We were a little worried about stocking food on a Sunday, but it turned out that there was no need to be. For one thing, there’s an ugly huddle of big-box-type grocery stores within walking distance of our charming villa, although they are discreetly hidden by more pleasant scenery. For another, Nick promptly found a website listing major farmer’s markets in the region, and on Sundays there was one in a town called Barjols, about 20 minutes away.
Did I mention yet how great it is to have a car on one’s French vacation? Good stuff.
Anyway, I had this image of entrancing piles of olives and truffles (which there were), but the first thing that caught our attention was the woman handing out cheese.
The French have a much more generous attitude toward freebies–and a looser boundary between freebies and samples–than most American merchants. I haven’t paid for watch repairs or batteries in as long as I can remember, and our dry cleaner routinely declines to charge for items she forgot to put on the ticket, even if she notices within seconds. My market guys give out fresh herbs and lemons, one of the men in Barjols threw in the rest of his mesclun when we bought 2/3 of the basket, and this woman right by where we came in was handing out cheese.
I mean, phenomenal comté and beaufort, as well as some very palatable tomme de vache and something forgettable from Savoie. But most importantly, she had what we think was a cured côte de boeuf, which I had never had before. It was…I can’t even describe. The slices let the light through like delicious slabs of garnet, and they were so soft that you could almost call them “juicy.” It was just this amazing, chewy…Ben got half a kilo on top of our cheeses, and I wish we had thought to get a loaf of our own to bring home, because we had some with every meal and it never got less wonderful.
Oh, and the cheese woman threw in a jar of foie gras spread. Get honey, they give you cookies; get a whole saucisson, they give you half of another. It turns the dull act of shopping into a series of pleasurable surprises…and then you get to go home and eat them. Which we did. And they were good.