Food and Wine

Saturday, August 2, 2014

     I have not talked about the food here.  In New York, I'm generally having "healthy" meals --meat rarely, butter never, a bit of alcohol, lots of fish, including sushi.  Here it's the other side of the looking glass: I am seduced by the easy availability of croissants, utterly in thrall to the pains raisins of the boulangere.  Stuffed with raisins --unlike their American counterparts-- I have them for breakfast a few times a week.

     Going out to eat in the southwest of France, while there is always one fish on the menu, pork and beef are more common main courses.  Chicken --standby of the middle ground between vegetarians and carnivores in the United States-- is perhaps offered stewed with vegetables, but that is all.  Languedoc specializes in pâtés of all types and first courses usually include them.  Chicken livers, venison slices, quails --salads are often made with them. They are followed by a meat main course and a creamy dessert made with lots of butter and sugar.

     Fresh pasta --my staple in new York-- is unavailable in any of the local stores, as far as I can tell.  Macaroni, its dried equivalent, is freely available, although most people prefer to eat it in sauces made of chorizo, or beef.

     French cooking is about sauces, after all, so pasta aglio e olio is not on menus, although there are quite a few brick-oven pizza parlors.  Their pizzas are made with the thinnest crust possible and in many varieties: Pizzeria l'Argent Double --Caunes' popular parlor-- makes a Hawaiian pizza with pineapple, as well as pizza agenaise-- pizza with duck, pork and the famous prunes of Agen.  Not to mention a dozen other styles.  I have tasted quite a few, and my verdict is: delicious.

     After a month of watching my cholesterol levels rise, I have, fortunately, found a way of returning to my piscine roots: the LeClerc on Carcassonne's outskirts has prepackaged brandade de mourue potato and codfish purée) and seafood risotto.  I won't touch the sushi, though: it looks fishy.

     I don't drink alcohol here, preferring the non-alcoholic wine made locally under the Bonne Nouvelle label.  Driving back from concerts, I need never worry I've enjoyed the post-concert reception too much.  It would be great news if a similar product --tasting like wine, without any of its negative effects-- existed in the United Estates.