Recipes from France – Part One, the South-West

The French coast from the Spanish frontier to the Poitou covers about 500 kilometres, which would, I suppose, yield to an earnest gastronomic pilgrim more than 500 different seafood dishes, all good and each the natural and harmonious outcome of local produce.

Starting in Basque territory, where the cuisine is robust and colourful, one comes almost at once to the muted and tranquil scenery of the Landes, whose salt-marshes harbour the fine eels known as anguilles de marais; and thence, suddenly, into the Bordelais country. This is a region from which a really earnest pilgrim might never emerge, so numerous are the experiences which he would wish to undergo. Of all the great wine-growing regions of France, this is the one most closely associated with the sea, indeed doubly associated, for the broad estuary of the Gironde, in which sturgeon still swim, stretches up into its heart. It is exciting to lodge in a town such as Pauillac and eat seafood dishes prepared with wine, knowing that famous vineyards lie less than a kilometre from the salt water and that the happy marriage of ingredients on one’s plate reflects this propinquity. Here too, one comes to the first of the famous names in ostreiculture, Arcachon, knowing that the northward journey will lead to others such as Oléron-Marennes.