It’s always the worst day of the week, the day we have to leave Provence, and as per usual, she had saved her finest weather for the day of our departure. The sun was out in force and the strong winds that had rattled the shutters for most of the week had blown on to pastures new. The market traders of the brocante must have read the forecast in ‘La Provence’ as they had turned out especially early this morning to arrange their wares. It was Easter Saturday and the 100th Antiques & Art Fair was in full swing. The Easter weekend fair in Isle sur la Sorgue holds the record for the oldest flea market (brocante) and antique fair in France and is a meeting place for bargain hunters, collectors, and dealers from all over the globe. Roads had been barricaded all week to make way for carousels, fairground games and food stalls of all descriptions. The town was in a festival mood and the traders knew the sunshine would make browsers spend!
Our bags were packed and we had a few hours to kill before we left for the airport so we decided to have another mooch round the market. As we meandered through sagging tables of vintage glass soda syphons, antique coffee grinders and a taxidermy wild boar my stomach alerted me of the hour – lunch time! As time was short, we had to forgo the usual two and a half hour, three course meal with wine and decided to head towards the kebab stall we had noticed the previous day. As we turned the corner we could already see a queue starting to form as the stall holder added the final flourishes to his huge paella pan of strips of kebab meat, peppers and onions. The smell was drawing the crowd. We perused the menu board hung at the rear of the gazebo and were curious to know what ‘Andouillette’ was? “Comment vous dit en Anglais?” chef asked his assistant (sous chef?) “Intestines” came the reply as he patted his stomach. Excellent I thought, something new and different to try as our last meal in France! How should we have them? Would they come coiled on a plate like a Cumberland Sausage? Would they be served in a soup, like a huge, never ending noodle!? No, we were to enjoy them as the locals do, simply fried and stuffed into a baguette with a pile of frites and a choice of sauce, we opted for harissa.
We took a seat in the shade and waited with anticipation for our baguette of pig entrails and fries. A nod of acknowledgement from Chef as he held aloft our lunch, he was going to enjoy this I thought. I could see him in the Cafe de France that evening, Ricard in hand, regaling all and sundry with the tale of two stupid English tourists who ate guts for lunch! I can honestly say, I thought it was delicious, it was succulent, meaty, had a slight musky taste and aroma which attested to it’s provenance. To me it tasted like the best hog roast I had ever eaten, to Emma it tasted like “sweaty meat”. I was hooked, I needed to know more about this culinary discovery! Lunch over, we headed back to the apartment to hand back the keys. My investigation would have to wait until we returned to England.