A Pig in Provence (18 page)

My memories of those long, hot summers in Provence are mapped by water, when the geography of our days was drawn according to the rivers and lakes where we swam and played. Each of our swimming spots was associated with food.

In the relatively small part of Provence where we spent our summers, the inland waters are dominated by the Verdon River. The Verdon originates in the Maritime Alps and flows southwest, first through a deep, picturesque canyon, the Gorges du Verdon, then through the
département
of the Var before it joins the Durance River. In the early 1970s, the Verdon was dammed into several lakes for irrigation and drinking water and for hydroelectic power.

The Lac de Quinson was the closest to us, ten minutes from our house. The lake, not much more than a long, wide spot in the river, was created in 1975 when a series of dams was built along the Verdon and the water overflowed a deep, narrow gorge and covered part of the Plain de Quinson. The shore of the newly formed “beach” at Quinson was still dotted with willow trees and wild grasses and had the ruins of a small cabanon, or cottage. We would try to get a shady spot under one of the trees where we would lay our beach mats, unfold our aluminum beach chairs, and prop our picnic basket against the trunk.

Our picnics were simple—olives, fresh
baguettes, La vache qui rit
cheese (Oliver’s favorite), Camembert, slices of ham, chocolate, and some fruit. We brought water or Oranginas for Ethel and Oliver, red wine for Donald and me. Sometimes I made a tomato salad with bits of red onion and a thick, garlicky vinaigrette. We dipped pieces of bread into the salad juices, then topped the
bread with cheese or ham, or both, to make a sandwich. The plates were eventually wiped clean with the bread, packed back in the basket, and taken home to be washed.

A day at the lake at Quinson always included a visit to the waterside café opposite the beach. Before heading for home, we walked up to the road and across the bridge to take seats in the heavy shade of the mulberry trees that lined the café terrace overlooking the lake. The road separated the bar and café interior from the terrace. We watched the waiter as he crossed the road to the terrace to take our order, and after Donald and I had ordered our espressos, one of us would cross the road with Ethel and Oliver so they could choose an ice cream from the deep cooler in the café.

Once or twice during the summer we would come back to the café at night to eat its thin-crusted pizzas, topped with homemade tomato sauce and olives and either cheese, anchovies, or mushrooms, and cooked in the wood-fired oven. The lake, our playground of the afternoon, was slate-tinged silver if the moon was out, inky black if it wasn’t. The metal tables, bare when we had our coffee and ice cream, were covered with red-and-white plaid cotton tablecloths overlaid with white butcher paper, and the sparkling fairy lights strung in the trees were lit. We’d order a carafe of
rosé,
Oranginas for Ethel and Oliver, and pizzas for each of us.

Our favorite place to go for a special meal became Le Relais Notre-Dame, just down the road from the café. It sits on the curve where the road begins to climb to the plateau of Riez. There is no view of the lake, only of the fields of wheat and barley farmed nearly to the edge of the water, but from the restaurant’s terrace we could feel the presence of the lake and smell the water.

In those days, two generations, the grandfather and his daughter and her husband, worked at the hotel and its res
taurant, while their children, young then, played on the edges of the dining room or a corner of the terrace. Like the café, Le Relais Notre-Dame was on both sides of the road, with tables on a terrace shaded by plane trees on one side, the hotel and restaurant, with their old-fashioned façade and gardens on the other side.

The Brunos had told us about the restaurant, as they had told us about so many things.

“You must go there,” M. Bruno insisted. “The Provençal food they serve is perfect, all prepared right there by the family. Completely authentic. Monsieur Devoe, the grandfather, and his wife—she’s dead now—bought it after World War I. He was injured in the war and still limps. In those days, it was before the automobile, or when the automobile was still a novelty—remember, until the 1940s, some of these places in the backcountry didn’t even have roads.

“The hotel,” M. Bruno continued, “was also a stop for the
diligence,
the stagecoaches that were the main source of transportation here. Have you read Jean Giono’s books? He lived in Manosque and wrote about Haute Provence and the life in the villages and the isolated farms during those years, right until he died just a few years ago. They’ll give you an idea of life in the times of the
diligence,
especially Giono’s
Regain.”

I made a note to get the book, which I eventually did. I loved it. The haunting picture Giono painted of life in Haute-Provence at the beginning of the nineteenth century enriched the landscape for me, giving it depth and context. Never again was I able to look at a roadside, turn-of-the-century hotel like Le Relais Notre-Dame without peopling it with horses, carriages, and characters from
Regain.
His other books only reinforced my sense of the history of the land and the place.

“Now, when you go to Notre-Dame you’ll notice that there is a very tall, wide garage on one side. That was to allow the coaches and horses to enter. Ah, but we were talking about the food. They cure their own hams, make their own
pâté
and
caillettes,
and even make their own
pieds-et-paquets.
They keep a
potager,
a big one, and cook out of it every day. If you want fresh fish, there’s a trout pond in the back, fed by the Verdon. You won’t get better, fresher food anywhere.” We had to try it.

When we first went, I was somewhat intimidated. It was far more formal than anywhere we were used to eating, and very, very quiet. It was a rather cool night in June, and although a few people were having
apéritifs
on the terrace, dinner was being served only inside. Stepping into the restaurant, we found ourselves in a foyer of sorts, created by a full-length wood and zinc bar on one side and a row of potted plants on the other. Beyond the plants we could see the dining room tables set with gleaming silver and heavy, starched white linens, framed by floor-to-ceiling peach-colored satin curtains, tied back with thick gold cords set against peach wallpaper. The walls were decorated with oil paintings in gilded frames. Most of the tables were taken.

“Bonsoir.”
We were greeted by a youngish woman dressed simply in a beige skirt and white blouse. “Are you here for dinner?” she asked, looking at Ethel and Oliver and smiling. “Yes,” Donald replied. I recognized her as one of the women I had seen coming and going along the road from the garden.

I was nervous because I was uncertain if our children would be able to sustain their table manners during what would inevitably be at least an hour and a half in a sedate dining situation. I was glad when we were seated near a window toward the rear of the dining room. Oliver had brought his current favorite GI Joes, and Ethel had a Barbie doll along with several changes of doll clothes
and a Nancy Drew book. Thus far they were enjoying the novelty of eating in such a fancy restaurant and were particularly interested in the several diners who had their dogs with them, perched on chairs or curled under their owners’ feet.

We ordered
pastis
and, for Ethel and Oliver,
limonade au grenadine,
then perused the menu. Abruptly, a rear door opened not far from us, and a tall, stooped man in brown pants and a maroon sweater-vest made his way across the dining room with the good part of a whole ham dangling from one hand, a basket of greens in the other, and a bottle of wine tucked under each arm. I was thrilled to see him, because when M. Bruno had told us about him, I had immediately invested this elderly man with a romantic past, historically linked to the food and the land.

“Look,” I whispered, “that must be the owner, the grand-father that M. Bruno told us about.” We watched him as he made his way across the room, slowly and deliberately, not looking to either side. He had a large nose and a thick thatch of silver hair. “Remember, he told us they cured their own hams.” We got a glimpse of the kitchen as he went through a set of swinging doors.

In the old days, the
rélais
and small hotels where the
diligences
stopped were essentially self-sufficient, growing and providing the food not only for the passengers but for the animals. The
diligence,
a coach pulled by a team of horses, varied in size, with the largest carrying up to twenty passengers inside three compartments and as much as a thousand kilos, more than two thousand pounds, of baggage. Although Quinson was small, only a few hundred people at the turn of the century, it had been an important stop on the route linking the coast to Digne and the high Alpine valleys and to the interior region of Manosque and Forcalquier, west of the Durance River.

The
rélais
were often associated, through the extended family of the owners, with large, diversified farms so that the food at the inns followed the same food patterns as those of the local farm families.
Charcuterie
was produced from their own pigs, fresh meat was supplied for the hungry travelers from the chickens, rabbits, lambs, sheep, and squab the family raised, and wild birds and game were hunted in the nearby forests. Milk and cheese came from a few goats and sheep kept for that purpose, and vegetables were grown year-round in the
potager,
supplemented by asparagus, leeks, mushrooms, and snails gathered in the wild.

Cavernous kitchens held stoves and ovens fired by wood, and
braises
that could support large, deep pans of simmering stews or water. Olives, wine, olive oil, potatoes, onions, and nuts were stored in
caves.
Curing meats, hanging from hooks, were kept in well-ventilated rooms that maintained constant low temperatures.

As late as the 1990s, until the European norms on food safety became increasingly strict and strictly enforced, places like Le Relais Notre-Dame still followed the patterns set down in the early days. The food was, as a matter of course, fresh, artisanal, and seasonal. In fall, the restaurant would serve homemade saucissons,
pâté
s, and daubes made of wild boar. Wild
chanterelles
and
cèpes
, purchased at the kitchen’s back door from friends or gathered by the family, appeared in
omelettes
and sauces. In winter, truffles, found or purchased clandestinely, were standard fare, and in January, as soon as one of the family pigs was slaughtered, fresh pork and blood sausages would be on the menu. Come spring, asparagus, morel mushrooms, lamb, young peas and fava beans, and artichokes dominated.

Our first dinner at Le Relais Notre-Dame was memorable for its simplicity and flavors, and for the fact that Ethel and Oliver remained interested throughout the meal, never complaining,
always looking forward to what would come next. We ordered three
prix-fixe
three-course menus, and a main dish
à la carte
for Oliver, plus a carafe of red wine. I chose the crudité plate for a first course, Ethel and Donald the
charcuterie,
planning on sharing among the four of us. The
charcuterie
platter for three was laden with scoops of homemade
pâté
straight from the preserving jar, with just a little of the fat from the top,
jambon cru,
sliced, I am sure, from the ham that had just passed through the dining room, rounds of
saucisson
very similar to Marcel’s, and slices of what we called regular ham as opposed to salt-cured
jambon cru.
A crock of butter and a sprinkling of green and black olives and little
cornichons
completed the platter.

The
crudité
platter was smaller, but amply furnished with my favorite
carottes rapées,
or grated carrot salad, plus slices of new potatoes drizzled with olive oil and parsley, summer tomatoes, and cucumbers. The tomatoes were sprinkled with a little minced garlic, the cucumbers with just salt, pepper, and olive oil. Each different small salad was mounded on its own lettuce leaf, and the whole plate was garnished with black olives. A basket of sliced
baguette
came to the table as well.

The platters were almost too beautiful to disturb, but we divided the charcuterie and the crudités among us. We slathered our bread with butter (it’s the only time you have butter at a French table, except with radishes and sea salt) and added saucisson, ham, or
pâté
, making each bite extra rich. I can still close my eyes and taste that first course all over again.

The
pâté
was a little creamier than Marie and Marcel’s, and when I eventually came to know the owners of Notre-Dame and to talk with them about their food, they told me that they used a grinder to make the
pâté
, and a smaller quantity of liver than was usual, adding more meat and fat instead, and seasoned it with their
own
eau-de-vie,
at least as long as their grandfather was alive. His generation was the last to have the legal right to make distilled products, like
eau-de-vie
, in this case an eighty-proof alcohol made from distilling the skins and seeds of the grapes after pressing.