Why France just does it better
A love letter to French food culture, and some good things I've been buying/eating/cooking on our road trip (including at service stations, people!)
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Well hello. It’s so nice to be back in your inbox, and sorry for the longer-than-expected hiatus. Don’t worry, we don’t have bed bugs, though I have been wholly savaged by mosquitos, and not for want of using repellent: turns out I’m a walking repellent for anyone in my vicinity - they bloody love me! It also turns out it’s not so easy to keep up with writing these newsletters with patchy rural French Wifi and hours and hours of driving with a very squabbly toddler who demands to have the most irritating rendition of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ known to Spotify played on repeat.
She’s also been in a monster sleep regression and was waking at 4.45am (French time) for the first week of our trip, which rendered me rather numb/sweaty/brain-farty, and although I genuinely have missed writing to you, and been gagging for a bit of time at my laptop to do just that, I needed a break too, guys. I know - tiny violins - but France is a SUCH great place to be sleep deprived, and don’t worry, I’ve been notching up plenty of culinary inspiration to share with you amongst all this offline time. Plus, one major advantage is being awake for these sorts of beautiful sunrises, as we had a few days ago in the balmy Languedoc:
I’m going to be writing another newsletter soon sharing more specific details of our trip - like our utterly magical Air B and B in the Périgord and some of the wonderful markets we visited and day trips we took to some exceptionally gorgeous spots. As ever, this will be for my paid subscribers, who pay to support my time and work, for access to this more involved and researched writing and personal recommendations. But for now, as our holiday comes to an end, I wanted to share some thoughts on why being in France is so exciting to me as a cook and food lover, and some photos and details about some of the things we’ve been eating, cooking and buying here that speak to that.
In my last piece I wrote about how, since Brexit, it’s been particularly comforting for me to feel close to France, as we do when we walk to the beach on a clear day and peer at her. And I'm finding myself increasingly drawn back here, sinking deeper into the gentle, nourishing pleasures offered by the markets, shops, bakeries, vineyards and restaurants - and fantasising about a future where we spend a great deal more time here - and yes - a long term French renovation project is the ultimate dream. Have I spent more time than is healthy scrolling Rightmove when I get a bit of 4G? You bet I ruddy have.
I think much of this has to do with the fact I just admire and chime with the quotidian way the French so value food, ingredients, produce, agriculture, viticulture and connection to their cuisine. It just runs so deep here. It seems to bleed through every capillary of rural, suburban and civic life, and each time I return to France I observe new ways in which this amazes me. Bulbous heritage tomatoes, golden girolles (3 euros a bag!) and sparklingly fresh mackerel in the remote country supermarket! Intricate, freshly made pastries in the tiny village bakery! Freshly pressed walnut oil at the village market! Regional wine taps in the service station canteen! You get the idea. It’s quite spoiling.
One of the biggest differences here is that the importance of good quality food and drink is not an elitist or necessarily middle class pursuit. It’s a daily priority, a way of life (witnessed by the queues at the bakeries and the fact everything shuts down for lunch at 12.30 on the DOT), and it’s one that’s been protected by a French cultural dedication to, and enthusiasm for preserving culinary traditions and rewarding quality through accreditation like Protected Designation Origins, AOCs, TSG, Label Rouge etc. When our own food security and food standards, are by, by stark contrast, being derailed by frankly depressing post-Brexit trade deals and the increasing costs and challenges faced by farmers and food producers, it just feels like the French have got it sussed when it comes to food and drink.
Of course I’m romanticising - as you do on holiday - and I’m not about to claim there are no problems with France’s food system (like this reported lack of support for organic farming) or the intensive agricultural methods employed by the larger, more commercial wineries/dairies, but speaking from what we’ve experienced (and I’d love to hear from those of you reading this in France, do leave a comment below), the local food culture is still very much thriving. On this trip we’ve covered a lot of ground - more than a thousand miles, driving from Calais to the Loire, to the Lot-et-Garonne, to the Dordogne/Périgord, and then all the way down to Languedoc, and we’ve travelled through some tiny little, super rural villages and hamlets. But each village we’ve stopped at has had at least one or two boulangeries proffering freshly made breads and pastries, often made with many varieties of flour, so that the local population can start their days just right.
Then there have been the tiny little ‘auberges’ - little casual restaurants/inns with set menus from as little as 15-20 euros for two or three courses, where we’ve lunched elbow-to-elbow with workman in their workboots and overalls, eating three courses of honestly cooked regional fare, matched to a carafe of local wine, finishing with dessert, coffee and possibly cheese. You just can’t imagine that happening in England, where fry ups and Greggs are a much more accessible option than proper restaurant food.
Market Hauls
At markets, which according to the little folder in our Air B and B, happen across the many surrounding villages on most days of the week, we’ve been dazzled by artisan suppliers like the bee keepers who can’t wait to hand you dried spaghetti to dip into their several different varieties of raw, unpasteurised honey to taste the nuances of the forage the bees have utilised to make their sweet syrup. There are cottage jam producers who have captured the seasons through their glistening preserves (that, along with thick set honey, we’ve been eating slathered onto thick salted buttered baguettes for breakfast); cheese mongers with cheeses unique and expressive to each region - and I’ve become obsessed with the hard, nutty Brebis Tomme style cheese of the South West, freshly harvested walnut oil makers; mushroom foragers with fragrant, muddy piles of ceps; apple growers with a dizzying array of varieties and ceramicists proud of their time-honed wares. Even at the smaller, more parochial markets we’ve been blown away by choice.
Supermarket sweeps and self catering simple suppers
The supermarkets here have also been beyond belief, which is fortunate, since we’ve been self catering for much of the trip. I love nothing more than a good foreign supermarket session, and discovering the Super U (seemingly on a par with Waitrose/Booths) close to our accommodation - which, by the way, was not particularly near to a large town - was thrilling. I couldn’t believe the extent of the ‘Le Boucher’ butcher’s counter which heaved with local meats and Label Rouge chickens: slow grown, corn fed, dry plucked and heads still in tact. I bought one at 15 euros, along with a bag of burnished gold girolles - and roasted it with fennel, carrots and violet garlic from Villeréal market, then fried off the mushrooms and stirred them through a quick braise of butterbeans with wine, cream and tarragon. I can share the recipe at some point if you’d like (? let me know), it was sublime. But aside from that, the produce was so good it was just about buying nice veg/salads/meats and cheeses and then assembling simple suppers from there - like buttered baguettes with cheeses, green salad and vinaigrette and tomatoes with the most wonderful soft goats curd. Also, I’ll never get bored of buying 7 euro bottles of buttery, biscuity Cremant de Bourgogne and drinking it mixed with Pamplemousse (my favourite French word) - pink grapefruit juice -another thing that’s seemingly impossible to find in the UK but de rigueur here.
Service station surprises
Then there’s the service stations. Not places you associate with wholesome food - well not in the UK anyway - but actually, I tend to think you can judge much about a food culture from the quality of the grub on offer at the side of the road. Not only are there ample opportunities for stops when you’re travelling on France’s roads (just make sure you avoid the footpad toilet stops, wtf!?), but at most of the services we stopped at there were some really surprisingly good food options and far fewer of the ‘grab and go’ or McDonalds-style fast food you can’t escape back home. Instead we took a shine to the dinner canteen-style restaurants where you grab a tray and then choose from the freshly cooked ‘plats’ - we ate everything from juicy ratatouille with cous cous to some perfectly good chicken legs with floppy, herb buttered green beans, great lunch offerings when you’re trying to get your toddler to eat something that isn’t baguette/croissant. To go with this were plates of regional cheeses (served with walnuts in the South West) and even the option to fill a glass with local, 3 euro wine from the tap, which plenty of people were doing.
On more than one occasion, we saw French families laying the outside tables at the services with tablecloths, cracking open a bottle of wine and really making a proper meal of it - I mean, could you ever imagine seeing this at a British services!? Maybe Tebay, but that’s very much an anomaly. There’s been lots of chat in the press and food media recently about the concerning proliferation of UPFs - Ultra Processed Foods - and yes, of course they exist in France, but what was surprising to me was that, at the service stops, you really had to seek out the shops selling this stuff, first making your way through the fresh food options, canteens, bakeries and cafes before you found them. The only roadside burgers we did try (From B Chef) were slathered with Raclatte cheese and confit onion, and the only vending machine I saw was selling plasters, condoms (got to love the French) and USB cables. Not shit food.
Yes, I’m polishing my rose tinted glasses, and yes, much of my affection for this stuff is probably bound up in my own childhood camping holidays to France, but it excites me that I can find regional-specific pastries at a service station in the middle of nowhere, baguettes spread with thick, salted butter and filled with local Tomme cheese and jambon blanc, and array of local cheeses at the supermarket, not to mention Comte flavoured crisps. And so, we will be heaving back a full-to-bursting cool bag - we never travel in France without one these days - stuffed with said cheeses, French butter, and bags of ceps, and living off tins of duck confit and shop bought ile flottantes (definitely not free from the bad stuff, but still miraculous to me that you can buy them in tubs) for the foreseeable.
I would really love to hear from you guys about what you look forward to most about holiday food, and what your go-tos are for your own foreign supermarket hauls.
J'ADORE this Rosie! So beautifully written, I love all your acute observations and I am transported. You are the sacrificial lamb of the group, same as Matt. And lol at the Rightmove scrolling - I hear you! Omg those bloody ceps..! Foreign supermarkets seem to always, always better than the UK ones. Amen to that vending machine - they've got their priorities right.
OMG that sounds absolutely divine! The service stations!!!