Archive for the ‘Markets’ Category

Living Seasonally

Friday, June 18th, 2010

We’ve been living in the West Indies for such a long time that it takes some time to readjust to proper seasons and all that each season brings – both trials and tribulations.

Perhaps the biggest of the challenges is going grocery shopping.  I know that this sounds funny but really, it is a challenge!  Here in the BVI, where almost every food product is imported (including bananas and mangoes), we’re accustomed to being able to get a wide range of produce year-round. Bell peppers, strawberries (that taste of nothing more than cotton-wool for the most part, I grant you), swedes, a few varieties of melons & apples are almost always to be found on the shelves.  Not necessarily tasting great, or in the best of shape, but they are all still there.

In France we can only buy what is in season at the time.  Now, don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.  But it is difficult to get used to only being able to buy vegetables in the season in which it grows naturally in France.  I am happy with the trade-off ….. who wouldn’t prefer to have produce that, in many cases, was only picked from the bush/plucked from the sea/dug from the ground first thing this morning or, at worst, last night?  We enjoy this bounty 6 days a week in Sainte-Foy as Monday – Friday there is always a vegetable stall, and often two or three, in La Place de la Mairie and every Saturday we have our weekly market, which fills several streets with stalls laden with fruit & vegetables, fish & shellfish, olives & spices, meat, poultry & chartcuterie products, live plants, wine, milk & cheeses …….. you get the picture.  Seasonal abundance.  An embarrassment of good food.

Market stalls at Sainte-Foy-La-Grande

Live plants and other things

Fish stall at Sainte-Foy-La-Grande's weekly market

The freshest of fish

But, when you’re not used to it (buying fresh food seasonally), it takes some adaptation.  In France you can’t simply decide that tonight you’ll have a stir fry with fresh bean sprouts, bok choy and whatever else takes your fancy and tomorrow you’ll have steak & ale pie with mashed neeps & tatties (yellow turnip and potatoes, for the non-Gælic speaker), and with friends round for dinner the next night you’ll start with some fresh asparagus … You get my drift.  In France, or at least in our bit of it, if it isn’t in season in France (or a French overseas departement) you don’t have that wide variety available.  However, you do know that when the strawberries are in season they are superb and well-priced and the same applies across the produce board.

There are the same (but not as widely marked) variations to be found in the cheeses that are available.  Here in the BVI it’s the same selection year-round, with a few extra special cheeses at Christmas. In France you get Brebis de Printemps at Easter, but an aged Brebis is generally available year-round.  I could go on, but you know what I mean.

There is one other aspect of food shopping that is astonishingly different: in France the shelves are stocked full all of the time (and I love the little produce-misting gadgets that keep everything fresh and moist), whereas here half the time they’re empty, or only full of one brand of something.  In life there will always be trade-offs.  The challenge is learning to enjoy them.

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Sunday closing

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

In spite of a couple of years of spending summers driving around France house-hunting we had never given any thought to the closing times of shops as most of our accommodation was in B&Bs or small hotels.  However, the trip over in February to close on the house changed all of that.

We had arrived in Bordeaux late on a Saturday morning and drove up to Sainte-Foy arriving in time for lunch, which we took at Le Globetrotter in la Place de la Mairie.  Alain, the patron, became my new best friend when I discovered that they make “vin chaud” (mulled wine) to order.  After lunch we made a quick sortie to the LeClerc on the edge of town to pick up some basic provisions before finding the cottage that I had rented for us in Pineuilh.  We had agreed that the following morning we would drive down to the weekly market in Issigeac, meet the Immobilier’s English assistant, Sara, and pick up the fixings for dinner.  I had warned Mo (my son) and Gina (his godmother) that the market closed promptly at 12, as soon as the church bells began to chime the hour so we needed to leave no later than 9:30 as it is a good half-hour drive to get there.

Jet lag and ear plugs combined to ensure that one of our party slept rather later than intended and it was gone 10:30 before we left the cottage.  Naively, I didn’t think that this presented us with a problem.  We arrived in Issigeac just after 11, parked the car and took a leisurely stroll through the market.  We found Sara tucked away in her little office at about 11:45 and had a natter.  She asked us what our plans were for the next few days and, when we said that we were going to have some lunch and pick up some groceries for supper she glanced at her watch and said “You’d better get a move on, as the market will be closing shortly.”

I blithely said “No worries.  If we don’t manage to get what we need in the market now we’ll stop in at LeClerc on our way back to the cottage.”

Sara then proceeded to give me my first French reality check when she said ” You’d best get going ….. ALL of the shops close by 12 on a Sunday.  Even the big ones.”  It was 3 minutes to 12!

What followed next can best be described as something out of a Marx Brothers sketch – I grabbed some Euros from my purse for Mo & Gina, sent Gina off to the Petit Casino to buy some items there and Mo off to get a baguette from the bakery while I took it upon myself to find some protein and vegetables for our evening meal.  We agreed to reconvene at a bar in the market when we had completed our allotted tasks.  Needless to say the doors were chained shut on the Petit Casino by the time Gina reached it.  The bakery didn’t have much left either.  The meat stalls were dropping their flaps too and, as enticing as the rotisserie chickens were, I wanted to buy something that I could serve hot that night ….. there was no way I was doing cold meat and salad when it was 0° outside!  So round and round we ran until we’d found something.  Anything, actually.

We made it work.  Just.  Mostly by deciding to have a big lunch out and then having hot leftovers for supper.  Lesson number one well and truly learnt!

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Progress, of sorts.

Monday, May 25th, 2009

I find it incredible to think that we are already back in the BVI and found no time at all for writing this blog or updating the web site while we were in Sainte-Foy.  However, it is a very good thing that we went.  We were bullied by a belligerent bloody (British) builder from the time we arrived.  When I wrote the last installment the morning after our arrival in Sainte-Foy I was heartened by what seemed to be progress.  However, it was only an illusion.  In the entire time that we were in France we saw the sum total of no more than 40 hours of work done collectively by the builder and electrician.  Hardly what I would call conscientious work.  Still, it seems that no matter where you go this breed of tradesmen are not exactly renowned for their integrity or reliability.  Horrid generalisation, I know, particularly as I know how hard and diligently my step-father works (he’s a plumber).

Enough grousing!  Graham and I worked hard painting walls, installing bathroom fittings, getting artwork framed and hung and all manner of other jobs.  We have returned tired, but satisfied with the work that we did.  The end result of our visit was that we accomplished getting the studio ready for rent and we wait only for the ground floor re-wiring and installation of the new shower to be done and the house will be completely ready.  That the contractor thinks that it will take then another month to get that far is laughable, but such is life.

We finally had an opportunity to go round Sainte-Foy’s excellent Saturday market.  There is a wonderful array of stalls with items as varied as one would expect – from live animals (rabbits and chickens) through to a roving vanilla seller who is very colourfully dressed (sadly, I wasn’t able to get a picture of him).  The Perigord is famed for its strawberries and the aroma emanating from the stalls specialising in them is hard to describe in anything other than cliches – heady, enticing, evocative, mouth-watering……. yum!  When they are really good you can smell them from about 2 metres away!

There are about half-a-dozen stalls selling oysters (and nothing but oysters) which made Graham supremely happy, particularly at 2 euro a dozen!  A couple of stalls sell the full range of fish and shellfish too.  There are many poultry producers in addition to the inevitable foie gras stalls (oh! do I love foie gras),  and stalls selling fresh rotisserie-cooked chicken.  One had what seemed to be whole small hams too, but we didn’t try them this time.  I was a wimp when buying my free-range chicken and asked for it “sans tete”.  There is a lady who sells nothing but paella from huge pans that must be nearly  metre across.  At the end of the day she has perhaps 4 “to-go” boxes left.  This is just scratching the surface as there are easily 100 stalls in the market, possibly more.

It is fascinating to watch the market break down, which it does promptly and with what might be described as “ruthless” efficiency.  I know from my days of running an annual flea market just how much work is entailed in setting up and dismantling a stall.  However, with the right kit it is clearly much easier, though I’m not sure that I would want to work that hard each week.

All-in-all it was a good 2 weeks and we’re very glad that we went.  Truth be told, we really didn’t want to leave.  Sainte-Foy really has become home for us, which is wonderful.  While the work on the house appears to be near completion there still being a huge amount to be done – we must now set our noses to the grindstone and study our French so that we can communicate with our neighbours in the manner that we would choose to (sans dictionaire).  Still, we will be back there again in 3 months, which is something very much to be looked forward to.

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