Text 33604, 90 rader
Skriven 2015-11-25 03:09:24 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: local attractions 547
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Market day again. It was nicer this day, and there were
more outdoor stalls, and more people visiting them. Ian
has a butcher he goes to, so I went there and got a big
chunk of paleron (chuck blade roast) for chili, for which
Ian had made a special request; the guy offers many other 
goodies, and so I bought a couple boudins noirs with 
chestnuts and a chunk of poitrine fumee for Swisher's 
breakfasts (he was beginning to miss bacon).

The pruneaux mi-cuit d'Agen from the dried fruit stand
were highly recommended, so I got some of these to munch 
on - soft prunes, sweet and not frightening the way so 
many prunes are.

Swisher spied okra at one of the stalls and got all
excited. I'd forgotten his Texas roots. I asked how
he wanted them done, gumboized, fried, or what? No,
just plain. All right, fine.

Ian picked up a couple more magrets.

When we got back and sorted things out, I was all set to 
grill up a boudin for lunch, but Ian came over with the 
offer of leftovers, accepted with  pleasure. This turned 
out to be substantial portions of pate and that boeuf a la 
Bourguignonne; both had improved with age. 

Cahors la Commanderie was pretty acid with a licorice
aspect and went well with the pate and pretty well with
the stew.

--

Ian had thought to enter the Soup festival in Argentat,
but time became short, and it turns out the place was a
chaos of 45 entrants anyway.

This year it was held on the main street, Avenue Pasteur,
opposite the mairie, closing downtown down from early
afternoon until almost midnight.

You pay a tenner and get your cup and go to town. We 
weren't sure where to find them so naturally went to one
end and found a vendor who happily sold them to us. 
Later it turned out that the official booth was in the
middle, not at one end; we noticed that everyone else
had spoons to help them, whereas we were relying on
using the cups as for coffee. We ended up getting little
disposable spoons from the official booth. I wonder in 
retrospect if the vendor had recycled other people's 
discards and pocketed the money; but she'd seemed to be 
older and more settled, and we didn't think anything of 
it at the time.

I had about a dozen servings and tasted of Swisher's and
Jacquie's so probably ended up sampling close to half the
offerings. Some were pretty good - a Thai vegetable puree
with coconut milk was my favorite, this having been the
offering of the vendor at the end who had sold us the cups, 
and the second being a seemingly authentically local
potato and chestnut soup dished out by a tiny little girl
who clearly didn't want to be there. A number of pumpkin
soups (harvest and/or Halloween-themed, which I largely 
managed to avoid, some weird flights of fancy (Soupe qui
fait grandir - soup that makes you grow - was an ordinary
cream of mushroom made with non-cepe boletes; I didn't try
Yeti Soup, but Swisher reported it was cold), and a number
of traditional dishes, such as a somewhat tasteless puree
of stinging nettles, which only brought out the poverty-
stricken past of the area. The last thing I tasted was one 
such, and after being served a relatively large ladleful, 
I discovered it to be boiled vegetables in nothing, even
sparing on the salt. I pretended to be grateful and 
hustled off to find the nearest wastebasket - this was 
the only one that had that sad fate. There were also a 
raft of unexceptional unexceptionable entries, including 
two split pea soups that were livened by a sprinkle of 
lardons, some minestrone-like ones, poultry broths with
stuff in them, sometimes pureed. A couple vegan things.
I had my fill, who don't care for soup in general.

I was glad when Jacquie suggested we repair to the local
bar for a couple beers. The place was hopping.

Then back home, where Ian served slices of a substantially
delicious panettone, specialty of one of the bakeries
in town, which Ian had picked up on the way to the
festival.
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