I fear my love affair with the French, begun that day the moustachioed old French woman opened her door to a starving, exhausted and bedraggled sailor desperately trying to escape the Germans, has ended. Oh how I remember her face as she forced me to eat a pound of foie gras ‘for strength’ before handing me over to La Resistance for smuggling back to Blighty. For some reason the Resistance soon handed me over to the Germans instead, but as the war was nearly over I spent only a short time incarcerated at the Fuhrer’s pleasure.
It seems the difficulties being experienced by our respective governments have influenced the French local authorities for the worse. Once a jolly gendarme would salute a British owner of a ‘maison secondaire’ such as I and make genial enquiries about his health and that of his family. Not so today. As the crop-haired refugee from the foreign legion waved my car down, I had apparently been speeding, he had clearly spotted my proud GB sticker and was gearing up to give me what my young friends refer to as a ‘hard time’.
A ninety Euro fine I can live with, arrogance from a cheese eating surrender
monkey I cannot. It took him forty-five minutes to write out my ticket as I
stood in the broiling sun while he hid inside his ridiculous blue transit van.
Meanwhile every Frenchman for miles around was driving past at near supersonic
speeds waving baguettes and laughing in an evil Gallic fashion at my misfortune.
He also took unnecessary umbrage at the fact I did not have both parts of my
nasty new driver’s licence on me, just the photo card part, and I was
treated to some firm words about respect for the French laws. It was on the
tip of my tongue to point out they would be German laws were it not for the
brave sacrifice of many us Rosbifs, but felt it best to hold my peace.
Ah but the food you say, the food. It is true that one can eat well in France but not at the low prices we enjoyed. The Euro has seen to that and the era where once we could hand over our fine British pounds and receive massive wads of greasy French Francs is over. Now the Bureau de Change hands over a diminishing pile of Euros to our ever increasing dismay. French cooking, at least out in the shires, has not evolved much though. The better restaurants still insist on putting too many things on the plate so confusing the flavours badly. And as for the ubiquitous stuffed tomato, which always appears, well my heart sinks whenever I see its chummy little roundness gleaming at me off the plate.
However my local bar café still serves a three course meal with wine for ten euros and this meal is always made up from varied components of the Black Ducks Madame rears outside and slaughters with a merry cackle most weeks. The breast is superb and massive, a piece of meat which would cost a small fortune in London. The wine is terrible but who cares when one is eating like this with the delicious local cream goat cheese to follow?
Perhaps the incident with the over zealous gendarme has soured my mood unnecessarily. I was, after all going too fast. Losing my corkscrew to security on the flight back from France was even more annoying though. My father carried that corkscrew all through the First War, opening many a bottle of reasonable claret whilst under fire. I really don’t agree that it could have been used as a weapon against pistol-packing security personnel, even given France’s less than impressive record of success in previous armed conflicts. They wouldn’t even agree to let a friend come to the airport to take it away, saying it had to be destroyed.As recent events have horribly shown we must all be vigilant, but a corkscrew? Ridiculous.
Ah well, should you be in the beautiful Charente region of France watch out for a radar speed trap between Condac and Ruffec and go to eat at La Cassot in Nieux, but always call Madame first on 0545714077 to book. She doesn’t cater for ‘drop ins’and can get quite annoyed.
Illustration by: Al Stuart al.stuartcreative@ntlworld.com
