France: November 10 -- Nuts

Friday was the last "business" day of the trip, and we had an appointment to meet with Moulin de la Tour, the nut oil mill near Sarlat, in the afternoon. We spent the morning cleaning the house we had spent the last week in, and this time got off early enough to go eat lunch at the café in Quatres-Routes. We arrived early, before the big rush at 12, sat at the end of a long table, already laid out with plates, flatware and big bottles of wine and water. At 12-12:15 various young men in working clothes piled into the place, all helping themselves with the same courses: bread soup, ham with "Italian" salad and an egg, a choice of fish or pork, cheese, and a selection of cakes or ice-cream for dessert. The man next to us actually practiced the old custom of pouring a little wine in the soup plate before finishing it off by lifting the whole bowl to his mouth and draining it. I had heard of this custom but thought it was outdated. Here, however, it seemed as natural as ever and no one even blinked. It is always slightly amusing to me to see this 5-course meal including cheese treated in such an everyday-fashion, while back in Norway

and indeed many places such a meal would be reserved for the most special of occasion at fancy restaurants. True, the food was simple, but always nicely and skillfully prepared. I think it will become a tradition to always come back to the lunch café in Quatres-Routes.

After lunch we actually had time to take the pictures we were going to take the day before, of an old "Sarrazac" sign, as well as a hand-painted rickety sign stating "foie gras". We then headed off to the Moulin, which was about an hours drive through tiny, twisty roads.

The Moulin de la Tour is a very old mill from the 16^th century. It was then largely used for making flour, but today is used solely to make nut oils: mainly walnut, but also hazelnut and almond oils. It gets its power from the stream that passes through it, which turns around an axel which powers the big granite nut grinding stone.

The mill has become a little touristy, and charges for taking visitors on a tour, but I can forgive them for finding a small extra source of income. However, it really contrasts from the sterile conditions of foie gras producers, where visitors are rarely allowed and then only after donning disposable jackets and caps and forbidden to touch anything. The mill floor is simple dirt floor, and the air filled with dust from ground nuts and some smoke from the wood fire used to heat the nut paste before pressing the oil. The whole operation I think would have looked pretty much the same a hundred years ago.

We went on the tour (fortunately they didn't charge us this time) and saw the whole operation in action. Today some farmers had brought nuts from their own farm and asked to have oil made from them. The walnuts were crushed to a fine paste with the big grinding wheel which rolled over and at the same time scooped up the nut paste. When that was finished, the paste was heated gently over a wood fire in order to more easily extract the oil, since it is very hard in raw walnuts. The better the walnuts the less heat is needed, and the fresher the taste. Finally, the heated mass was transferred to the press, where oil dripped out into a big bucket below. This would be carefully decanted after settling, but not filtered. The resulting paste that has been pressed can also be used for animal feed or fish food.

We learned that indeed the nuts all came from local farms from the Périgord, and that in fact most of them -- about 70% -- were hand-cracked, even for oil production, using old-fashioned mallets (small wooden hammers). Only the best walnuts were used for the virgin-quality oil, and these are the same as are packaged for table nuts as well. A sample of newly harvested 2006 nuts was laid out for us. They were flavorful, and almost a bit sweet, with a long aftertaste but with very little bitterness. Lovely.

We went back to the office to discuss some business and marketing, picked up a few samples of new products to bring home, and left feeling quite satisfied about not only this meeting but the whole week. Each producer we had visited had its own special qualities and showed a different side of the business. All the same, they were all passionate about producing high-quality, traditional products.

We were near the medieval town or Sarlat, with its gift shops, so we drove over to get some gifts for our friends. We picked up a jar of duck in red wine sauce (civet) which would prepare for dinner, along with a foie gras omelette made from leftover goose liver, cheese and more ice cream. A fitting dinner to end our stay in Sarrazac. The next morning we would be off to Toulouse, to see the "big city".