hands-on session or two in the kitchen, most of the la Vie en Périgord week is an adventure in La France profonde.  With the gentle guidance of historian Robert Cave-Rogers, Wendely’s husband and business partner, guests experience a multi-dimensional view of the region.  And if, after caves, castles and markets, you hanker for a glass of wine – Robert can advise on this “natural resource” as well.   For more details, visit their site: www.lacombe-perigord.com Photo at La Combe by Roger Stowell.

Oxen in action

The vagabond expected everything from greens to goats in Le Buisson’s spring fair, Foire aux Bestiaux de St. Vivien. In the tradition of medieval fairs, this event has long been held early in March, on the day of St.Vivien, drawing traders and farmers with their calves, donkeys, horses and sheep. Le Buisson’s  location on the road from Bergerac to Sarlat sprawls across a major intersection, luring shoppers to its Friday morning market and annual foire.  Eager to see what has changed in the passing years since we last strolled through the fair, I could hear load speakers as we approached the center of town.

Tools and plows of yesteryear

Where the stalls of calves, cattle and sheep once lined the aisles, now space was cleared for a demonstration of a working ox team.  Driven by a farmer in clogs and peasant shirt,  it struck me as théatre as he drove his ox team back and forth for over an hour, shouting at the beasts and cracking his stick on their backs if they didn’t go as directed.  A few old plows sat forlornly aside, as pieces of folklore planted next to the oxens’ path. We found no goats, no calves, but there were donkeys and ponies for kids to pet – and one enormous bull to admire (but I wouldn’t venture to touch its broad chestnut back).  A couple appeared to be bargaining for a pair of donkeys, however that was the extent of trading that I observed, and moved along hoping to find a basket in the marché.

Dark willow baskets, for shopping or walnuts

And baskets there were, many shapes and sizes – but not all local.  Instead of the old basket maker I remembered – who demonstrated and readily discussed traditional materials -  a basket dealer had spread his wares on the ground.  But I did find a basket:  a garlic vendor displayed small oval garlic baskets, just what I need to keep this staple at hand until  new shoots of aillet arrive in upcoming weeks.

Pink garlic from Lautrec, a good "keeper"

Relieved that more products from the greater southwest were represented, I popped for garlic and the basket before moving along to chat with a prune seller.  It was clear that he had shucked many walnuts for his oil, spread many plums to dry, pressed chestnuts for purée and was proud of his products – all organic, I was assured. I’ll  cook the prunes in tea and spice to tenderize the skins, we’ll  enjoy them in a simple prune whip or clafoutis, and recall the wizened artisan at the Le Buisson marché.

Prunes, walnuts and chestnuts pass through an artisan's hands