September in Provence
It's September
and our markets have returned to normal, ie, with fewer tourists the
vendors have time again to discuss recipes, the weather, and the pros
and cons of potatoes in brandade de morue. Our old fromager, who has
been promising Oscar a cachaille for four years now, is back and again
greets Oscar with a wide grin and "Je n'ai pas oublié, Monsieur!" but
still no cachaille... The best home-made jams are still to be found at
the stall of the Petites Soeurs de Jésus (a local order of nuns who do
a killer business with their jams, vegetables and field flowers) and
our Parisian friends complain only slightly less about the throngs of
tourists (half of whom are Parisian) at the village markets, where more
and more trinkets and gadgets are crowding out the local farm produce.
This
is the beginning of mushroom season and long tables stacked with mounds
of different mushrooms have begun to appear in the markets. I have
never known such a variety of champignons: chanterelles, cèpes,
girolles, pieds de mouton, trompettes de la mort (bon appétit!),
lactaires, mourserons, etc. Sautéed in olive oil, parsley and garlic it
is one of the seasonal pleasures of the table. Next... truffles.
Yesterday, the hunting season was opened and soon we will be enjoying
the bounty of La Chasse, with Daube de Marcassin (young boar) and other
delicious game. We have found an excellent butcher: they sell
everything imaginable and manage to make the most revolting tidbits
taste great. Pieds et Paquets and andouillettes, for example--better
not ask what's in it. Just enjoy.
September
is also La Rentrée in France. Rentrée to school, to politics after a
blessedly quiet summer, and even to literature. For the past week, La
Rentrée Scolaire has been the lead story on television. Even though
nothing ever changes (crying children, anxious mothers, etc.), in early
September La Rentrée displaces war, fires and even strikes. As for La
Rentrée Littéraire, when publishers introduce their new books and new
authors, it looks only slightly more encouraging than the previous
Rentrée when most of the 700 new titles could be filed under the
heading "Libido, my Libido," to give you an idea of last year's trend.
Many of these books were written by sad-looking youngsters (too much
sex? not enough sex?) or by pseudo-intellectuals who invite us to crawl
into their beds and partake of their sex lives which, they seem to
think, is really worth knowing about. Among last year's bestsellers,
for example, was "La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M"--written by Catherine
Millet who appears to be in her fifties and is interviewed on talk
shows (sometimes with her husband) where serious-looking hosts address
her reverentially and nobody cracks a smile. Two of last year's new
books were written by 13 and 16-year old girls who--if the critics are
to be believed--are definitely not the next Françoise Sagan. Back to
school for them. Publishing sure isn't what it used to be, not even in
France where I thought literature fared better than elsewhere.
It's
been 5 years since we left Washington (doesn't tempus fugit?) and we
increasingly feel at home in France but, boy, do things remain
different here. Take, for instance, this not uncommon sight in
inner-city Aix-en-Provence: a parent walking with a little child
suddenly steps into the middle of the narrow street to the shallow
channel for rain runoff, takes the kid's pants down, then picks it up
from behind in a sitting position and lifts it over the channel to
deposit its pipi, puts the pants back on and steps back onto the
sidewalk with a gracious nod to the cars that have been forced to stop
and wait for this little ritual. I have never heard a car honk and half
expect that a driver who did so would get an earful from passersby. In
the narrow one-way streets, cars often have to wait for a truck to
unload, or for a driver who stops at a bakery for a few baguettes, or
for a youngster who honks at his friends who come running over to each
give him the requisite number of kisses--so why not for a kid that has
to pee? It's a damn sight cuter than the guy I saw the other day in a
small nearby town where the N-7 cuts through. There, next to the one
and only stoplight a guy took a pee against a tree in full view of a
steady line of cars, shook his tweasel, zipped up and walked off
without so much as a glance in the direction of his audience.
The
kissing scene is interesting too, particularly among the younger crowd
who never pass each other without stopping for a number of
kisses--anywhere from 2 to 4. (I must make a study of this, sometime. I
believe the number depends on the region). You're sitting at a crowded
sidewalk café, some teenagers approach, a "Salut!" is heard from behind
and, like magnets the two groups are drawn to each other, the walking
teens squeezing through impossibly tight spaces to reach the sitting
ones who turn up their cheeks to receive the expected air kisses, after
which they all return to their respective conversations and
destinations.
Another standout
feature of the young (and not so young) is hair color. I have seen
colors here that don't belong to any spectrum. But among young men
blond is still the favorite. Not just any blond, mind you--it's either
bleached blond streaks in dark hair or blond corn rows on a dark
(black, green, whatever) background, or a white-blond pony tail on a
dark head, or even multi-colored patches all over. It's the animal
kingdom in mating season. Add to that the very popular fashion of
tatouage (for both sexes), and you can see that ours is a colorful
environment.
--
Anne-Marie Simons has had a long career as a sometime secretary, translator, teacher, journalist, sportswriter (covering Formula One races), realtor, and Director of Corporate Communications, which included writing an international newsletter. Now happily retired, Anne-Marie and her Argentine husband Oscar live in the South of France where she writes and Oscar cooks.
Anne-Marie Simons has had a long career as a sometime secretary, translator, teacher, journalist, sportswriter (covering Formula One races), realtor, and Director of Corporate Communications, which included writing an international newsletter. Now happily retired, Anne-Marie and her Argentine husband Oscar live in the South of France where she writes and Oscar cooks.
