France: Five Shades of Passion

As I look back on the trip to Sarrazac and France, I am struck by the one common factor of every producer we visited: passion. Although we visited different kinds of facilities, some large, some small, some new and some old, our hosts were always proud to show us what they did and how they did it. And the pride went hand-in-hand with quality and tradtion.

France: November 11-12 -- A Weekend in the Pink City

On Saturday we got up early, packed our bags and headed over to Toulouse. I have often been in the countryside, but have more rarely investigated the cities of the South-West. That is, excepting a few trips to Sarlat, but that is such a small city it hardly counts. Toulouse is also in a slightly different region. It sits roughly in between Gascony on the west and the Languedoc and even western Provence on the east.

The car trip was dull, driving on the long straight autoroute down to Toulouse. Still, it beats driving on tiny routes nationales and taking 6 hours for the trip. The road goes by Cahors, and straight into Toulouse. I had my handy GPS to find the hotel. At once it felt like we were in the "big city" after having spent a week in the peaceful countryside. Not that Toulouse feels modern, in fact, it feels quite old. But there is traffic, lots of roads, construction, and other city-things. After dropping off Stig at the hotel I planned to simply find a gas station and drop the car off a the gare (train station). Easier said than done. My TomTom led me straight (well, not so straight, there are no straight roads in Toulouse, and some of them redefine the word "narrow") to what once was a gas station which is now a big square of dirt. So much for that. Then off to the train stations, where I drove around in circles, cursing, trying to find where the h*ll to turn off to drop off the car. The Europcar office was closed, I parked in the wrong place, and even after finding the right area the access gate wouldn't open because I had already spent too much time parking elsewhere.... well, it was tedious. Europcar -- please -- put up some kind of sign to your cusotmers so they know where to go!! I plead you!!

After finally getting the car where it should be, I jumped in a taxi and made it back to the hotel where Stig had taken out one of our favorite wines, La Cigarelle, a white Cahors made a Chateau de Caïx. It's a little fruity, oaky, very dry, with some spicy complexity of liquorice and paprika, altogether an intriguing wine with good balance and acidity. We headed off to town to find a non-existant market, and ended up eating a very nice lunch of steak-frites. (I had now learned my lesson and got a nice rare steak by ordering it medium.)

The afternoon was dedicated to sightseeing in Toulouse. We were right in the old part of the town, and walked along the narrow and crooked shopping streets. It's called the Pink City because of all the red brick used, a bit unusual for the area. We also noticed a different kind of architecture, where houses looked almost in the English Tudor style, with wooden beams showing and crossing each other embedded within the brick. A charming town once you get the hang of it. To me, it almost felt like it had never stopped being one of those little midieval villages, but just grown.

We had Sarrazacs "julebord" (Christmas dinner party) at a restaurant called Au Pois Gourmand. It was a charming place in a big villa a bit outside of the city. When we got in the taxi to get there, I tried to recite the address to the taxi driver, who didn't seem to understand. Then I said "le restaurant Au Pois Gourmand" and he lit up with an "Ahh, oui!!" and headed right off. I had forgotten for a moment that we were in France and of course everyone knew about the good restaurants. The driver also told us it was quite agreeable there in the summer. As it was we were seated in an enclosed glass wall next to the terrace, so we saw that it was probably quite nice to sit outside in the garden in the summer. We ate foie gras poached in cellery broth (an amuse bouche), a very decent foie gras terrine made at the restaurant, sweetbreads with pumpkin purée and chanterelles, cheese, and for dessert a pressed terrine of apples and figs. We had been eating better and better foie gras the whole trip, and this was the best so far. It was freshly made, served in round slices which were pale but with just a bit of pink inside, even a tiny drop of blood. With some sea salt and toast, it seemed a great end to our journey.

Sunday was a day to see the city when it was not full of shoppers and teenagers, so we wandered around to a few old churches, took in more of the old streets, and ended up at last at a little brasserie called Le Bon Vivre which served the most delicate cassoulet I have eaten. In fact, the cassoulet I had was made with cod rather than pork. Stig had the traditional cassoulet, with the unusual addition of a pig's trotter sausage.

Then off to the airport and the long trip home. Everything went fairly smoothly. The one frustration came when Stig discovered at the airport shop a bottle of the wine from Madiran that we had drunk the night before (Montrus), a truly magnificent wine: big, rich, tannic, with dark plummy fruits. However, the shop was on the wrong side of the security, and because of the week-old rules of no liquids in your hand luggage, we were not allowed to take it aboard. Some attempts were made to ask the shop if they could transfer the item to the shop on the other side of the security, which did not have that particular wine. But no. Oh, well, you can't win them all. Terrorists took our Montrus away.

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".

France: November 9 -- Pure Passion

Most of Thursday was pretty lazy. This was largely due the fact that we drank far too much wine the night before. Funny how you don't always notice that as the night progresses. Thankfully, however, our next meeting was not until 5 in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to take a break. The past three days had been full of new impressions and it can actually be a bit tiring to take all that in at once. I spent the morning writing Wednesday's blog entry, and then we decided to head off for a worker's lunch.

We climbed in the car a few minutes after 12 and made our way to Quatres-Routes (du-Lot to be precise -- there are plenty of places called Quatres Routes simply because it means "crossroads". The imagination involved to name a place such! They must have had too much wine the night before as well...) Our goal was a little café called "Café de France" (another original name) in this tiny village where we had eaten the year before. This café fills up with workers from the area, people who by the look of their clothes are carpenters or have other professions where they work with their hands. Lunch is served family-style, at long tables, and you just help yourself to the 5 courses put in front of you in the course of the lunch before passing food and wine around to the others at the table.

However, we arrived there far too late, 25 minutes past noon, and the place was already jam-packed. We stuck our heads in the door, and experienced every single person turning around to see who these strangers were (tourists in November?) before closing the door again and deciding to find somewhere else. We would try again the next day.

We drove to Vayrac, a village close by, parked by the church in the center of town and wandered down the hill where there was another lunch place. This also had the 11 euro 5-course lunch menu, though it was occupied more with pensioners and families, and not so full. We settled down and made our way through vegetable soup, a cheese tart with something similar to camembert, a huge plate of roast pork with mustard cream sauce and french fries, cheese, and walnut cake for dessert. The food was good but the portions could easily have been half the size they were, and we were full after the appetizer (cheese tart). Despite many big meals on this trip this was the time I think I was most stuffed.

We started to drive around in the afternoon to take photos of a couple of cute signs we had seen, but headed first to the village of St. Denis-les-Martels which, according to a sign I had seen in another place, had tastings of one of my favorite local wines, Vin Paillé de Corrèze. This is a sweet wine made the traditional way (before noble rot) by letting grapes dry on straw mats, the same method used in Jura and sometimes I believe in Jurancon. There isn't much wine made in this region except some light table wine (served at 11 euro lunches), so this winery is a bit interesting. We didn't find it however, and had just decided to drive back home when I made a wrong turn. Looking for a place to turn around, we suddenly saw the sign for the winery in front of us. Serendipity! We drove in and talked to a lady hanging out of the 2nd storey window of her house, who explained in a slightly embarrassed manner that all her wine was sold out, and that she was bottling more on Sunday. So no wine tasting or buying after all, but at least I know where it is now, and the place is properly entered in my GPS TomTom for next time.

Now we really just wanted to go home and take a nap, so we did, until it was time to go our meeting with the foie gras producer Conserves de Puy-Lambert. This would be our 3^rd and last foie gras producer, and it would be interesting to compare the visit with the last two. We drove down the windy road to a little village called Gignac and greeted a young woman and an older man and woman in the showroom/store.

Puy-Lambert is where the whole concept of the company of Sarrazac started. I have been familiar with their products since I met Malcom and Nicole who own the house in France, since it was their favorite producer. I recall the first time I tried to buy some of it myself when I was with my then girlfriend and headed off to a local butcher, but discovered that there were many sorts of and producers of foie gras, and the kind we bought was not nearly as good. Eventually we found Puy-Lambert at the market in Brive, and stocked up for bringing things back home in Norway. Every time I have visited this corner of France, I have bought lots of patés at Puy-Lambert. So the idea of importing it came naturally to me.

Puy-Lambert used to be a farm, raising its own birds, when it was started in the 80's, but in the mid-90's it was bought by Joël Marty who had come back to the country after working in Paris for a while. This young man had experience as a butcher, a cook and a pastry-maker, as well as having worked at another major foie gras producer in the area. He bought the farm but found that the conditions were not good enough, and decided to rebuild the production facility from scratch. In the process, he started sourcing ready-slaughtered ducks and geese from a couple of local cooperatives, so he could focus on the production process. Nowhere else had we seen anyone so intensely focused on quality, on details and on complete control over the entire production process. Mr. Marty was truly the most passionate man we had met thus far.

The "factory" was a small square building 500 meters from their shop. The old man and women we had met there were Mr. Marty's mother and father, who were obviously very proud of their son. The father took us to the factory where Mr. Marty began our tour. The reason we had been asked to come as late as 5 was obviously to not intrude on the production. This became obvious when we saw that there were only 3 employees there, including the owner himself. As opposed to La Campagnoise's 14 employees in the production hall (which was not much bigger), this came as a bit of a surprise. Mr. Marty explained to us that he wanted to be integral in every stage of the production, from inspection to canning and shipment, so that not a single can or jar which fell into the hands of a customer had not been inspected by himself. Quality control was, if possible, even stricter than we had experienced before. This bolstered my confidence in his products to an even higher lever than I had had previously.

The entire facility was U-shaped, so that the raw materials came in one door, and the finished products left out the other next to it. The raw materials were first inspected and sorted. Here he uses 4 rather than 3 categories of foie gras quality. We also saw the lab where he tests a can or jar from every finished batch, putting it in an oven at high temperatures for several days to check for any possible bacterial contamination. The raw meat and liver were kept in big refrigerated rooms until needed in the production hall. Here everything was done by hand. Even the livers were seasoned by hand and not by machine in order to maintain their delicacy. As we came in the employees were meticulously scrubbing down. We saw a couple of small machines for mixing "bloc", a smoked duck breast slicer, and the cutting tables. Moving along, we came into the cooking room where confit was cooked. As we have seen before, this was done in the more traditional way, being cooked carefully in fat rather than a more typical production line for a large-scale producer. Further, we came around the bend of the "U" shape for sterilization, canning, washing and storage of the final product. By now this equipment was starting to look familiar to us. We learned of some improvements for the next year which would improve the look of the labels and packaging (thought the product itself would remain as tasty as ever), and saw an exciting new product.

When I first ate foie gras from Puy-Lambert I suppose I had an idea that old ladies in the kitchen in the back were doing all the preparation with their own pots and pans. So in a way I was disillusioned to see the production in a white, sterile, "factory"-setting. But I am at the same time reassured that safety and quality are the utmost priorities, so that every time a customer buys a product it will meet the same high standard. Mr. Marty is very careful to use "artisinale" methods, processing ingredients gently by hand, and using no preservatives. So when I look back I think one gets the best of both worlds here.

We rounded off the visit with a trip back to the store, where we bought a foie gras "mi-cuit", which is cooked at a lower internal temperature to better maintain the fresh flavor of the liver. (Some call this "pasteurized" foie gras, a not inappropriate term.) Mi-cuit is canned or store in sealed jars, but at the same time needs to be kept in the refrigerator and has a shorter self-life. Unfortunately I cannot import this now as I don't have the proper storage facility for cold goods. So it was fun to buy a sample and test it at the house. We had been so stuffed for lunch that we settled for eating only the foie gras for dinner. It had a lovely texture, firm but not crumbly, a pale pink color, and a taste which was a little more peppery and meaty that the fully conserved version. It was fantastic with a little toasted country bread, salad, and onion compote with Sauternes.

France: November 8 -- Foie gras from egg to jar

Today we headed off to a real farm, La Campagnoise. This is a farm where I get my successful terrines of rabbit and duck, as well as the famous onion compote with Cahors wine. It was an exciting visit as they do everything themselves here -- raising birds, feeding them, and producing the end result. The farm is pretty much self-contained and epitomizes the "farm product" ideal. Starting with this concept about 30 years ago, they claim to be one of the first in the region to have this kind of business. Many other farmers deliver products to large companies instead. They are small and happy with the revenue that they have, though a bit amused that Norwegians should want to import their products!

We met Mr.Toulzac, the manager of the farm, and were first shown the fields where the geese and ducks are (separately) raised. We looked over a large expanse of open fields where ducks sporting black and white feathers were running around, some drinking water from a fountain, most mainly flying a bit here and there. He explained that these were hybrid ducks ("mulard") which were a cross between the barbary duck (the one one normally sees in rivers etc, "stokkand" in Norwegian) and Peking duck (which is tasty in Chinese restaurants). The result is a duck which is sterile. This hybrid is used as the duck requires less resources and feed in order to produce meat and liver which meet standard size requirements. The geese were off in a separate field, a ways away. He explained to us that while one could make foie gras of ducks all year round, geese could only be fed during the summer months (June - September) and that they respect the seasons at the farm. (I met another farmed later in the day who claimed that goose season was from now until April, so go figure.) In any case, the geese they had now were only for "reproductive purposes".

We were then led into the hatchery, where we saw many egg types: duck, goose and quail eggs, in order to see and compare sizes.They hatch their own birds at the farm, using a couple of different incubators. Then the ducklings and geeselings (is that a word?) are brought out to the fields to be raised in the open. This is called "élevage".

When the ducks are grown enough, they are brought into a barn to start the period called "gavage". This is where they are force-fed for 2 weeks (3 for geese) and also the process which some might find difficult to accept. It was therefore very interesting to finally see the process for myself. We were shown the traditional funnel, which was no longer used, as well as a machine that the farm used for feeding. Here I learned that there are two kinds of feeding machines: hydraulic and pneumatic. Often this feeding is portrayed only by description of the pneumatic machines, which violently shoot feed down the neck of the bird. However, this farm uses a hydraulic system where they gently press a piston in order to slowly ease the food into the duck. It is more comfortable for the duck as well as producing a better product. Ducks are fed corn flour at first, then whole corn pieces, when their systems are more adapted to receiving the feed, and always mixed with water. The barn was divided into pens with low walls, where there were several ducks per pen with plenty of room to move and walk around. We did not see the actual feeding, which happened later in the day, but the ducks seemed in good shape, and had been fed since Monday.

I am not going to rehash the whole feeding debate here except to say that I was glad to see that single cages were not used, feeding done as gently as possible given the process, and that the birds seemed fairly happy and had spent most of their life in large open fields. The pens were no worse than similar pens for pigs, sheep or goats on other farms, and the birds are genetically designed by nature to receive the feed, which is why no other kinds of birds can be used to make foie gras.

We were led then to the production building where the final product is made after the birds are slaughtered and plucked. The process was fairly similar to that of Valette that we saw earlier, but of course on a smaller scale. Still, there were clean rooms and a few employees in white coats, sorting, cooking, and canning. They all seemed in good moods. We saw how the livers were sorted into various categories to make "entier" (the best pure quality), "bloc" (the mixed liver at a lower price), as well as that which goes into terrines, sauces, etc. Color, texture and size were all important. We saw the duck breasts and smoked meat, sausage, confit, canning and sterilization, all of course done by hand.

At last we left the small production facility and were invited to a tasting. It is indeed a hard business when one has to taste foie gras at the end of every meeting. But oh, well, such is life. We were offered a couple of new products, a foie gras of duck which was made with a jelly of a local sweet wine, Vin Paillé du Corrèze, a favorite of mine. The wine is made with grapes dried on straw mats, and is sweet but not too sugary, with a distinct meaty and raisiny character with goes very well with duck liver, to my mind sometimes better than Sauternes. So this combination was a delight. I was also extremely pleased to see a new "confit d'oignon" or onion compote. The one I sell from this farm is made with red wine, and is robust, while the new one is made with Sauternes, and is delicate and sweeter, and is possibly an even more perfect match to foie gras. I am definitely considering putting this product in my selection.

After this eventful morning we went back to the house for a simple lunch of pumpkin soup, Toulouse sausages, rillettes and cheese. We did a couple of errands in Brive, including a little Christmas shopping. I then had the urge to try a completely new foie gras producer so started driving off in the direction of Collognes-la-Rouges, a very picturesque village made of red brick. We did indeed along the way find a small hand-painted sign saying "foie gras" and turned off the road, up a hill, onto a farm. One is always unsure if one is intruding in situations like this. There seems to be nobody home, tourist season is over, dogs are barking at your car... but then a nice man came out and showed us to his small showroom. It turned out that he was a producer of only goose foie gras, something rather rare, as most farmers deal with ducks, which are cheaper to feed and more reliable. Geese are more easily stressed and require more care and feed for ultimately less product. But nothing rivals the true elegance of a goose liver, and goose confit has a rich yet mild taste which to my mind is better than duck.

We bought a jar of foie gras, and saw his farm. His geese were raised off in the distance, and we saw some of the geese in the feeding barn, in a setup nearly identical to the one we saw earlier that day. The geese were as I had heard more skeptical of strangers, and when we came in they crowded away from us. Asking the farmer about this, he admitted that they were afraid, and that they became easily stressed when strangers, those who had not raised them, were present. I was assured that they were more relaxed when the farmed alone came into the barn. They seemed otherwise healthy and happy, and were about halfway through their feeding program.

The farmer's father then came out to greet us, and I understood at last what the South-West dialect really was. I have gotten a lot better at understanding and speaking French during this trip, but I felt like this old man spoke a different language entirely!

Dinner at home was goose foie gras from the local farm, which was flavorful if a bit dry and crumbly, more veal steak, this time with samples of flavored mustard from Denoix and a mushroom risotto, cheese and ice cream. All accompanied by the wines in the house, it was a good end to a very interesting day.

France: November 7 -- The Pope Himself had no idea...

Tuesday was the day to visit my biggest supplier, Elie-Arnaud Denoix. This distillery makes the mustards, jams, vinegars and other condiments that I sell. I must say that I am extremely happy with the quality, the beauty of the packaging, and the fact that they sell quite well! What I didn't know was how great a guy Mr. Denoix was.

We got to the small factory early in the town of Turenne-Gare. This is just a bit aways from the medieval and touristy town of Turenne, which is an impressive site. It sits atop a hill with a big castle with huge turrets (hence the name, I guess) high up which give a great view of the entire area. Turenne-Gare is, on the other hand, where the train station is. And our factory.

My regular contact was on sick-leave, unfortunately, but a man came to greet us and this turned out to be Mr. Elie-Arnaud Denoix himself. He was not what I expected of a president of a successful company -- he was very kind, accessible, and interested in exactly what it was I was doing. Many times he referred to the fact that he had started out like me, and that felt pretty good to hear.

Denoix started about 30 years ago, after splitting with the Maison Denoix in Brive, which can today cause perhaps some confusion, but the products are quite distinct. He started in the lovely village of Collognes-la-Rouge (where all the building are made of a red mason found very locally), where he made liqueurs and spirits. He later expanded to mustards, vinegars and other products. Common to all his products is his skill in extracting flavors from fruits, spices, or other foodstuffs (he told us of his Camembert liqueur experiment), and adding it to spirits, oils, vinegars, mustards and chutneys. Product development was obviously very important and we got to taste top secret new products!!

The flavor extraction, as we saw in the factory, was done in different ways, but always naturally. Some products were macerated, for example we saw big bags of spices floating in vats of balsamic vinegar, and could smell the aromas clearly. Other flavors were actually distilled, like anis, lemon and lime. He had a still, not for concentrating alcohol, as he started with a 96% solution that he bought elsewhere, but instead for distilling the mixture of the alcohol with the flavor components, resulting in a liquid where the volatile elements of the flavor was well integrated in the spirit, which was actually less strong.

And we had to ask him about his most famous product, moutarde violette. For those who don't know this product (shame -- go buy in the store now...) it is a mustard made with 50% concentrated grape juice, which gives it a distinct sweetness which balances the sharp acidity of the mustard paste. The story goes that many hundred years ago, there was a Pope (one of them) in Avignon, France, who had come from Brive in the South-West. He had missed this mustard which was traditionally made there, and asked his nephew to go there to find the recipe and reproduce the mustard. He did, and the nephew became the first official Papal Mustardier.

Mr. Denoix had started development on this mustard many years ago as a part of Maison Denoix, to reproduce this historic recipe. Later when he stared Elie-Arnaud Denoix (or Domaine des Terres Rouges as the mustard is branded today), he reformulated it, and to my mind, improved its mustardyness and spiciness. He had then written a letter to the Vatican asking about the authenticity of the legend of the Papal Mustard, and got a reply stating that the Pope knew absolutely nothing about this. So much for stories. The mustard is good anyway, and we do know it was used long ago because some cookbooks have survived with recipes using it in local cooking.

We were invited to the tasting room, always my favorite room, and tasted many kinds of flavored balsamic vinegars. Before lunch this added a bit of zest to ones stomach acids, but they were good, and we followed them with a few of his liqueurs and wine drinks. He has an especially good "Christmas wine" (gløgg in Norwegian) which was less sweet and more fresh than these drinks usually are, quite tasty.

We were invited out to lunch, so of course we accepted, and chauffeured off to Turenne proper where we met a Dutch restaurant owner who serves us paté baked in a crust and a lovely warming "Dutch pot-au-feu", sort of a pea-soup with bits of ham and sausage in it. All accompanied by a lovely Cahors.

The weather was fine and we headed off to Brive for some errands. Stig went shopping for wine and I got to translate everything the very-fast-talking wine merchant said. And I checked out a honey supplier I had seen earlier. Then we headed home, a bit tired and very willing to mosey down to La Bonne Famille again to be served dinner.

The main point of the dinner now was also Moutarde Violette. The place serves a beef steak with Moutarde Violette sauce, so we had to try it. First, though, we got an open-faces sandwich (smørbrød) with pigs' feet and fat liver (tartine des pied de cochon et foie gras de canard). Sounds better in french. It was weird but amazingly good. The pigs' feet were kind of meaty and gelatinous, and chopped together with duck liver, lentils, and a warm vinaigrette. The steak was good, too, and the sauce a creamy one that I will try to reverse engineer so I can give the recipe to my customers. A word of warning: when you order steak in France they have a different perception of "rare", "medium", and "well done". Everything is less cooked. I was in the mood for a rare steak, so I ordered "bleu". It came on the plate sizzling and brown, yet the insides were so little cooked they were hardly warmed through. Yet it was delicious meat, if a bit chewy. An enormous profiterole for dessert finished us off, so we died and went to bed, ready for another day.

France: November 6 -- "Would you like champagne or sauternes with that?"

The next morning was cold. The fire had died down and the place was freezing. When we got out to the car there was actually ice on the windshield, and of course the rental company had not included an ice-scraper. But in any case, we got ready and headed off to Gourdon to visit Valette.

Valette is the largest company that I deal with as a supplier. They make a large range of foie gras, patés, confit, sauces, and related items. I had had little personal contact with them before, so it would be good to meet the export manager and talk face to face.

We were taken on a tour of both their warehouse and packaging operations, as well as their factory in St Claire, a sleepy little village a few kilometers away. It was, at least for us, a huge plant: white, clean and smelling of bleach. We signed a form stating that we didn't have any stomach bugs at the moment and donned disposable white gowns, hats and shoe covers.

Despite the clinical nature of the plant, surprisingly much was done by hand, and was not too far from how you would make similar products at home or in a professional kitchen. Livers and meat were delivered fresh from the meat-processing/butcher operation in Bergerac. Salt, pepper and other ingredients like Armagnac (that was stored in huge white containers) was added to the duck in big drums that slowly rotated till the spices had marinated the meat. Livers were then sent off to a room where little old ladies in white hats cleaned them, then stuck them in glass jars, weighing them carefully, before the jars were cooked and it was done. That's really all there is to it. The meat, like the duck legs, were cooked in big vats of duck fat at about 90 degrees, just like a large version of cooking confit in ones own oven. The result was then canned along a line where fat was added to the jar or can, and again much of this was done by hand.

After this we got some taste samples back at the main office, when the person we were meeting opened the fridge and asked "would you like champagne or sauternes with that?" That is definitely the first time someone asked me that question at a business meeting. It's a good reminder that I'm in the right business... (we took the sauternes, of course)

We had a nice light lunch (as light as it gets down here) of braised quail at a little restaurant in Gourdon. We tend to have the restaurants to ourselves these days as the tourist season is over. The weather had turned so warm that we sat outside in the bright sunlight and ate al fresco.

The rest of the day we did some shopping. I practiced my french by making some smalltalk with the butcher at the local "Shopi", which I am proud to say I pulled off. We bought too much, as usual: rillettes, cheeses, salad, wine, bread... all the good basic stuff. When we came home I made a simple dinner. I started with a pumpkin soup, flavored with curry, shallots and crème fraiche. Then we tried a sample we got from Valette, a ready-made dish of foie gras with apples, caramel sauce and a biscuit which was reheated in the glass it came in. It was nice, but as a purist I still prefer my foie gras without too many embellishments. Then we cooked a big juicy slice of côte de veau, a french cut of veal which puts other meat to shame. It was cooked quite rare, yet it was tender, flavorful and juicy. Ice cream for dessert.

I pulled out some of my better wines from the cellar, including Clos Fontindoule, a sweet Monbazillac which isn't made anymore. This was from 1990, and has been getting better every year, and this was no exception. Life is sometimes pretty good.

France: November 5 -- Le Roi Carotte

Sunday was a day to sleep late, a day to take a drive, and -- bien sûr -- a day to take in sunday lunch.

The goal of the day was, foolishly, to find a market and buy some food. Sunday markets aren't that common, but they exist. Unfortunately, I was under the mistaken impression that I could waltz in somewhere in the afternoon. In any case, we decided to head off along the Dordogne to St. Cyprien, a village on the way to Bergerac. The sun was out and the sky was a clear blue, so at the very least we would have a nice drive. We did.

Driving between 12 and 12.30 in the french countryside can be a harrowing business. There aren't many cars on the road, because most people are enjoying lunch. However, the cars on the road are there solely because they are on their way to lunch and getting late. So they drive fast and make dangerous passes on tiny country roads. In any case, we survived, and as the time began to tick closer to one o'clock, we realized that we really needed to find a place ourselves if we were going to eat at all.

We stopped in a little village called Rouffignac, but there was only a couple of hotel restaurants that served typical tourist food (confit). Confit is of course good, otherwise I wouldn't sell it at high prices, but you get tired of the typical tourist confit they serve. Anyway, the places were nearly empty, never a good sign. We decided to cross the Dordogne to the next village. After a little walking we found a sign to a place 1 km away so drove there -- to Le Roi Carotte.

It was a lovely small hotel with a restaurant filled with a few big french families. The proprietor greeted us and let us eat as long as we weren't in a hurry. This was key because everyone else had ordered and it would take a while before he was to get to us. But we weren't, and it was pleasant. We sat at a small table next to a big window. We wiled the time away with a Pastis, before receiving our appetizer. Stig had the paté de foie gras, which differs from foie gras in that it is surrounded by a pork paté. I had a dish that was new to me, pears roasted with Roquefort, served on a salad with a nice sharp dressing. The saltiness of Roquefort blue cheese complements sweet fruit quite well, so it was good. We started drinking a very local wine, a Domme Tradition 2004, made in Domme 20 km away. We decided it definitely contained no cabernet, and asked the man which grapes it was made of. The answer? Cabernet, and merlot. Oh, well.

What better for sunday lunch than a cassoulet, that rich dish with beans and pork and duck confit in a creamy brown sauce? It came bubling hot, though with the traditional sausage. Everyone else (almost) at the restaurant got some other bubling stew out of the over, though I didn't see it on the menu, I guess they kept the dish of the day a secret to us foreigners. But the cassoulet was filling and good, and Stig had confit. Mind you, good confit.

Now, remember the window we sat next to? The sun shone right through it, and though it was a relatively cool day, we started to get hot like greenhouse tomatoes. Really hot, like sweating and desperate to get out and cool down. Next time pick the table in the shade....

It wasn't before three that we drove the rest of the way to St Cyprien, where there wasn't much, so we turned back and did a little sightseeing along the river, popping into a castle atop a big cliff. Pretty.

There isn't that much more to say. We drove back hoping to find an open shop but all shops closed at 12 on Sunday, so so much for that. We went home, fixed up an omelet, heated up the doggy-bag pizza and feasted on some cabicou cheese, actually quite mature and good, the stuff we bought the day before. Off early to bed before the big meeting with Valette the next day!

France: November 4 -- the first day

I am traveling with my good friend Stig, who I pick up dutifully at the incredible hour of 5 in the morning, to drive over to the airport. We are flying to Toulouse via Brussels, which in the end is a good way to get to the Southwest rather than flying to Paris and taking a long drive down. Toulouse is a worth destination in the middle of the Southwest where Toulouse sausage and cassoulet figure prominently, but we have decided to stay in Toulouse the last night, so we will drive right up to Sarrazac today.

We set off in a rental, a gray diesel Renault Megane, one of those French cars that feel like you're sitting in a big sofa. I plug in my GPS which promptly doesn't understand that the airport roads have been redone and rerouted, and head off in the wrong direction.

OK, we figure that one out pretty quickly, and are off towards Sarrazac. The name of my import company is indeed the same as the village where my American/French friends Malcolm and Nicole have a house, or small farm. It is just a two hour drive, and as the clock gets closer to one, we are ready for some French lunch.

Finding a place off the road to eat lunch is always a gamble. You can always eat at the big roadside cafeterias, which in France are not bad, and offer an array of courses, cheeses and even wine, but it is much more fun to find a little café in some little town, and you never know, it might just be a jewel in the rough, a "find". We head off to a place called Caussade, which turns out to be a little bigger than first imagined. I drive around the little roads trying to find a place to park so we can search further, dreading the idea of parallel parking a car with a stick-shift that I'm not very accustomed to. We eventually find a wide open parking space in a side street. I still think my GPS is so nifty that I take it with us and let it lead us to a restaurant called "Les Galois". (They really should put restaurant descriptions in those things -- we had no idea what kind of place we were heading towards.)

Les Galois is a pizzeria. But upon closer examination, it has pretty interesting pizzas. With snails, with smoked duck breast and with gésiers, or confit of goose gizzards. Cool! We both had a three-course lunch: a Salad Landaise, which is a typical regional salad with lettuce, tomato, smoked duck breast and gizzards, a pizza and an ice-cream for dessert. The salad was simple but big and good, and most could have stopped right there. I ordered the "Pizza Quercynoise", with no tomato sauce but instead a crême fraïche topping with goose gizzards and cheese. Rich doesn't begin to describe it. Now I can tell all my customers to buy my goose gizzards and put it on their pizza! Halfway through I deserted the effort and asked for "le doggy bag". An ice-cream sunday for desert goes in its own stomach, though, and so, stuffed, we rolled back to the car. Welcome to France.

A couple of hours later we are in Sarrazac, after stopping at a convenience store to get some essentials. (Amazing how even the convenience stores here are great little supermarkets -- with cheese, fresh rillettes, local wines, good bread...) After some confusion at the local hotel who supposedly had the keys, we get in the house. It is a nice stone house with some simple and tasteful furniture, and despite a few cobwebs everything seems in order. Stig chases down a monster spider while I go to the much more important task of trying to find the keys to the wine cellar. (I need a drink! and I have a great deal of good wine that has been maturing slowly in this cellar....) A little more time goes to figuring out where to turn on the power and the water. Finally we are settled, and I pour a nice glass of Domaine du Prince, a cheeky little Cahors wine, and we munch on a couple of the best walnuts in the world.

Around 8 o'clock we pretend to be hungry again and mosey down to the local restaurant/hotel, La Bonne Famille, a really charming place with good home cooked food, red checkered tablecloths, and a communal cheese board. It's Saturday, so they get out their big menus. The place is filled with frenchmen, as it is not really tourist season, and I expect many of them came there to celebrate a birthday of good night out. This little place is known among the locals for its unpretentious fare.

The menu is made up of a couple of 4 or 5-course suggestions with traditional dishes like cassoulet or confit, and in addition a set of dishes of the day which can be substituted. This is where the good stuff is. I order the 5-course menu, so I get first a little soup (velouté) of pepper and chestnut, smooth, warm and delicious, while Stig watches me eat. Then comes for me a cep (steinsopp in Norwegian) omelet and for Stig a dish of duck rillettes and foies gras with a nice salad. The waiter asks me how I want my omelet, if I want it "baveuse", which is a word I don't understand but am too embarrassed to ask, but simply say "not too much cooked" as I am in the mood for a light, runny omelet, the best kind. I am not disappointed. It is so light and delicate that I start to wonder what I do wrong when I make omelets at home. And it's filled with meaty mushrooms, a huge omelet that fills to whole plate. Stig's paté was creamy and delightful.

We are both pretty full already when we are served the dish of the day, a wild boar stew (civet). It comes in a big pottery crock which has obviously been in the oven, enough food for three (but we get one each, of course)! The bits of boar are so tender they can be mashed with a spoon, and have been thoroughly infused with the flavor of the stew: red wine, carrots, onions, a bay leaf, and presumably some chef's secrets. It is a delightful struggle.

No meal is complete of course without cheese and dessert. The cheeses are simple and local, and it is for me nice to recognize all the cheeses on the board. I zero first in on the essential local cheese, a "cabicou" which is a small round goat cheese which can either be very fresh (as this one was) or more mature depending on how many days it has been kept, as it matures very quickly. The other local cheese one finds everywhere here is Cantal, a cow cheese made near Auvergne (the mountain range to the east of us), a mild semi-hard cheese. A little crême brulée and (for Stig) raspberry sorbet for dessert and we are ready to go home when the lights all go out! Candles are lit, a birthday song is sung at another table, I suspect just because the candles were lit and they felt like it, and everyone takes it in stride. After a while we struggle out of our seats and waddle home like overfed geese.

A nightcap and a few minutes later we are in bed. It has been a great day already and I'm looking forward to the rest of the trip!

France: And so it begins... Sarrazac 2006

I've never been very good at keeping diaries or (b)logs, but I am going to make an account of my trip to Southwest-France in November 2007. It is not just a vacation (not a vacation at all! it's work!) but also a chance to meet the suppliers of the products I import, see how they make their products, as well as get inspiration and new ideas for tips and recipes. So this really is for my customers, my friends and my family who support this venture. I hope this small section of blog will be interesting to you!

(An apology to my Norwegian readers -- I am writing these entries in English. Both because it is my mother language and I am slightly hungover after an enormous meal the night before, and so that my American friends have a chance to read it, too.)