Everyone should have friends who are constantly on the hunt for the perfect pickle. They take aim at the pick of the Union Square farmers’ market, armed with ridiculous quantities of vinegar, a crate of mason jars, and an ever-evolving family recipe. I was allowed to assist last weekend, and thus become an initiate into the Way of the Pickle. I could tell you the secret, but then I wouldn’t get invited over for the tasting ceremony in three months’ time and, well, there will be bloody marys. Priorities.

baby carrots, persian cucumbers and a peck of peppers

*and yes, if you get this, then you are showing your age.

… let it be this one. Michael Pollan lays out the case for a paradigm shift in our production of food. His arguments for the critical need to reestablish local abattoirs deserve particular attention. Meat processing is still all too shielded by our careful ignorance of “how the sausage is made”, but in my book, livestock deserve at least the same respect as those heirloom tomatoes we’ll talk about at the drop of a reusable grocery bag.

Fair enough. Always delighted to oblige. Now if you’ll just hold still while I put you outside….

very large hawk moth taking a momentary break from its attempts at self immolation to indicate its menu preferences

before…

Florence’s father came back from the Camargue with the most beautiful cherry tomatoes grown by one of his hunting buddies, a very muddy and happy bird dog, and four gorgeous wild ducks, which he insisted on giving to me. He removed the guts for me, and offered to clean them further, but I was due back in St Tropez and so breezily said that I would pluck them and finish the job. My experience of plucking game birds prior to this consisted of plenty of quail (which are so tiny they don’t really count) in Louisiana and Texas, and a few pheasant in Scotland – but I figured that now was as good a time to figure it out as any, and I certainly wasn’t going to say no to such a generous offer of fresh duck.

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above: a mussel farm in Normandy at low tide, below: Jez’s Famous Saffron Moules

Speaking of things washed over by the tide, moules de bouchot were another new discovery for me this summer. They’re on the smaller side, with boldly orange meat, a firm texture, and a distinctively strong sweet flavor. These mussels are grown on tall wooden pilings, or bouchots: it’s a method of aquaculture that was discovered by accident and is (bewilderingly) only seen in northern France, where an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) has been granted for those grown in the bay of Mont-St-Michel. These posts don’t just act as bivalve corrals, they also allow the thick ropes of shells to be exposed to the air and the sun at low tide; this gives moules de bouchot their particular flavor and slightly thicker shell. Délicieux!

la belle Florence serving soupe au pistou for dinner in Le-Revest-les-Eaux.

And so we return to a familiar theme: authenticity and provenance, this time with soupe au pistou, which I ate three times while I was in Provence. In terms of pedigree, I suppose only two of those occasions counted, since the third was made by me (not French) following the recipe of an American (ditto, see after the jump). In any case, all three were distinct and different and I’m sticking to my usual rationale: make it any way you like, make it delicious, and remember why it exists in the first place – to make the most of what you have around you. (And to allow you to accommodate unexpected extra guests with ease. Thank you, Françoise!)

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If I tell you that this was the third course of five, and that it’s a plate of seared foie gras with butter-drenched pommes anna, and that we’re eating seated on plastic lawn chairs at a converted gas station where the menu hasn’t really changed (and with damn good reason) in two generations……

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salt air, sunshine, and blue skies in Hyères: local mustard

The French place great importance on the concept of terroir: how the geography of an area affects the personality of the wines and foods it produces. This is more than just a stricture in the interests of AOC authenticity, and here in the US, the locavore gospel, albeit expounded from a differently oriented soapbox, is building an awareness of the damage we have done by allowing ourselves to ignore the origins of the food we eat. If we accept that the flavor of what we put in our mouths is directly affected by where it comes from then we must maintain our respect for the land, for the crops and livestock raised on it, for the producers and their generations of experience, and for ourselves as consumers. If we accept it, we are encouraged to remember, for example, that many of the things we eat have seasons, and that many others don’t travel well.

As a flipside to all this, I often think about how the setting of our consumption also directly affects the flavor of our foods. Mulled wine by a bonfire, fish and chips wrapped in newspaper while walking down the street, cucumber and cream cheese baps sitting on the hill in Scotland (yes, even in the rain), coconut water in the shade on a hot day – there are locations that add another dimension to the meals we eat in them. It’s what makes this a truly great toasted ham and cheese sandwich: not just the fresh bread, the plain slices of ham and the French gruyere, not just the terroir, but the locale. It’s why picnics are special. It’s why we put candles and silver on the table for a special occasion. It’s the topographical equivalent of umami, and it’s why even the simplest meal can be an event.

Samphire, that spiky green stuff that used to be strewn all over the marble slabs at the fishmonger’s and be given away with your nice bit of haddock, was apparently the it vegetable of summer 2008. No longer “the poor man’s asparagus”, it sells in New York for around $9 per pound. You can still pick it for free along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in the US; as with all potentially dangerous coastal exploration (fast tides, rocks, quicksand, and all that), I don’t recommend it unless you know what you’re doing. If you do, then of course you will make sure to leave the plant’s woody stems in place so it can regrow, won’t you? And avoid sewage outflows.

samphire: plate and bowl

After seeing it in the upper west side Fairway labeled “sea beans”, I experimented with samphire a couple of times in May and June before I left for France, but I never felt that I had really gotten to grips with it. So when I saw it for sale in the St Tropez fish market, I jumped at the chance for another tête-à-tête.

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Yes, thank you, I had a wonderful summer working in France. Well, OK. It wasn’t all work.

from left to right, top to bottom: café liégeois at Sénéquier, Françoise Ferry’s fabulous quince and vanilla confit, fruit and flowers in the Place des Lices market, roasted cherry tomatoes, ‘far breton’ made with fresh cherries, Mont Caume from Le-Revest-les-Eaux, fraises des bois also in the market, beet and pink grapefruit appetizer.