13th July 2010 – Saucisson and Silk

As well as on Saturdays, every Tuesday in Lamastre there was a market. When I had been staying with Anne-Marie and Pierre I had always been working on Tuesday mornings and so hadn’t been able to go, but Michelle and Xavier encouraged us to go with them.

Saturday’s market – the one that I had been to twice already – was a small but profitable affair, just a line of stalls selling fresh, home-made or home-grown produce. It was a friendly and highly personal market where all the stall-holders knew each other and would frequently leave their stall in the hands of their neighbour whilst they went off to chat with friends. 

I blithely assumed that the Tuesday market would be much the same. How wrong I was; it turned out to be a different kettle of line-caught fish entirely. Whereas the weekend market was about the size that might be expected of a town of so few inhabitants, the weekday market was enormous. Stalls lined the entire town square as well as the lengths of the four streets leading off from it, colourful tarpaulins shading the traders’ varied wares and eagle-eyed customers of all ages and stages of suntan. 

I adored French markets. I was in my element: the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, the hustle and bustle and amicable anonymity, the buzz of happy chatter, the sales banter, the wholesome innocence of people working for their livelihoods and for the enjoyment of others. At Lamastre on Tuesdays there was everything from pizza to halva, saucisson to squid, cheese to chutney to chard, pestle and mortars to pantaloons, Swiss knives to Indian frippery, second-hand tat to hand-thrown pottery, reds, yellows, greens, purples, blacks and silvers. As cheap as my WWOOFing expenditure had so far proved to be, I felt that I could indulge myself a little here; after nine months of teaching in Germany I couldn’t be classed as a completely penniless student. My job had furnished me with a healthy packet of euros, and whilst most had been spent in situ, subsidising the German rail network with explorations into unknown territory and indulging in good food and frivolous quantities of exciting teabags, I still had enough to treat myself with. A billowing pair of stone grey cotton-silk trousers was purchased, not once to be regretted, and very much enjoyed.

I also treated myself to a small salami of cured wild boar meat. Michelle and Xavier were vegetarian, but allowed their WWOOFers to eat meat if they so wished. Normally meat held little allure for me, but unusually that day I did so wish. Saucisson du sanglier reminded me of family holidays on the Ile de Ré: drinking out of empty mustard jars, eating sea-salted butter on fluffy fresh baguette, pickled seaweed, a delicious green pâté – farci charentais – of meat and spinach, and torteau, a round, charred-topped and pastry-bottomed yoghurt cake which squeaked if a slice was held up in silence and squeezed ever so gently.

Michelle wasn’t just selling at the market stall. Her pottery was also on display in a local cultural arts centre. Goedele and I  walked through the doors and stood still for a moment, enjoying the blast of air conditioning. Michelle’s stall was near the entrance, easily visible, and it lured us in. Blue-green pottery bowls, plates, saucers, teapots, spoon-rests and soap dishes were arranged before us, lights carefully angled to show the creations off to the best effect. Curvaceous statues dominated the two ends of the stall, smiling down in frozen tribal dance over the robust dishes. It was a work of art in its own right.