Is Provence real?
"PROVENCE WAS BORN GREEK BUT GREW UP ROMAN"
GO THERE.
"Provence is a country to which I am always returning, next week, next year, any day now, as soon as I can get on a train. Here in London it is an effort of will to believe in the existence of such a place at all. But now and again the vision of golden tiles on a round southern roof, or of some warm, stony, herb-scented hillside will rise out of my kitchen pots with the smell of a piece of orange peel scenting a beef stew. The picture flickers into focus again." Elizabeth David
Yesterday I finished my current book group book - The Little Paris Bookshop - though this is not about that book, which I didn't really think was very good, although an easy read. But it finished in Provence about which it was rhapsodic as people usually are, and it also finished with a few recipes. And Don McLean has just been singing about Van Gogh, so I thought a few words about Provence and Provençal food might be in order. For in the minds of most people the two are inseparable aren't they?
And nobody ever seems to have a bad word to say about Provence either do they? And to be honest I don't think I do, in spite of its massive tourist centred culture - the artfully restored houses and villages, the showpieces and exploitation of everything that is typically Provençal - poppies, sunflowers, lavender, olives and olive oil, markets, sunshine, quaint old French people in quaint old-fashioned clothes, boules, plane trees, cicadas, fresh garlic, the blue Mediterranean, the scent of pines, Roman tiled roofs, Roman ruins, fish soup, anchoiade, and on and on. It's all here. But let's be honest this is not the only place where these things exist - they exist almost everywhere around the Mediterranean really and further afield than that. And also let's be honest, the place is completely overrun by tourists in summer - and all of those beautiful things seem to be largely there for the benefit of those tourists. But why should we complain because it's all wonderful. And we try to go there as frequently as we can - like Elizabeth David. Here is a small gallery of some of my photos of some of the typical things. My favourites - I have lots more.
This one (below) sort of sums up the best and the worst - it was taken in Les Baux de Provence, now a completely artificial, but very, very beautiful hilltop village - nobody, but nobody actually lives there apparently. It is full of beautiful shops and even more beautiful cafés like this one, at which we were sitting, when the stunning lady in the impossibly high heels with her rich, older partner walked by. Heads turned, the sun shone, we all smiled. It was a favourite moment of my holiday. But Les Baux, is in a sense a terrible place. It is so artificial and exists purely for the tourists. But so beautiful. The French do these things so well. Incidentally we had to park some distance away on the road below, there were so many tourists there that the several car parks were full.
They also do the sort of thing shown on the left so artistically too - but again this is not a uniquely Provençal thing. I have pictures of this sort of thing taken from all over France and Italy - and doubtless they exist in other parts of Europe too. Do they get paid to do this I wonder? Or do they do it in a spirit of national and civic pride. There are competitions to be Un Plus Beau Village or a Village Fleuri.
So I could waffle on about tourism and its effect, but this is supposed to be a food related blog, so just a few words about the food and let's turn to Elizabeth David again on the subject.
"To regard the food of Provence as just a release from routine, a fierce wild riot of flavour and colour, is to oversimplify it and grossly to mistake its nature. For it is not primitive food; it is civilized without being over-civilized. That is to say, it has natural taste, smell, texture, and much character. Often it looks beautiful, too. What it amounts to is that it is the rational, right and proper food for human beings to eat."
She wrote those words back in 1960 but today we are being exhorted continually to eat a Mediterranean diet - rich in vegetables and fish and olive oil. She was very school-marmy about it and very dismissive of the attempts of restauranteurs to provide 'traditional' dishes for the tourists, but the central message is right. And as Robert Carrier noted in his later book, Feasts of Provence, many of France's greatest chefs moved south and started to reimagine the traditional food of France. Nouvelle Cuisine and the Cuisine of the Sun were born here as were the careers of many world-famous chefs. Some of them remain here and no doubt yet newer and more adventurous chefs flock to them. And yes, every now and then you can stumble across a little restaurant in a little out of the way village (there still exist a few), that serve truly authentic Provençal food. And - shock/horror - you can even find this treasure in a tourist café in a tourist town - sometimes.
My book had three recipes - a variation of ratatouille, a dish of lamb cutlets and lavender ice-cream. (I might talk about lavender tomorrow). For me though, Provençal cooking will always be the domain of the wonderful Madame Perruque (I think I spoke of her before), and her black olives that found their way into almost every dish. That and fish soup with rouille. I always try to have some when I am there, because it is so tedious to make. And I'm putting black olives and tomatoes into my dinner dish of chicken tonight.
I'll finish with Van Gogh - who should be a patron saint of Provence but who was treated so badly by the region. I could have filled the page with his pictures. Here is just one - I think it might be the 'starry, starry night' of Don McLean.
