La France Profound...or Je Suis Plein by Charlie

Due to the wonders of modern technology (thanks Facebook), I was able too go on an amazing five-day adventure to southern France, in the deep countryside (or, as my friend Nicolas says, ‘La France profound’). Seventeen years ago while in Benin, Nick and I met at our fathers’ weekly rugby practice.

That rough looking guy in the yellow shirt is Girard, Nick's father. Mine is the fifth from the left in the back row.

We became friends and eventually did summer exchanges for four years during our teens. We reconnected after 10 years, and it just so happened that he (now in Australia) was taking a month long vacation in France visiting family at the same time as Marie and I were in Paris taking in the sites prior to our courses beginning. He kindly invited me as part of the family to visit his father’s side down south. “I want to take you to Firmi, this is real France.”

Turns out, Firmi is not really on any maps, nor were we staying in Firmi proper. Firmi is a small town outside of Decazeville, about a 3 hour drive east of Toulouse. La Gouzine (LAH gooz-AH-ny) is a smaller town outside of Firmi. The total population is about 200 people, according to local estimates. Most of them are from a handful of families, and driving through town, your license plate is the first thing people look at to determine whether you are a local or miraculously found out about The Town That Time Lost.

We left Paris early in the morning to begin the eight hour drive. After a few hours of wheat fields, the scenery turned to something like this:

You have heard of the rolling fields of France? Well, there they are. Eventually we reached the Aveyron region in the Mid-Pyrenes and had to leave the highways and drive through the smaller towns. As you can see, in between more modern developments lie traditional churches, castles, and chateaus.

In between catching up and telling me the local legends of his father’s town, Nick began preparing me for the meals to come, saying that we would be having nothing but traditional country meals, with the first of many being aligot and boudins. Aligot is a potato mash that is mixed with equal parts of cheese curd, then vigorously stirred until it forms an elastic mass that is pulled in long dollops onto the plate. A good aligot can pulled in one strand from the bowl to above head level before being plopped in a steaming mass, then cut with a spoon. The boudins were local blood sausages, comprised of pigs blood (collected during slaughter) mixed with the meat from the esophagus and trachea. The throat meat is cubed and then stuffed into the intestine of the pig. The sausages are fried, with the dripping oils and juices becoming a pan sauce for the potatoes. Not healthy, but so delicious. This after courses of charcuterie, garden tomato and green bean salad, and followed by cheese, fruit and a dessert tart of garden plums.    

The is view from the terrace where we took our meals (not to use hoity toity English, but that is certainly what it felt like).

Stay tuned for healers, town loonies, weekly market, a country discotheque, and formidable dish to contend with: La soupe au fromage (cheese soup).