French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew
Peter Mayle
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0375705619
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Peter Mayle, francophile phenomenon and author of A Year in Provence, brings another delightful (and delicious) account of the good life, this time exploring the gustatory pleasures to be found throughout France.
The French celebrate food and drink more than any other people, and Mayle shows us just how contagious their enthusiasm can be. We visit the Foire aux Escargots. We attend a truly French marathon, where the beverage of choice is Chteau Lafite-Rothschild rather than Gatorade. We search out the most pungent cheese in France, and eavesdrop on a heated debate on the perfect way to prepare an omelet. We even attend a Catholic mass in the village of Richerenches, a sacred event at which thanks are given for the aromatic, mysterious, and breathtakingly expensive black truffle. With Mayle as our inimitably charming guide, we come away with a satisfied smile (if a little hungry) and the compelling desire to book a flight to France at once.
better conductor of heat. Therefore, cher monsieur”—she paused to poke a finger in his chest—“your omelette is more evenly cooked. Voilà.” She nodded as she looked around the table, obviously feeling she had delivered a mortal blow to any misguided supporters of cast iron. Already I could see where I might have been going wrong. My omelette pan was made from a newfangled nonstick aluminum alloy. I’d bought it in America, unable to resist the salesman. “What you have here is space-age
accordionist glared at the source of the noise, lighted the wrong end of a filter-tipped cigarette, and lurched off in search of artistic fulfillment elsewhere. Sometime after midnight, the crowds had thinned, and I went back to the hotel. Leaning out of my window, I heard the distant fairground music give a wheeze and an electronic grunt before coming to a stop. The night sky was encouraging, clear enough to give some hope for good weather the following day, with the light from a solitary star
lunch. “Of course,” he said, with a noticeable lack of conviction. He saluted and wished us bon appétit. The estates of the Château de Meursault, which extend to more than 110 acres, produce seven grands crus, and there is never any danger of running short. The château caves normally contain between 400,000 and 500,000 bottles, and many of the guests—growers, by the look of their wind-blasted complexions and leathery, muscular hands—were arriving not with mere armfuls of bottles, but with
of an early-morning sea mist as we went down the path, a mist that muffled the surf the way a snowfall deadens the sounds of the countryside. A fisherman—perhaps the same optimist we had seen the day before—stood with his hands on his hips and the butt of his rod stuck in the sand, gazing intently at the waves, as though sea bass could be enticed out of the water by hypnosis. We left the beach to follow a track through the tufts of sea grass and into the dunes, carpeted as far as the eye could
jostled with the television crew for the best angles. The arrival of the presiding priest, Père Gleize, brought a semblance of calm. He looked as every man of the church should look—a halo of silver hair, the face of a mature cherub, an expression of good-humored tranquillity. With a smile of great sweetness, he made us welcome, and the service began. As the mixture of prayer and singing filled the church with words and music that had hardly changed in a thousand years, the modern world seemed