A Summer In Gascony Read online

  Praise for

  A SUMMER IN GASCONY

  “Nostalgia for a traditional France, soused in

  Armagnac, sunshine and young love, brought

  vividly to life.”

  John Mole, author of It’s All Greek to Me!

  “Entrancing… the reader soaks up Gascony like a

  thirsty vine.”

  Kevin Gale, France Bookshop

  “Martin’s vivid descriptions of his time spent in

  la France profonde allow readers to experience, eat and

  drink their way through a summer in Gascony from

  the comfort of an armchair.”

  Nick & Karen Kitchener,

  EARL Domaine de Lauroux Winery

  “A charming and nostalgic account, written in an

  accessible and down-to-earth style, this book offers

  an insider’s perspective of Gascony. I felt entirely

  satisfied with this read and keen to sample

  Gascony’s rural pleasures for myself.”

  Becci Sargent, French Magazine Book Club

  A SUMMER IN GASCONY

  Discovering the Other

  South of France

  MARTIN CALDER

  This paperback edition first published by

  Nicholas Brealey Publishing in 2009

  First published 2008

  Carmelite House

  Hachette Book Group

  50 Victoria Embankment

  53 State Street

  London EC4Y ODZ

  Boston, MA 02109, USA

  Tel: 020 3122 6000

  Tel: (617) 523-3801

  www.nicholasbrealey.com

  www.asummeringascony.com

  © Martin Calder 2008

  The right of Martin Calder to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Illustrations by the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-47364-450-2

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

  Printed in the UK by Clays Ltd on Forest Stewardship Council certified paper.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  A Warm Welcome

  En Famille

  The Genial Host

  Maigret or Magret?

  New Arrivals

  More Geese than People

  Melon-Seed Necklace

  Here Come the Vascones!

  Gasconnade

  England’s Vineyard

  Breakdown Bend

  Dogs and Sheep

  Madame Parle-Beaucoup

  From Field to Table

  Amandine

  Pattes the Paws

  Cassoulet and Cornichons

  Where Are the Brakes?

  Are You Vikings?

  Hans and Lotte

  White Horses

  Méchoui

  Tour de France

  No Grain, No Pain

  Le Percheron

  Les-Gens-du-Château

  Valley of the Lizards

  Market Day

  Festival Week

  La Guinguette

  Between Dog and Wolf

  Plum Picking

  Thunder and Lightning

  Fruits of the Vine

  This Precious Booty

  Pastis and Peanuts

  Au Revoir

  Epilogue

  A SUMMER IN GASCONY

  The real Gascon, with the flashing eyes of the Pyrenees, swarthy

  of skin, short of stature, gaunt-featured like the earth which

  clings to the rocks in his country, an original character, full of

  contradictions, brave as his sword, loud as his drum,

  embarrassed by praise, humble in the face of criticism, fond of

  rewarding adventures, ready to give to a profitable cause,

  careful with his money, liberal with his promises, talkative yet

  capable of being quiet, irritable yet capable of self-control,

  ambitious yet patient, as thoughtful as he is hot-headed, as

  agreeable as he is proud, always master of his heart and his head,

  even in moments of high emotion, such is the real and authentic

  Gascon.

  Translated from the French of Charles Normand, 1892

  PROLOGUE

  I FIRST DISCOVERED GASCONY DURING A MEMORABLE SUMMER I spent living and working with a farming family in their ferme-auberge in a remote hilltop village in southwest France. I was 22 at the time and was on the long university vacation. The summer was a time of challenges and pleasures, as I adapted to an environment completely unfamiliar to me. I came to admire and respect the values and traditions of the Gascon people, and their determination to preserve their way of life in the face of the pressures of the modern world.

  The preceding summer I had picked grapes in the Languedoc, on the vineyards of the renowned Blanquette de Limoux, the oldest sparkling wine in France. The vendange was interesting, but brutally hard work. I stayed a couple of weeks and the only people I met, apart from minimal contact with the grower, were other British students and a pair of disaffected Scots who worked on the vendange every year. I wanted to go back to work in the area, but this time to get to know local people.

  The South of France held rich associations. I’d read the books and seen the films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, about peasant life in Provence. I’d been inspired by the film Betty Blue, with the quirky life it portrayed at Gruissan-Plage on the Mediterranean coast and in the small town of Marvejols, in the Lozère. I’d been told that Gascony, in the far southwest, was the most rural part of France, where every aspect of life was in some way related to farming and country pursuits.

  I’d already had some dealings with an overseas employment agency in Oxford, so I obtained a list of summer work available that year. One advert jumped off the page, a job in the village of Péguilhan in deepest Gascony. The ad gave a few details: a traditional country inn with a separate farm, run by the Cazagnac family, offering good regional food and hospitality. Their business was new and expanding and they needed summer workers to help them during the high season, both at the Auberge itself and on their farm. Just before Easter, I wrote an enthusiastic letter with a passport photograph of myself stapled to the corner, keeping my fingers crossed that something would come of it. A couple of weeks later a letter arrived from the Cazagnacs, saying they would be happy for me to come to work for them. I had a good feeling about it: the Auberge and the farm appealed to my ideas of escapism and adventure, combined with family life. I wrote back straight away, saying I would arrive towards the end of May.

  I’d studied civil engineering at university and was following that up with a degree in French. I’m quite practical and my French was good, but nothing qualified me for the work I did that summer. The people and customs of Gascony gave me an abrupt culture shock when I first arrived. And in addition to the hard work and the new people, I had to adapt to living in such an isolated place, far away from home.

  That was a few years ago. The Channel Tunnel was being constructed at the time but was not yet open. There were no cheap flights to the southwest of France, nor did the fast train, the TGV, yet serve the area. The only reasona
ble option was the Channel ferry followed by long train journeys. The euro was only an idea then and price conversions were easy – ten francs to the pound – but in this rural landscape it hardly mattered, there was nowhere to spend what money I earned.

  Gascony has a distinct identity and a particular history, which set it apart from the rest of France. It was home to an ancient Iberian tribe called the Vascones, who gave it their name. For centuries it was an independent state ruled by the Dukes of Gascony. It has old affinities and friendships with England. Gascony supplied England with huge quantities of wine, making people in both nations prosperous and happy. In the Middle Ages Gascons fought alongside the English against a common foe – the French! During the Napoleonic Wars, the Gascon peasantry sided with the British army against the French. The Gascons still regard northern France as another country and are particularly suspicious of Parisians.

  Stretching from Toulouse in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west, from the river Garonne in the north to the Pyrenees in the south, Gascony is a golden land of rolling hills and wide horizons, swathed with vineyards, sunflowers, maize and pastures. Wild boar and roe deer roam the oak forests. The people are honest, welcoming, earthy, stubborn and independent. In the towns in summer, locals and visitors can join in with the street music of the joyeuses bandas, lively brass and percussion orchestras of musicians dressed in colourful costumes. The Gascons have their own particular customs, and the French outside of Gascony, when confronted with their funny ways, shrug their shoulders – it’s the southwest, what can you expect?

  A WARM WELCOME

  THE BRAKES OF THE OVERNIGHT SLEEPER TRAIN FROM PARIS squealed steadily as it drew into Toulouse Matabiau station just after seven o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t slept much during the night: the tip-down couchette had been cramped and not very comfortable, and besides, my mind was too full of expectations about the summer ahead. The train came to a halt as the force of the brakes overcame its awesome momentum. The station was busy, with people criss-crossing between the ticket hall and the platforms. I jumped out of the way of a motorised luggage trolley as it nudged impatiently through the crowd.

  I bought a ticket and boarded a local stopping train to take me on the next leg of my journey to Saint-Gaudens. The clack-clackety train took a roundabout route through the sidings and suburbs of Toulouse before heading out up the valley of the river Garonne. A light morning mist hung over the river. Fields of maize stretched across the broad valley floor. Rolling hills rose up on either side. I knew that somewhere up there, in the high hills between Toulouse and the Pyrenees, was my destination: a small village named Péguilhan, where I was going to spend the summer.

  The journey to Saint-Gaudens took about fifty minutes. This was as close to Péguilhan as I could get. Only a few people got off the train when it stopped and they soon disappeared. I looked around, my heart full of the excitement of arriving in a new place. I climbed the stone steps up to the old town on the hill. The streets were quiet. I decided to take a breather before heading on to Péguilhan: I needed to get my head together, I hadn’t had any breakfast and I was tired and hungry. In the clear blue May morning, I sat on a café terrace with a coffee and a croissant, admiring the panorama of the valley. The sun played with sharp shadows and bright open spaces. I felt the warm air of the South on my face, like a gentle, welcoming caress. Along the terrace the paulownia trees were in full bloom, their pale lilac flowers, hanging in clusters, giving off a distinctive, earthy, musk-rose scent, captivating and evocative of rich smells and tastes.

  How was I going to get to Péguilhan? I spread the map out on the table. It was about another thirty or forty kilometres away, in the middle of nowhere. There was no railway line. I asked in the café, but they were rather vague and told me they didn’t think there was a bus that could take me there. I walked to the edge of town. There was no one else around to ask. A road sign with a diagonal red line through the name ST-GAUDENS marked the end of the town and the start of open country. The morning was warming up and a heat haze was beginning to shimmer above the tarmac. The road, shaded only by trees spaced at intervals along the verges, stretched out into the distance. This was the last frontier; from here on I was heading into the unknown.

  I tried to hitch a lift from a passing car, but when it stopped the driver told me he was only going to the next farm. A tractor driver shrugged his shoulders as he went by, as if to tell me he had no room. After that there was no traffic at all for what seemed like ages. Standing by the empty roadside, the excitement I’d felt earlier was quickly evaporating. I felt a twinge of uncertainty, not knowing what I’d let myself in for. You can always turn round and go home now, I thought. I had an open return ticket from Toulouse to back to London. No, Martin, I told myself, you’re made of stronger stuff than that.

  I walked back into town, found a phone box and phoned the Auberge to ask if someone could come to meet me. After more than an hour a big white Renault 25 saloon drew up, swung round and stopped in front of me. A tall woman, with dark curly hair and an imposing manner, got out of the driver’s seat and came over to me.

  ‘Are you Martin?’ she asked me cautiously, in French.

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ I replied.

  ‘Ah! Very good,’ she said, reassured. ‘I’m Marie-Jeanne Cazagnac.’

  Her manner changed: she became less serious and much warmer. She shook my hand and asked if I’d had a good journey. Before I could reply, a teenage boy of about 14 got out of the other side of the car and came running round to greet me, beaming with excitement at the new arrival.

  ‘Monsieur Martin! Monsieur Martin!’ he cried. I think the repetition was more for his amusement than to confirm who I was.

  Marie-Jeanne introduced me to her youngest son, Nicolas, and we shook hands exaggeratedly. Still tired from my journey, I was a little taken aback by the attention.

  I was given the new arrival’s special privilege of sitting in the front passenger seat, while Nicolas perched in the back, leaning forward between the two front seats, talking excitedly as we went. He kept a running commentary going as he pointed out things along the way.

  ‘Up that road is the farm where we buy our ducks… I go to school over that way… One of my best friends from school lives on that farm…’

  We turned up a narrow road. The land rose, then dipped, then rose again towards an undulating plateau.

  Nicolas went quiet for a moment, until we passed the sign entering Péguilhan, when he announced proudly: ‘Here is our village!’

  We drove along the main road through the centre of the village, past the château and the church. There wasn’t a soul about. When it seemed we were about to go right through Péguilhan and out the other side, we turned off sharply to the right. Nicolas tapped me heavily on the shoulder.

  ‘It’s there, the Auberge,’ he said, pointing straight ahead up the hill.

  The Auberge stood on high ground, up a narrow drive, above the double hairpin bend in the road into the village from the north. A hand-painted welcome sign stood at the corner of the drive: BIENVENU À L’AUBERGE.

  It was a solid-looking building, golden-brown stone and render, with an ancient panelled oak door in the centre. Carved into the stone arch above the door was the date 1769. Attached to the wall to the right was an old bell with a rusty chain pull. Symmetrical and simple, with five windows and one door, the front was like a child’s drawing of a house. Wooden shutters framed the windows, geraniums tumbled from window boxes and wisteria trailed up the wall. Under a cerulean sky, a low-pitched terracotta-tiled roof evoked long, hot, dry summers. This was a plain country house, squat, with thick walls pressing into the earth. Made from local materials, the building appeared to blend with the land.

  A paddock for horses lay to the left of the building and wooded slopes fell away to the sides. A children’s swing stood in a clearing in the trees. The hilltop setting was a peaceful oasis. The Auberge looked a happy place to be.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘this
is beautiful.’

  The front of the Auberge looked out over the valley. The air was clear, and far in the distance I could see the faint grey and white jagged outline of the mountains.

  ‘The Pyrenees,’ Marie-Jeanne confirmed.

  We walked up the short flight of steps leading to the front door, into the relative dark and cool of the hall, then down a few steps into the dining room, where I met Jacques-Henri Cazagnac, the aubergiste.

  ‘I am a Gascon,’ were his first words to me. He grabbed my hand between his big, strong farmer’s hands and shook it with robust enthusiasm.

  ‘Welcome to Gascony,’ he continued, stepping back and spreading out his arms expansively. A typical Gascon farmer, he was short, stockily built, and a larger-than-life character.

  Marie-Jeanne, assuming that an Englishman far away from home would appreciate some tea, offered me some and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Jacques-Henri pulled out a chair for me to sit down at the table. I looked around the room. A bow-sided grandfather clock stood in the corner, its heavy pendulum steadily keeping time in the stout, violin-shaped case. Family photographs were on the mantelpiece, some old black-and-white portraits of people from a bygone age and more recent colour photographs. I recognised Jacques-Henri and Marie-Jeanne, and a younger Nicolas.

  Marie-Jeanne reappeared, carrying a tray with a pot of Lipton’s lemon tea and a slice of her homemade plum tart. Jacques-Henri hovered attentively to see if I would approve. I thanked them both and said the tea made me feel quite at home. They looked pleased – this was obviously the right thing to say.

  When I’d finished my tea I was shown up to my room. The wood of the old staircase was battered and worn; the steps creaked, as if they might give way. Slats hung loose in the banisters. The whole building smelled of old wood.

  After I’d changed and unpacked the few belongings I’d thrown into my rucksack when I left home two days before, I came downstairs and Jacques-Henri gave me the pair of turquoise rope-soled espadrilles I was to wear for most of the summer.