Last year we had a conversation with our friend Susan about
her week doing a cooking class in south western France, which she loved and
recommended. We thought this sounded
like a mighty fine idea so we made sure that we included a week at Le Gargantua
in our schedule. A big thank you to
Susan for the recommendation as we enjoyed this experience immensely. Our only complaint is that we have eaten way
too much beautiful food.
Le Gargantua is the name of the Bed and Breakfast and
cooking school that is run by Marlene, who is French, and her English husband
Marc. Although it started out as bed and
breakfast, the cooking classes are now so popular that they only accept 4
guests each week for cooking classes. It is located in the Lot et Garonne
department about 100 kms north of where we were in the Gers and about 100 kms
south east of Bordeaux. Like the Gers, the
Lot et Garonne is part of the region that was historically known as Gascony, so
there was still a lot of musketeer action.
The country side is also very similar although not quite so isolated; lots of rolling hills and big open skys.
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| Sunflowers nearly dry enough to harvest |
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| Impressive signs of wealth here and there |
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| The church at the nearest town Anzex had its bells in the façade; very typical of the south west |
Marlene and Marc bought an old farmhouse and barn about 10
years ago and renovated it between 2004 and 2007.
They have turned the old barn into the guest rooms (upstairs), and the
kitchen, a dining room and a small sitting room (downstairs). As the weather was still warm and sunny we
also spent quite a bit of time sitting outside sipping (or in my case gulping)
aperitifs.
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| Marc, Penny, Marlene, Tarja and Dale |
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| From our room (last on the end) we had peaceful views over the fields |
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| Le Gargantua is surrounded by farms. Marlene trades surplus gourmet food for fresh fruit and veges from her neighbours |
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| One of Marc's dogs was this funny fellow called Mutza. He was like a huge puppy, always looking for fun, friends and food |
Marlene comes from the Pas de Calais in the far north of
France and learnt to cook from her grandmother.
She was always very patient, provided excellent explanations and loved
lots of laughter in the kitchen.
The cost of the week was all inclusive so we also loved
being able to wander around markets and shops, discussing what we would like
for dinner and never once having to pull out our wallet. It was a lovely change that rarely happens
any other time in life.
While Marlene was taking us on excursions and teaching us to
cook Marc managed the bed and breakfast side of things, made us lunch, did an
amazing amount of washing up both while we cooked and after we had eaten, and
waited on us. So even though we were
making our own dinner we were still pretty much being waited on hand and foot.
Our fellow chefs were Tarja from Finland and Penny, who is
Australian and currently working for Foreign Affairs in Afghanistan. They were delightful company and we felt very
lucky to have been able to share the week bonding while we dissected ducks,
coqs and fish.
When we arrived on Saturday afternoon we dumped all our
luggage and drove north to Sauterne where we sampled various sauternes at the
cave run by the local cooperative. We
think that our wine French is improving as we managed to have a fairly detailed
conversation about the advantages of sauternes.
Don’t let anyone tell you that sauternes can only be drunk with desserts
and foie gras because we have been told that they can and should be drunk with
absolutely all food types!
When we arrived back at Le Gargantua we discovered that 4
English ladies had been having a special one day cooking class with Marlene and
had cooked us dinner. This was a lovely
introduction to what the next few days would hold for us. Main course was peppers stuffed with
different minced meats. Two of the
English women hailed from Melbourne in Derbyshire.
On Sunday morning we went into the nearby town of
Casteljaloux to taste patisseries.
Marlene took us into a local patisserie and we selected 5 little pieces
to taste with coffee. Marlene asked us
for our opinions about each of the patisseries and then gave us a withering
critique – which was essentially that they are all factory made (and hence
lacking authentic taste) and that this is becoming increasingly common in
France (a national disgrace). In any
case we picked the one that we liked the most and we made that for dessert that
night (Raspberry bavarois).
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| The raspberries did not die invain |
There were two notable cooking events of the day. Firstly Dale filleted, cooked and ate sea
bass even though he detests seafood. I
was very very very impressed. Secondly,
through a massive, and exhausting, team effort we completely boned a huge tough
coq in preparation for coq au vin the following evening.
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| Soak in red wine for 24 hours. It might help the coq too. |
On Monday we visited a prune farm that is accredited to
produce the very prestigious prunes d’Agen.
When we arrived the plums had been harvested and dried and were being
sorted into different sizes before being sold as dried prunes or rehydrated and
soaked in or covered in a variety of other mixtures. Our personal favourites were the prune
chocolates and prunes soaked in Armagnac.
The farm had also set up a prune museum that displayed the different
types of ovens and racks that the plums have been dried in over time. We also loved the advertisements and packaging
that have been used. It seems that at
one point prunes were thought to be the wonder food. It was very funny to note that they have
always been recognised for their laxative effects (see poster below). We bought a charming tin with the same image that has a couple of
delightful phrases. Firstly ‘la
purgation devient un plaisir’ (purgation becomes a pleasure) and ‘Il faut
conserver liberte du ventre’ (necessary for conserving the freedom of the
stomach – sounds like passing wind to me!).
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| Plum drying oven from 1880. Not that much has changed in 133 years |
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| The farm sat alongside the tranquil Lot River |
That day we made a prune and apple filo pastry pie known as a
croustade.
On Tuesday we visited the market in Casteljaloux with
Marlene. I felt like it was a privilege (admittedly
I was paying for it) to walk around a market and listen to Marlene’s comments
about the produce. Organic (bio) food is
becoming quite popular in France but Marlene felt it wasn’t necessary to buy it
in this area because as a rule the farmers use pesticides very infrequently and
under the ‘bio’ regulations farmers are allowed to use some pesticides. She
also told us that in the market they display the number of the department in
which the produce is grown so that you can tell whether it is local or
not. They do this by showing the French
department number. We had never
previously been aware of this and will look out for it in the future.
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| Marlene believes that you should always feel food when buying it, and if the vendor doesn't like it, buy somewhere else (or do it when they aren't looking!) |
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| This tickled my fancy. A Vitrerie is a Glazier, so not such a good ad. |
We continued with our theme of cutting up animals by boning
quails and rabbits on Tuesday.
We also
made profiteroles although I was a little unco at piping the pastry. I’m going to need lots of practice to get
good at that. They were however yummy and we served them with ice cream and
chocolate sauce. Yummmmm. Still dreaming about them.
Wednesday was very challenging but informative as we visited
a duck farm that makes foie gras.
Marlene buys her ducks and duck products from this farm because she
believes that they try as hard as possible to make sure that the ducks have a
decent (if short) life and are treated with some dignity. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to describe
any sort of force feeding as respectful of the animal but if we continue to eat
the end result we have to be prepared to live with how it is made. The ducks are raised free range for 3 months,
then force fed in pens in the last 2 weeks of their lives before being killed
by electrocution and then plucked, filleted and cooked on the property. We walked around the fields, the force
feeding pens and the abattoirs. It was
quite confronting and of course we cooked and ate duck that night.
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| The farm had many large fields which are rotated around so that the ducks have grass to graze on (until they strip it like this one has been) |
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| All their processed food is cooked in this unglamorous room |
On a lighter note we also made crème brulee that I found much lighter and less dense than that which I eat in many restaurants.
Marlene had a few wonderful tips like:
- Don’t be afraid of throwing some salt into cooking;
- Flour is the root of all evil – does the sauce really need
to be that thick?;
- Wash salad with a bit of vinegar as it is unfriendly to the
grubs and they fall out;
- The best way to crack an egg is on a flat surface and the
best way to separate whites from yolks is through your fingers rather than
awkwardly tipping the yoke back and forth between the half shells ;
- If you need to brown meat walk away from the pot or pan, it
doesn’t need to be stirred. She sexistly
described this as something that men typically seem to need to do as a way of
being in control and I plead guilty, although I think that it has more to do
with anxiety about the outcome.
On our last day on Thursday the four of us went off to
splash around the very tranquil spa and sauna complex in Casteljaloux. We really enjoyed the relaxation of swimming
in the different warm pools, standing under spa jets and trying to sweat out
some of our excess kilos in the sauna and the steam rooms.
In the afternoon Dale and I did a little tour of a couple of
very picturesque towns in the region.
Nerac is quite a large town built on the sides of a river. There are great views of two imposing
churches, one on each side of the river, and there are a number of very old
half-timbered houses that are leaning over and look like they would be capable
of toppling over at any time.
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| Nerac is divided by the river Baise, which is part of the navigable canals of France |
We drove back via Vianne which is a bastide town with a
largely intact wall. It was very
interesting to see how the wall is now used as housing. There are doors and windows on the outside of
the wall.
What a great week.
I’m not sure that I’ll ever be a gourmet cook but I got to try lots of
things that I haven’t done before and that helps to make you more confident in
the future. Cooking is the best!
Next Time: The final straight
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