Just met a four-year-old from the Pyrenees. . .
. . .and a very tasty one at that. We are in Carcassone (exhausted, by the way). We've decided not to SEE anything today, but in spite of ourselves, just wandering, we've come across a street market. This one is very small, with produce, olives, flowers, and one cheese wagon. We bought some carrots, a handful each of roasted cashews and pistachios, greek olives. Then we were captivated by the pointy bright lime green Luques olives-- the taste is so fresh and they almost crunch, they are so crisp-textured.
The cheese man was busy, so we made a detour. The quincaillerie (hardware) would close at noon for the two-hour midday break. We had spotted a copper marmite in the window for making confiture on our way toward the market, but were flat out of cash (as is so often the case these days, and we likely would not have seen the market at all if the quest for cash had not taken us to a bank in the main square), so we took a chance that the cheese man would not be leaving the square before 12:30.
In Bayeux, we had the privilege of a lesson from our conviviql hostess at Villa Aggarthi, Myriam Sauvage, in how to make confiture the traditional way, without pectin. Her confiture is so delicious--if you stay two nights, you get both pear and strawberry--but the key ingredient seems to be the conductive, wide copper pan, because it cooks for hours over an extremely low fire. So I have decided that the pan is the thing I'll bring home from France, even if I have to carry it on my back, tinker-style, all the way through Italy. And Myriam also clued us in on the fact that the pan is relatively cheap at the quincaillerie (27.80€). I will tell you more about Myriam and Aggarthi and Bayeux at some point, because our visit there was spectacular, but for now, back to the hardware, and away with the pan, back to the fromager in the square.
After tasting three different ages of basque brebis (sheep's milk cheese), we've come away with a sliver of four year old cheese that we will have with a traditional black cherry confit and some inky red Languedocienne wine. This cheese is so savory, crumbly, strong, earthy, salty and dark--
And a sliver of St Nectaire from a farm north of here. This is no pasteurized-milk cheese. You should see it! Grey, wrinkly, a collapsed ashy-looking 8" circle, with a succulent center and a texture like silk. I love St N anyway, but our versions are pretty tame.
And a chunk of younger brebis, because we need a little road food for tomorrow.
And a chunk of emmental for Dan.
By this time, several people had collected around the cheese cart, and I offered in my staggeringly embarrasing French to go behind the scenes to help sell cheese to the crowd, and the answer I received from the young man was something on the order of , "non vous etes trop gourmande, vous allez trop manger" or, No, you like cheese too much, you'd eat too much!
Since my last message, we've been from Paris to Bayeux, Bayeux to Arles, Arles to Carcassonne.
I promise to tell you soon about my impromptu paella lesson in Arles, and our magnificent hosts at Hotel le Cloitre, Jean-François Hughly and Agnès Barrier in Arles, and about the fun of driving in medieval streets, and about Les Baux de Provence, and Uzès, and how ticked off I am that Charlemagne never really lived in the castle here in Carcassonne, but I do not want to fatigue you. I assure you, too, that there are many, many pictures of this adventure. Dan's faithfully taking photos all along the way, and we've given up that upload process and ripped them all to CDs. So we will make a slide show, or several of them, for you all.
The cheese man was busy, so we made a detour. The quincaillerie (hardware) would close at noon for the two-hour midday break. We had spotted a copper marmite in the window for making confiture on our way toward the market, but were flat out of cash (as is so often the case these days, and we likely would not have seen the market at all if the quest for cash had not taken us to a bank in the main square), so we took a chance that the cheese man would not be leaving the square before 12:30.
In Bayeux, we had the privilege of a lesson from our conviviql hostess at Villa Aggarthi, Myriam Sauvage, in how to make confiture the traditional way, without pectin. Her confiture is so delicious--if you stay two nights, you get both pear and strawberry--but the key ingredient seems to be the conductive, wide copper pan, because it cooks for hours over an extremely low fire. So I have decided that the pan is the thing I'll bring home from France, even if I have to carry it on my back, tinker-style, all the way through Italy. And Myriam also clued us in on the fact that the pan is relatively cheap at the quincaillerie (27.80€). I will tell you more about Myriam and Aggarthi and Bayeux at some point, because our visit there was spectacular, but for now, back to the hardware, and away with the pan, back to the fromager in the square.
After tasting three different ages of basque brebis (sheep's milk cheese), we've come away with a sliver of four year old cheese that we will have with a traditional black cherry confit and some inky red Languedocienne wine. This cheese is so savory, crumbly, strong, earthy, salty and dark--
And a sliver of St Nectaire from a farm north of here. This is no pasteurized-milk cheese. You should see it! Grey, wrinkly, a collapsed ashy-looking 8" circle, with a succulent center and a texture like silk. I love St N anyway, but our versions are pretty tame.
And a chunk of younger brebis, because we need a little road food for tomorrow.
And a chunk of emmental for Dan.
By this time, several people had collected around the cheese cart, and I offered in my staggeringly embarrasing French to go behind the scenes to help sell cheese to the crowd, and the answer I received from the young man was something on the order of , "non vous etes trop gourmande, vous allez trop manger" or, No, you like cheese too much, you'd eat too much!
Since my last message, we've been from Paris to Bayeux, Bayeux to Arles, Arles to Carcassonne.
I promise to tell you soon about my impromptu paella lesson in Arles, and our magnificent hosts at Hotel le Cloitre, Jean-François Hughly and Agnès Barrier in Arles, and about the fun of driving in medieval streets, and about Les Baux de Provence, and Uzès, and how ticked off I am that Charlemagne never really lived in the castle here in Carcassonne, but I do not want to fatigue you. I assure you, too, that there are many, many pictures of this adventure. Dan's faithfully taking photos all along the way, and we've given up that upload process and ripped them all to CDs. So we will make a slide show, or several of them, for you all.
posted by Cheese Mite at 4:29 AM
2 Comments:
oh, you can skip the photos as long as you promise to feed us when you get back! There should be a warning on this post not to read on an empty stomach. swoon. yum.
I am collapsing into a little cheese-desirous pile here in my office chair at work...
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