Southern France

We had many nice meals when we were staying with friends outside Uzès, including friends of theirs who kindly included us in dinner parties. But the highlight of the week was a lunch at one of their neighbors. It was a repast that shows how deep the culture of food goes with the French and how intertwined it is with social interaction.

We started with champagne -- what else? -- and munchies consisting of olives, saucisses and a saucisson roquefort. We sat at a table in the courtyard under a big tree that created lots of shade. The hosts had decked out three outdoor tables for a dozen guests, tablecloths of Provencal colors, and several glasses at each place.

The first course was the classic melon and prosciutto, though the melon was from the market and perfectly ripe, so unusually flavorful. (The host had been a farmer and grown melons himself, so he knew how to find just the right ones.) The ham was local jambon de pays.

What followed was an assiette de crudités that raised this humble dish to a new level -- cucumbers, tomatoes and wonderful beets with vinaigrette, all fresh from his own garden. In the meantime, our cook lit some dried oak branches and let them burn down to charcoal so he could grill lamb chops from the local market. These he served with individual vegetable (courgettes) casseroles. No salad course but some beautiful cheeses that we lingered over with much more wine. And then large portions of a creamy, smooth flan, more champagne, music, coffee, more wine. We started at noon and left at 4:45.


The other culinary highlight was our meal at L'Olivier in nearby Serviers. It was a small simple restaurant with a fresh and innovative cuisine. We ate in the courtyard. Because it is limited to five tables some of the dishes were no longer available. Andrea got the daily special of foie gras de canard in roasted fresh figs for a starter -- a very nice combination -- and then got the scallops as a main course. I took the sauteed crayfish tails with chervil and ginger for a starter and filet of sandre, a freshwater fish similar to perch, for the main course. We had a white Cote de Rhone with it. Dessert was an assortment of chocolate dishes, with the standout being a kind of pudding that was like the molten part of a molten chocolate cake.

On our last day, I fixed a meal for our hosts that I had often fixed in France, a grilled chicken with lemon from Roger Verge's Cuisine du Soleil cookbook, paired with his tomato salad and grilled eggplant. We got two poulets fermiers at the market, along with the tomatoes and eggplant. You butterfly the chickens, flatten them as best as possible, then marinate four hours in salt, pepper, olive oil and oregano on a bed of sliced onion with lemon slices covering them. You remove the lemon slices, grill the chickens on both sides, then return them to the roasting pan with the onion, put the lemon slices back on top and pop them in a very hot oven. The tomato salad is very simple -- you put a couple of tablespoons of salt on the tomatoes, immerse them in red wine vinegar, drain after half an hour or so then dress with olive oil.