A food lover, I worked my way through the Breton catalog of culinary wonders during my first few months in Brittany. I ate delicately spun buckwheat crepe-like galettes, my favorite filled with a perfect balance of musky smoky sausage and briny seaweed. I feasted on piles of mussels coaxed to open their shells in a savory brew of mellowed alliums, wine and then the sea broth given up by the crustacean, a baguette there to soak up every single drop of buttery, tangy broth. At my friend’s cottage by the roaring gray ocean, I slathered slices of dark buckwheat bread with the famous brilliant-yellow Breton butter salted by the sea and ate it alongside razor clams we had just dug up from the sandy beach. And my cheeks got round with weekend brunches ending in flaky, caramelly kouign amann pastry.

Those first few months I don’t know if I ate even one potato. “Earth apple” in French and Breton: pomme de terre, aval-douar. I wondered where the produce from all the fields of green went if not to the Breton table. In fact, my introduction to those potatoes – Amandine, Charlotte, Marianna, to name just a very few – began not à table but on the streets of Brest. Literally on the streets.

I was on my way home from school one evening, later than most commuters. It was a typical drizzly gray spring but the eerie silence was more like a city after a winter storm. Farmers protesting low prices had dumped tractor loads of potatoes at major intersections. The piles were now a whispering soft mush like when you add too much milk to the spuds.

Cars quietly shushed through the slush or got stuck, like me, in a foot of puree. A tall lusty gendarme, in the normally menacing all-black uniform, directed traffic with the glee of a child on the first real snow day in December. He lifted up my car’s back right rear where the tire was spinning in the muck with a hearty, “Hop là!” The thrust sent a spray of potato up the front of his jacket and his feet slid out from under him on the slippery sliding mess. He fell flat on his derriere, laughing up at the sky; I half expected him to make a snow angel in his delight. “Oh, la, la, quel bordel!” he laughed.

My introduction to the importance of potatoes to Breton chefs happened at a small café on a blustery winter day, the wind roaring in off the Atlantic. The waitress standing at my table, a round older woman with remarkable posture, tapped a pad with her pencil. Her apron was pristine, white and pressed, a towel tucked on the side to give a table a quick swipe. She was all business and waiting for my order. The special of the day? Lapin chasseur – rabbit, hunter-style. With potatoes.

It sounded lovely. But in my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed naïve American way, I asked in my clumsy French, “What is there as vegetables?”

The waitress, a bit like my stern second-grade teacher, Mrs. Bodfish, who said a lot with a little, stared silently. She must have realized Americans can be dense. “Potatoes,” she repeated.

Not to be deterred I went on, “Well, in my country, potatoes are not truly considered as a vegetable.”

She continued to stare. I matched her ability to be frugal with her words, with my ability to go the extra mile. “It’s like the rice or the pasta? How do you say, a ‘starch’?”

Nothing. Surrendering, I ordered the lapin that the hunter had slaved over with the potato vegetables. The rabbit was tender and fell away from the bone with a simple touch of a single fork tine. Mushrooms melted away on my tongue in a caramelly brown sauce and a medley of herbs teased my palate. And with each bite? A bit of potato to perfectly bind and carry the woodsy meat, mushroom and sauce without disturbing the delicacy of the flavors.

The waitress came by and asked brusquely how everything was. “Très, très bon – délicieux.” She gave a short and sure “of course” nod and went back to the other customers. My stomach gloriously warm and full, the bill paid, I was calling my farewell when the waitress remembered something and gestured for me to wait.

She called to the chef in the kitchen. He appeared at the window where orders were placed – tall and thin, eyes quick and gray-blue like the Breton sea, cheeks red and glossy with the heat of the kitchen. She presented me ceremoniously with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “This,” she emphasized, “is the woman who said potatoes are not a vegetable.”

He looked me over from head to toe and back again. He enunciated. “C’est le légume de baaaaase, madame,” which translates to “Lady, it is the foundation on which all other vegetables rest, on which all food rests, in fact.”

There it was. The reason for the glorious green and rolling fields laying down a carpet from the city to the sea as I passed on the drive to work each day. And from that moment on, I began to see them everywhere. Humble, unassuming potatoes – the necessary support to the dishes that stole the culinary thunder but were not complete without them.

There was Kig ha farz – buckwheat flour dumplings cooked in a linen sleeve alongside boiled meats and vegetables – with potato cooked in the salty, savory broth. Not a restaurant dish but a simple stick-to-your-ribs meal meant to gather family around the table after Sunday mass. Poulet à la Bretonne, simmered on the stove in a Breton cider as fine as any dry white wine, only became a full dinner when served with golden roasted potatoes. Historically, the fisherman of Brittany took potatoes with them for long days out on the water and would add a medley of fish from their catch with a bit of water and sea brine to make the working man’s cotriade, a nourishing soup at sea. And every Breton village had its own recipe for the fisherman’s soup perfectly suited to the many many rainy, windy days of Bretagne.

In 2023, I will be heading back to revisit the land of pommes de terre. I know I can expect some rain, I can expect drives through lovely countryside, and I can expect some incredible meals with the essential foundation of potatoes.

© 2022, Francesca Cannan, for first publication on France Revisited.

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France Revisited’s Market Day in France series provides travelers with lists of appellations, geographic indicators and other labels that reveal the association of food and that is at the heart of market-based gastronomy in a given region.

The list below concerns France’s southeastern region, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA). PACA covers Provence, the Riviera and southern half of the French Alps and pre-Alps. That’s more or less bordered by the Rhone River from Orange to Camargue to the west and by the Italian border from Menton to Briançon to the east.

The three major government labels for agricultural products used in France that ensure provenance and standards relative to specific products are AOP (Protected Designation of Origin), AOC (Controlled Appellation of Origin) and IGP (Protected Geographical Indication). Label Rouge (Red Label) is not necessarily associated with place but rather or general quality relative to similar products.

A brief description of these labels designates is given below this list. A fuller explanation can be found in the preface to this series, Market Day in France: Geography, Appellations and Terroir.

AOP, AOC, IGP and Label Rouge in Provence-Alpes-Côtes-d’Azur, including several that are currently under consideration by INAO, the governmental body that regulates French agricultural labels.

Links are provided for more information about specific products.

FRUITS and VEGETABLES

Citron de Menton, IGP
A large lemon grown on terraced orchards on the hills rising from the corner of the Riviera near the Italian border, in and around the towns of Castellar, Gorbio, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Saint-Agnès and Menton. (See photo at the top of the page.) Menton holds an annual Lemon Festival, during Mardi Gras season.

Figues de Solliès, AOC and AOP
Figs grown in the Gapeau Valley, just inland between Toulon and Hyères, ripe between mid-August and mid-November.

Melon de Cavaillon, currently under consideration for IGP
A type of cantaloupe, the charentais. See this article on France Revisited.

Muscat du Ventoux, AOC and AOP
A deep blue-black table grape from the center of Provence in markets from the end of August to December.

Cerises des Coteaux du Ventoux, currently under consideration for IGP
Cherries from the center of Provence

Pomme des Alpes de Haute Durance, IGP
Golden delicious and gala apples and related varieties grown on the southwestern edge of the Alps.

OLIVES and OLIVE OIL

Huile d’olive de Nice, AOC and AOP
Olive oil

Huile d’olive de Haute Provence, AOC and AOP
Olive oil

Huile d’olive de Provence, AOC
Olive oil

Huile d’olive d’Aix-en-Provence, AOC and AOP
Olive oil

Huile d’olive de la Vallée des Baux-de-Provence, AOC and AOP
Olive oil

Olive Noire de Nyons, AOC and AOP
Black olives. While the town of Nyons is located in Drome, which is part of the region just north of that covered in this list, a portion of the growing zone for this appellation is located in Vaucluse, which is in Provence.

Huile d’olive de Nyons, AOC and AOP
Olive oil. See note above regarding Nyons.

Olive noire and Olive verte cassée de la Vallée des Baux-de-Provence, AOC and AOP
Black olives and broken green olives.

HERBS

Herbes de Provence, Label Rouge
Rosemary, oregano, savory and thyme

Thym de Provence, currently under consideration for IGP
Thyme

RED MEAT

Taureau de Camargue, AOC and AOP
Wide ranging bulls (two breeds) from the Camargue.

Agneau de Sisteron, IGP and Label Rouge
Lamb from Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Drôme Provençale.

Agneau de Crau (currently under consideration for IGP
Lamb

CHEESE

Brousse du Rove, currently under consideration for AOC
Cheese made from raw goat milk near Marseille and Aix-en-Provence

Banon, AOC and AOP
Cheese made from raw goat milk and wrapped in a chestnut leaf. The appellation zone covers portions of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes, Vaucluse and Drôme.

WINE, lots of it

Wine is undoubtedly the product that travelers most associated with appellations since French wines, whether blends or nots, are historically designated by provenance rather than grape.

8 AOC – AOP in Provence
Bandol,  Cassis, Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence, Coteaux Varois en Provence, Côtes de Provence, Les Baux de Provence, Palette, Pierrevert.

11 AOC – AOP in the southern portion of the Rhone Valley
Beaumes-de-Venise, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône, Côtes du Rhône Villages, Gigondas, Luberon, Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, Rasteau, Saint-Joseph, Vacqueyras, Ventoux.

8 IGP in the region
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpilles, Bouches-du-Rhone, Hautes-Alpes, Maures, Méditerranée, Sable de Camargue, Var, Vaucluse.

GRAIN

Petit Épeautre de Haute Provence, IGP
Spelt (a type of wheat) from upper-eastern Provence

Riz de Camargue, IGP
Rice from the Camargue

HONEY

Miel de Provence, IGP
Honey from Provence. Honey gathered in Provence may also bear deemed Label Rouge.

CANDY

Calissons d’Aix-en-Provence, currently under consideration for IGP
A candy made from ground almonds and candied fruit topped with a thin icing, said to have been made in the area since the 15th century.

DEFINITIONS

The three major labels used France that ensure provenance and standards relative to a agricultural products are AOP (Protected Designation of Origin), AOC (Controlled Appellation of Origin) and IGP (Protected Geographical Indication).

These labels are essentially based on the notion of terroir, loosely translated as soil or simply place, signifying that the quality of certain products is intimately related to the interplay between their geographic zone of production (related to the zone’s geology, climate, agriculture and history) and the conditions and know-how involved in their production. The name of the place in a given appellation does not mean that the product comes only from within the limits of that town or village. The product can also come from wider geography, depending on the specs associated with that specific appellation.

AOP (Appellation d’origine protégée), or PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), is a protection given to a product within the European Union that designates a product whose geographic zone (geology, climate, agriculture and history) and principal production follow a well-established technique.

AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée or Controlled Appellation of Origin) is the French equivalent of the AOP. It is an older label.

IGP (Indication géographique protégée), or PGI (Protected Geographical Indication), identifies an agricultural product, raw or processed, including wine, whose quality, reputation or other characteristics are linked to its geographical origin.

Two other labels that our traveler will encounter are LR and AB.

Label Rouge (LR) or Red Label is a national sign given to products which, due to their terms of production or manufacture, have a higher level of quality compared to other similar products usually marketed. It isn’t in itself necessarily related to geography but rather to defined specifications for the type of product. Nevertheless, that product may in fact be related to a specific geographical zone.

The label AB, indicating organic farming (agriculture biologique), is not an indicator a specific geographic zone. Organic farming can, however, be involved in producing a product that bears one of the labels or appellations previously described. In that case the product can bear both a geographic appellation/indication and the AB label.

© 2016, Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

The traveler’s search for the best places to eat and drink in [name city, town or region] begins long before she leaves home. She whets her appetite by scouring the web for names, addresses and lists of restaurants. She notes the suggestions of friends and colleagues who’ve been there before. She may contact this (or that) writer for advice. Perhaps she makes a reservation or two. Arriving in [name city, town or region], she feels ready to wine and dine.

But before opening the menu and before examining the wine list she would be wise first to take a look at another, more essential list: a list of products raised, grown or made in and around the region she’s visiting.

Our traveler can, of course, create a delicious picnic spread with products “imported” from beyond the visited region, and a fine chef can create up an exceptional meal with products from anywhere. Nevertheless, the association of food and drink with place is what most marks market-based gastronomy in France. Our traveler might begin by visiting a local food market. And if she doesn’t go to the market herself for her meals, our traveler certainly hopes that the chef has.

One of the best ways for our traveler to understand the geographic particularity of her destination in France is through its appellations and other government labels of food and drink. (Hopefully our traveler, if she has a distaste for government labels for ideological reasons, will set aside her politics when the cheese tray comes around.)

An appellation ensures provenance and standards relative to a specific product, whether wine (e.g. champagne), cheese (e.g. Roquefort), fruit (e.g. Menton lemons), fowl (Bresse chicken), beef (e.g. Camargue bull) or other agricultural products.

Carrying an appellation or an indication of geographic origin doesn’t mean the highest quality possible for the given product in general. In wine, for example, there are greater and lesser appellations, and within those appellations greater or lesser wines. Furthermore, an official designation may involve some political one-upmanship. Still, an appellation ensures a geographic genuineness and approach to quality that is unlikely to be found in a product that simply claims to follow “industry standards.”

Three labels rule the roost in France and throughout much of Europe

AOC, AOP and IGP are essentially labels based on the notion of terroir or place, signifying that the quality of certain products is intimately related to the interplay between their geographic zone of production (related to the zone’s geology, climate, agriculture and history) and the conditions and know-how involved in their production.

The name of the place in a given appellation does not mean that the product comes only from that town or village. It can also come from wider geography, depending on the geographic specification. For example, not all of the champagne-growing area is within the historic Champagne region though that region is the heart of the growing area.

AOP (Appellation d’origine protégée), or PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), is a protection given to a product within the European Union that designates a product whose geographic zone (geology, climate, agriculture and history) and principal production follow a well-established technique. Geography and technique thereby combine to give the product is characteristics. In other words, the product’s geographic zone of production is essential for its quality.

AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée), or Controlled Appellation of Origin, is the French equivalent of the AOP. The notion of a controlled appellation has existed since long of the European Union created the AOP. AOC and AOP products must follow certain specifications and be grown / raised / produced within a specific geographic zone. Some specs are more limiting than others due to the specific nature of the geography and/or history of that particular product. For example, a Chablis must be made from chardonnay grapes, whereas up to 13 different varietals can go into making a Chateauneuf-du-Pape. In France AOCs are validated, regulated and overseen by the Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO, by its former acronym), The National Institute of Origin and Quality, which operates within the framework of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

IGP (Indication géographique protégée), or PGI (Protected Geographical Indication), identifies an agricultural product, raw or processed, including wine, whose quality, reputation or other characteristics are linked to its geographical origin. Unlike an AOC/AOP, for which all of the steps of production must be carried out within the designated zone, not all the steps of producing a processed product need be carried out in the zone. IGPs for raw products, however, do indeed indicate that they were grown in a designated area.

Two other labels that our traveler will encounter are LR and AB.

Label Rouge (LR), or Red Label, is a national sign given to products which, due to their terms of production or manufacture, have a higher level of quality compared to other similar products usually marketed. It isn’t in itself related to geography but to rather defined specifications for the type of product, though that type of product may in fact be related to a specific area.

The label AB, indicating organic farming (agriculture biologique), is also not an indicator of a specific geographic zone. Organic farming can, however, be involved in producing a product that bears one of the labels or appellations previously described. In that case the product can bear both a geographic appellation/indication and the AB label.

For the first list in this series see: Market Day in France: The Southeast, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

© Gary Lee Kraut

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Ristonchia, Italy–We woke to a great deal of noise coming from the coop where Walter’s chickens and guinea hens were kept. Walter was our host while WWOOFing in Tuscany. We were staying with him as guests willing to work in exchange for room and board. It may or may not have been in our job description, but Walter’s favorite rooster had lost a battle with a fox the day before, so my husband dragged himself out of bed and crossed the street to the pen to see what was going on.

It wasn’t what my neighbors in the suburbs of Philadelphia would think of as an actual street. The grassy path in front of our little cottage was a thoroughfare through the medieval hamlet of Ristonchia, perched high on a hill above the Tuscan countryside.

It was the middle of the night. Wearing only sandals, Dave expected the rest of the village to be sleeping. Instead he found another person shuffling away, our host, more formally dressed in a t-shirt to go with his sandals. Walter had also heard the commotion, and Dave arrived in time to see him heading back to bed.

Dave found nothing wrong, and neither did Walter, we learned when we spoke to him the next morning over a breakfast of homemade German black bread and honey. Walter had a bit of a laissez-faire attitude about the chickens anyway. Of the ten chicks originally following mother hen around the yard, he told us, they were down to four by the time we arrived. Another was soon lost when it fell into the goat’s water trough and drowned.

“I don’t expect to keep them all,” he said. “They get lose, they have accidents, they’re not very smart.” And of course, over time, he kills quite a few of them himself in the process of preparing his gourmet meals. But he also cares about them. Not just to keep healthy for egg laying or tasty dinners; he also has favorites. We could tell he was moved by the loss of the rooster he’d had for ten years.

We first met Walter as we were pushing our bikes up a hill. He passed us in his car when we were on his way to his farm. We had arranged to work for him through WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization that matches organic farmers with volunteers willing to work a few hours a day in exchange for room and board… and possibly a good night’s sleep. As we followed our emailed directions, I thought we’d be working in the heat of the flat valley on the many olive trees we passed. But soon we started up a gentle incline, and I believed we’d be working on the quilt of brown and green, plowed and planted, patches that cover the Umbrian rolling hills.

We then climbed higher. It took us almost two hours to go five kilometers, pushing our heavily-loaded bikes upwards into Tuscany in the process.

Ristonchia consists of just a few ancient stone houses located at the top of a mountain overlooking a valley and with a view of farmland, villages and other mountains. A castle can be seen in the distance on a smaller peak. About 18 people live there, more on weeks that Walter accepts paying guests as an “Agroturismo,” a farm that offers accommodation and meals. Every door has a keyhole and every keyhole has the key in it. That first evening, at dusk, we heard a cuckoo bird.

Walter’s land spreads away from the village, both down the hillside and up to the vineyard overlooking the valley. From there, you can see the castles of two typical Tuscan walled towns, Cortona and Castiglione Fiorentino. The farm has olive groves, a chestnut wood, pasture, woodland, farm animals, and a garden.

The farm has been organic since the 1980’s, when Walter and his wife, Irma, bought it. Walter moved here permanently from Germany 30 years ago when he got fed up with his job, leaving his wife behind with a recalcitrant 17-year-old daughter, grown now. Irma still lives most of the year in the Black Forest, leaving her job as a physician to join her husband for weekends once a month and for a few weeks each summer.

We were lucky to be there when we could enjoy Irma’s straightforward warm hospitality. Walter had been a senior analyst before exchanging computers for the farm; now he has an old laptop hooked to a slow dial-up connection, which conks out every 30 minutes or so. But he has quiet, a menagerie of animals, an interesting assortment of guests, and the satisfaction of the harvest.

Walter is a wonderful cook. He sometimes he makes true Tuscan dishes and other times his native German dishes, but usually they’re just Walter dishes. Walter and Irma have a lovely set of plates that was handcrafted in Cortona. When we first arrived, I was surprised to see how many had been broken, repaired, but still in use. A few days passed, and I broke a beautiful crystal wine glass. Irma overrode my apologies by telling me it was not one of the “good” glasses – she pointed to another type of wine glass and said, “THESE are the good ones, lucky you did not break this one.” A week or so later, during one of their impromptu dinner parties, another guest broke a glass—this time a vin santo glass—and I saw Walter pick up a different glass and say “good it was not one of these that broke.” A neighbor turned to me and whispered, “This is what they always say when a guest breaks a glass.” I felt like an accomplice to an inside joke as well as an accomplice to good living as Walter filled his chipped plates with the bounty of his farm.

Almost fully free range, his chickens and guinea hens live in a large pen for protection from foxes, but they often get loose. Walter has a dog named Wanda who will help herd or catch the birds when they do. He obtained Wanda when she was about a year old. A neighbor saw a strange car drive up, open the door, push the dog out and drive away. Wanda was not left with any aversion to cars, and in fact she often hitchhikes. She likes to accompany Walter’s guests on hikes down the mountain to Castiglione Fiorentino but will skip the climb of the return by smartly trotting to an intersection by the town’s edge to wait for a local to give her lift. Wanda went for walks with us, and one day we worked along side her; three guinea hens had gotten loose. It seemed under control by time we arrived; we could see Wanda had caught one, but Walter shouted, “Run, hurry,” and Dave grabbed each hen from Wanda, because it seems Wanda will hold onto a hen for only a short time before she considers it fair game for a meal.

There was other excitement on the farm, sometimes excitement that we witnessed, such as bringing home an escaped goat, and often excitement that we heard about as Walter told stories through our leisurely meals and glasses of wine. Like the time the two donkeys got loose and found a pile of fermenting grape mash. Walter had us roaring with laughter as he described the progress of these intoxicated donkeys, rolling in the meadow and staggering about. [The photo above is of Dave riding one of those donkeys when sober, at least the donkey.]

He also talked about local characters, some of whom we got to meet, such as the Italian folk musicians who came to lunch and three-year-old Julian who spoke three languages fluently. We also met friends and neighbors who came to dinner, for example the vicar who spoke no English but brought us a ladder when he saw us picking fat black mulberries from the fruit laden tree in the churchyard. I left them in the kitchen in the afternoon and after dinner they were returned to us in a creamy compote.

Dave and I spent a good deal of time in Walter’s kitchen. Although not expected of us, we couldn’t help but turn up in time to assist with dinner preparations. We tried to be good sous chefs, cutting and chopping fresh ingredients that Walter turned into gourmet delights. But our primary jobs were to feed and water the animals, collect chicken eggs, stake vines in the vineyard, and repair fencing by the goat and chicken pens. Dave and I worked on the goat fence together, patching the wire fencing, but I fixed the fence by the chickens on my own. I was very proud of myself—I inspected the fence carefully and made a cute little door for the chicks that could remain open in the daytime and closed at night. But I felt like a dolt when the one chicken in that pen hopped easily through a large opening I had missed.

Walter was always patient with us. He considers WWOOFing to be more than of a global exchange than a labor exchange, meaning that we couldn’t help but have fun while we were there. We rode the horse and donkeys in the mountains, met interesting people over delicious dinners, and even took a few days off to visit Lake Trasimeno, with its turquoise waters and gelato-eating holiday makers. We saw the Palio at Castiglione Fiorentino. We followed a parade of medieval-dressed trumpeters and drummers from the church to the square, where nine horses and their bareback riders raced around to complete for a silk banner. We learned a great deal about all sorts of things over dinner: Italian history and politics, organic farming, and how natural food is so valued in Italy that there are towns with the title of “Citta Lenta,” or “Slow City.” Born out of the “slow food” movement, a “slow city” must have a visible and distinct culture and heavily depend on resources from within.

At Walters we enjoyed the pleasures of slow food production. We cared for animals, we sang while we weeded, and after tending the grapes we lay on our backs looking at clouds that hung above the vineyard. We pulled and plucked our dinner from the garden and the farm and filled each evening’s wine bottles from a tank in the basement. Dave held a chicken in his hands for the first time, and I learned a little about Italian cooking. I made gnocchi (3 parts potato to 1 part whole wheat flour – no egg or water, just kneed together with a little seasoning if you like), and while I rolled the dough into little balls, I learned how they make spaetzle in the Black Forest. We learned how to tie grapevines and how they make Vino Santo wine by harvesting the grapes late, hanging them in the attic until after Christmas. We dipped Walter’s homemade almond cookies into the sweet wine, savoring both the taste and the knowledge of how cookies and wine were made.

On moonlit nights, when no one was running naked through the night, we would watch stars undimmed by city lights and listen to the cuckoo bird.

(c) Judy Kashoff

***

For information on WWOOFing

The international WWOOF website: www.wwoof.org

For WWOOFing in Italy: www.wwoof.it

For WWOOFing in France: www.wwoof.fr

Walter Rossteuscher’s website, English version: www.toskanawalter.it/english.html. Walter not only offers WWOOFing but also agrotourism stays whereby, for a reasonable price, you can enjoy the pleasures of time on the farm without doing any of the direct work.

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