A New Adventure in France

We’re in a country famous for its food and staying in regions with many local specialities that are synonymous with France – bread and patisserie, duck, foie gras, nuits, chestnuts, cheese, wine and many others. Most of our campsites have not been next to towns or villages with any restaurants, so opportunities for eating out have mainly been at lunchtime when we’ve been out exploring. Perhaps in this Covid year we also haven’t been so keen to eat out more often in order to keep our distance from too many other people. We haven’t been blown away by the offerings anywhere although we’ve enjoyed eating outside in some great settings. The menus everywhere have been pretty standard, usually including:

Salads – Salade de chèvre chaud (Cabecou or Rocmadour) or salade Perigordienne/Lotoise – which includes foie gras, gésiers or smoked duck breast.

Duck – Magret de canard or confit de canard

Steak – Pièce du boucher

Steak Tartare

Burger or pizza

Being very much inland we haven’t seen any real choice of fish on menus, apart from mussels occasionally or a white fish of some description as a ‘plat du jour’, although this week we’ve seen one place selling trout on a Thursday.

As for the drink, well we can’t indulge too much when we’re in charge of motorised vehicles, but back at camp we’ve enjoyed the wine (mainly red or rosé) of whatever region we’ve been in, buying the local wines mainly from the supermarkets. And Pelforth beer for rehydration purposes!

Catering in a campervan with limited fridge facilities needs constant planning and beer and wine always seem to be fighting for space with ‘proper’ food. We’ve also had to mage the heat when it’s difficult to keep fruit and salad goods for long and were also constantly aware of not wanting to attract insects or vermin if anything is stored outside – no problems with any of that to date.

However we’re always amazed by the capacity of our small fridge, if we pack it carefully – let’s just say we would have done very well on The Krypton Factor! Space and the ability to carry much on bicycles or motorbike limits us from doing big shops too often, so we have tended to plan those for when we’re moving from site to site in the campervan. In between those trips we shop locally and frequently, often at the markets in the towns we visit and we cook on our trusty Cobb Bbq. The produce on offer at the markets is obviously very seasonal and it has been interesting to see the changes over the last few months. We’ve eaten loads of melons, peaches and nectarines but we’re now starting to see those come to an end. We’re also seeing a glut of pumpkins and squash vegetables of all shapes and sizes appear on the stalls.

In addition to fruit and veg the markets also have lots of regional produce and in these areas it’s mainly duck-based products or walnut products (cakes, tarts and oils) plus cheeses and charcuterie. At a market recently we saw stalls selling what looked liked like glacé fruits or bonbons but turned out to be balls of foie gras covered in various fruit glazes – effectively it’s own built in fruit chutney. They’re called coucounettes and not something we’ve seen elsewhere. Foie gras is a contentious product obviously but there are numerous stalls at every market, it’s on every menu and free range ducks and geese can be seen in the fields of farms as we’ve travelled around.

Boulangeries and pâtisseries are always of interest but we’ve resisted the temptation to indulge too often, other than as a treat, despite their enticing windows. As we’ve mentioned before, bakeries in small villages are few and far between. It’s not usually a problem for us on campsites as nearly all have a very efficient system of ordering your bread or croissants each day. Here in Limeuil, the village bakery has closed and a vending machine has been installed in front of it. We were surprised to see this and wondered a) how it worked and b) did anyone use it. As we sat by the river we saw it being used by several people and a drawer opened to allow the baguette to be removed. In fact we had to make use of it ourselves when the campsite had no bread. We’re not sure how often the machine is stocked but, as it’s in front of the old boulangerie, perhaps someone inside there is just pushing the bread through the back of the vending machine!

One bakery item we’ve only seen once and decided to try is a Jésuite, a triangular pastry baked item filled with an almond cream and topped with icing sugar or icing. It gets its name from the shape – said to resemble the shape of a Jesuit’s hat. We tried it and it’s probably similar to an almond croissant – naughty but nice.

Joe has a system for our drive-away awning that tends to illicit a question from at least one (male) neighbour at each site and no doubt earns him lots of respect. We also need to be able to secure the awning to the camper van to create as rain-proof a connection as possible, as we’ve had some overnight rain, and to allow efficient disconnection and reconnection. Joe has also found a solution for that in the shape of – a retractable fishing rod! The rod feeds quickly through the awning straps and the case of our sun awning on the camper van. Key to this is the camper van being in exactly the same position each time we come back, so Joe’s system involves a piece of string lined up along the length of the van, with tent pegs to indicate where the wheels line up. The skill on return to camp is getting the van lined up right next to the piece of string.