Celebrating new wine and chestnuts.

   A couple of hours ago, we came home from a community event that lasted most of the day. Billed as castanhas e vin novèl  ("chestnuts and new wine" in the Occitan language) and announced by leaflets hand-delivered to our post-boxes, it was organized by L'Amicale des Léranais (the Association of people who live in Léran) whose goal is to gather together Léranais and their friends to share memories, experiences, local culture and--inevitably--good food and wine. If you read French, you can follow our adventures at http://amicaledesleranais.centerblog.net
   Shortly after the church bells rang ten o'clock, we met up in the Salle des Tilleuls (one of our village halls) for a quick coffee before we set off on a balade. More amble or saunter than serious hike, this one took us along the river bank and up to the little road that runs from the crossroads just beyond the chateau.
     I'm always delighted by how deeply many Léranais are immersed in their village's history. We learning that grapes have grown locally for over a thousand years. Some people revealed that they remembered wine being made around here too.
    Even though the day was cloudy, as we ambled down through the forest and back to the village, we still had excellent views of the Pyrenees and the glorious autumn colours. Love those russets and browns against the blue-greys.

    By 12:30 or so, we were back at the Salle des Tilleuls where a table was already set with bottles and snacks (including the lethally good fritons, basically unctuous morsels of deep-fried duck skin sprinkled with salt). We all set out the food we'd brought--chestnut inclusion was a good idea, we'd heard--and got stuck into the aperos.

    I'd brought along a pork, chestnut and apple pie that I'd made yesterday. The recipe's so easy that I'll give it to you right now: 250 g each of ground pork, crumbled cooked chestnuts and finely chopped apple plus a beaten egg, 100 ml of Madeira, salt and pepper. Mix that all together and pat it into a 24 or 25 cm flan tin that you've previously buttered and lined with pastry (that you've pricked with a fork). Dollop in the pork mixture, top with another circle of pastry, crimp the edges and brush with beaten egg. Cut a small hole in the middle and bake at 190°C/375°F for 45 minutes. The recipe said to serve it warm but it was fine cold, with curried apple chutney.

    
    Platters were passed up and down the table. Chicken with squash and chestnuts, chestnut and pork patties, a chicken recipe that originated in the French island of Réunion, endive leaves filled with creamed Roquefort, and much, much, much, much more. Many bottles of "new" wine were opened. Everyone shared everything. At some point, an oozingly ripe Brie was passed around, then chestnut cake, marrons glacés, clementines....and finally coffee.

    The age range spanned single figures to mid-80s. There was dancing, singing and, at some point, someone brought out a small trampoline from another room and jumped on it. It was that kind of afternoon.
    And let's not forget the poetry. Going back to that initial announcement...it also included an invitation to contribute a poem or story. So, when I phoned Mauricette (one of the organizers) to RSVP, I added that I would bring a poem...in French.
     And I did. "Châtaigne" is another word for "chestnut."

Elle est belle, elle est ronde, elle est bonne à manger

Avec un verre de vin ou un verre de Champagne

Elle est si delicieuse, ce beau fruit d’hiver

Je parle naturellement de la châtaigne

On peux faire un farce pour un poulet ou un dinde

On peux faire une bonne tarte pour la famille

On peux l’utiliser dans une daube ou une soupe

Je parle naturellement de la châtaigne

Elle commence avec une fleur de printemps

Qui décore l’arbre comme une chandelle

Et après elle porte un manteau verte

Toujours la châtaigne est belle

Mais la châtaigne est une mixe des humeurs

A l’exterieur elle est dure, épineuse

Mais apprendre à la connaitre et vous decouvrez

A sa coeur, elle est douce, delicieuse

Quand il fait froid en hiver, en Decembre

C’est plaisant de s’asseoir au coin du feu sain

Et là, de rotir les belles fruits du saison

Je parle naturellement des châtaignes.

   It fills me with pride to boast that this was judged adequate enough to win me a lovely bar of soap.      What a thoroughly pleasurable day.

  

Last of the summer wine...

    Each Friday night during July and August, our village holds a marché gourmand. The best way to think of it is as a large street party. What started out as a small local event several years ago now takes up a major section of the main rue and attracts crowds, sometimes of literally hundreds, from several kilometres around.
    Midway through Friday afternoon, barriers are set up to divert the traffic and long trestle tables and benches are put in place. No plates or cutlery or glasses. You either bring your own or rely on the food truck you're buying from to supply them. Lately, we've been eating Asian food made by a lady who lives in nearby Regat but is originally from Vientiane in Laos. She and her family work incredibly hard. I'd already seen her in Lavelanet market that morning selling her noodle stir fry, spring rolls, shrimp beignets and samosas. (The French for chopsticks, by the way, is "baguettes" and, while I'm at it, baguette is also a word for what the conductor conducts the orchestra with.)
    Riiiight, back on to the main topic. You can buy pork chops, merguez, chorizo and regular saucisse, steaks of various kinds, slabs of ribs...from the butcher and have them grilled over charcoal.

    To the right of the butcher's truck, cut off by my inept photography, is a mother lode of spitting, hissing, finger-burning frites with ample dispensers of mayonnaise and ketchup to squirt over them. Elsewhere you can take away escargots, paella, magrets-frites-and-persillade and more Asian food. All of which says something about modern French tastes, at least in our part of the country.

    You sit down where you can with old friends, and with people you've just met. There's bread from the boulangerie. Bottles of wine. A lot of sharing goes on. Here's what the street looks like when the night market's at its peak. This one was less crowded than usual. Because it's September, most visitors had gone home so the night had a friendly local feel to it.

    Dessert was locally-made ewe's milk ice cream. The sharp-eyed amongst you will be able to make out some of the flavours on the list, which includes violet and rose-petal. Peter had chocolate. I licked away at a boule of  caramel flecked with sel de Gruissan. 

     The weather the previous Friday had been so abysmal that the planned fireworks display was rained out. Not this week. So, just before the scheduled starting time of 10:30 p.m., we all trooped through the streets to the rugby pitch on the outskirts of Léran.

Bonne nuit.

What a weekend of vide grenier-ing and exotic dancing!

    We were desolés that the friends from Vancouver who stayed with us for the latter part of the week before last had to leave on the Saturday afternoon, thereby missing the flood of attic-emptying that would find its way on to local stalls on Sunday (more of that later).
    So, we were all chuffed to see that the Lavelanet vide grenier was scheduled for Saturday, starting at 6 a.m. We didn't make it that early but we were there around 9 a.m. Not a huge number of participants as the day was grey and chilly. But we did find finds.
    A stack of very old documents covered all over in brown spidery writing were only available as "le lot"--and that was 100 euros. Vintage postcards, on the other hand, were a reasonable 50 centimes. Don't you love this flapper from 1922? Fur stole, feather in her hat, flagrantly red lips, come-hither eyes: she's got the lot.

  

 I also left with a tiny hand-embroidered pin-cushion...

....and a Princess Grace and Prince Rainier tea-cup. Having second thoughts about this one already...

********

    A further wealth of possibilities faced us on Sunday, starting right under our noses in Léran. The sun shone, stalls were laden and, rooting through a box of postcards, I chose these--details below each one.

Feel free to contribute guesses as to what's going on here. All I can tell you is that the card is addressed to a Monsieur Joseph Joulin who lived in Narbonne, and the message simply reads: "Paris. 4/2/1914" and a question mark.

This one's more for family consumption, but it was never sent to anyone. A stamp on the back advertises Maison Labau, a clothing store for "hommes et garçonnets", Isn't "garçonnet" a sweet word? It's old French for "a little boy."

I bought this one because of the vintage car and its occupants. 

Barcelona--in the old days. Apologies but I can't make out the date on the postmark.

Turin at night. This is almost my favourite one of the bunch because of its cinéma noir-ish feel.

 
  I also nabbed an enormous piece of red checked fabric, fibres unknown to me to the stall lady (who also sold me these postcards). A picnic blanket?
    Purchases went back to the house before we jumped in the car and drove to Manses, a little village just north of Mirepoix.

Books, DVDs and videocassettes, chinaware, glasses, a lamp, vases, pictures...

Lunch first. Hot dogs on  baguette, cheese on baguette or ham on baguette. And frites.

Inside the village hall, you could buy wine, pastis, beer, soft drinks or coffee.

    The buy of the day that had me jumping up and down was a copper watering can. I wasn't even going to bother to ask the price, reckoning it would be in the 40 to 50 euro range. Then, the man selling it told me I should buy it because it went with my outfit (only in France!), said the price was five euros (yes, yes) and threw in"un petit Jésus"(one of those tiny china models that hide in French Christmas cakes) for free.

    On my second trawl of the market,  I spotted a magnificent jug shaped like a bunch of grapes, two euros for this, another gift, and then a third one later of a pre-Euro-era Italian coin. I gave him a 100 baht coin from Thailand that had wiggled its way to the bottom of my handbag.
    Later, the same day: our homeward route took us through Mirepoix anyway so we parked on a side street, and walked into the square to watch a promised exhibit of South American dancing. I'd envisaged live musicians, frilly frocks and tight trousers. Got none of those but the shoes definitely made up for it.

The Léran Spectacle

Accent on the "tacle", the spectacle is our village's annual historical pageant held, this year, in the grounds of the chateau de Léran. Crammed with snails from the cargolade earlier that evening, we lacked the energy to take in the Saturday night son et lumière version. Instead, today, we ambled down to the show scheduled for 5 p.m.

Banked seats were set up in the shade. In front of us was the large meadow where sheep occasionally graze. Beyond it was a row of enormously tall trees and behind those, hidden by leaves at this time of year, is the chateau. 

Called "Léran-cestral" the 90 minute show was a quick whip through village history. Vignettes of peasants going about their daily sowing, laundering and threshing gave way to a Saracen attack. I think. My understanding of French went awry at this point. Anyway, a sequence featuring nubile, be-sequinned and filmily attired dancing girls. 

Highlights were the horse that galloped in towing a large blazing ball, jousting, a trio of fire-eaters, and the Black Death with the tiniest members of the cast costumed as Disney-ish rats. 

Special applause for the costumes which the village ladies spend much of the year making.