While I was in France this summer, helping out on the singing course that my mum organises, I was entreated many times to cook a Chinese dish. Though at first I was enthusiastic about this idea, I began to get cold feet when I realized that, being in deepest rural France, I could get very few of the necessary ingredients. I worried that anything I produced would be inauthentic, and thus no good.

After much cajoling, however, I gave in, and decided to cook a cold aubergine dish. This was a dish I’d made many times in China, but it needed some serious adaptation for cooking in France. I did have with me some of the authentic Chinese ingredients, such as ground chilies and fermented black beans, but everything else was just whatever I had to hand.

The result was a somewhat odd, Asian-European fusion dish, which surprisingly, actually ended up being quite good. Given the improvisational nature of its creation, writing a recipe for this dish is, I know, a bit contradictory in spirit. Nonetheless, I thought I’d write it up for those occasions when one wants Asian flavour, but may lack a few of the ingredients.

Sichuan-en-France Cold Aubergine

1 aubergine
Cooking oil
1 tablespoon of any Asian soy sauce (Tamari and Shoyu are both fine)
1 tablespoon cider, wine or fruit vinegar
1 tablespoon chili oil (see below)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fermented black beans (dou chi), rinsed and drained
Salt to taste
Fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped

1. First, make the chili oil by heating a jarful of cooking oil in a frying pan or wok, and once smoking hot, adding it to a bowl containing 2-3 tablespoons of ground chilies. Mix well, and allow to cool before using.
2. Chop the aubergine into finger-length chunks, toss in some cooking oil, and then roast in a hot oven until thoroughly cooked.
3. Make the sauce by combining the soy sauce and vinegar with the sugar in a small bowl. Mix well so as to dissolve the sugar in the liquid, and then add the chili oil, fermented black beans and salt.
4. Once the cooked aubergines have cooled to room temperature, place on a serving plate. Drizzle with the sauce, garnish with the mint leaves, and serve.

Of course, I was expecting to eat well in France on my trip there this summer, but perhaps I wasn’t expecting to eat quite as well as I did. Not only was there the stupendous vegetarian cuisine at the singing course that I helped out on, but there were also plenty of other meals and foodie experiences that raised the bar too. The photograph above is from a rather memorable lunch with my mother in Capdenac-en-Haut in the Lot, but what I really got excited about on this trip was the food of the Hautes-Pyrenees.

I went there to visit my old friend Eva, who lives in the regional capital Tarbes. It was my first time in the area, and like across the whole of France, the area has its own unique culinary tradition. Food in France is almost as localised as it is in China – Eva told me that cheese from the region she grew up in, only about a 4 hour drive away, is difficult to find in Tarbes and expensive to boot. Though I sadly wasn’t there on a Thursday to witness the huge weekly market, I did get to try a few local delicacies via a small, road-side produce shop that we passed while Eva took me on a mini-tour of the nearby countryside.

This was the scene that greeted us upon jumping out of Eva’s van: row upon row of different flavours of saucisson – air-dried sausage.

Though I’m not that much of a carnivore, I was soon salivating as I read the names of the flavours – duck, wild boar, at least five mixtures of pork and various different cheeses, and all made on-site. Though Eva told me that the same saucisson are sold for almost half the price elsewhere, I couldn’t resist buying one, and after a lengthy process of umming-and-ahhing, I finally decided on the pork and hazelnut variety. It was fantastic – richly meaty, studded with nuts, and so peppery it was almost spicy.

At the same shop I also bought what is known locally as Gateau a la Broche – or in English, rather less glamorously, Spit Cake.

This is how it is described on the packet label:

‘Gateau a la Broche, patiently cooked on a spit, layer by layer, before a wood fire; our company continues the tradition of these valleys, where neither baptism nor marriage nor convivial meeting would be a day of celebration without this authentic recipe of our region.’

And here is the ingredients list:

Butter, 25% (!!!)
Sugar
Flour
Eggs
Rum
Vanilla
Ground almonds

How can something so simple be so delicious? Believe me, dear reader, it can, and is mainly down, I would guess, to the unique cooking method. As the label so eloquently describes, the cake mixture is poured over a metal spit, about 5 centimetres in diameter, which is rotated over a wood fire. Here’s a photo of the illustration on the label to give you a better idea.

So, once each layer is cooked to golden perfection, another layer is poured on top, meaning that the finished product, when broken open, not only has pretty swirls of light brown running through it, but also, with its drip-induced spikes, looks rather a medieval weapon. I have a theory that this cake is inspired by the local architecture, which has its own characteristic spiky edges.

We drove back to Tarbes that evening laden with these goodies, and I suppose it's no surprise that said goodies didn't last beyond said evening.

Oh dear. Writing this now and looking at the photos, I’m itching to go back there. Ah well, at least I have the wonderful world of Chinese cuisine to comfort myself with, and as a man who I met in Tarbes told me, there are really only two important schools of cuisine in this world – Chinese, and French.

Every summer from the age of 11 to 18, my parents and I went on holiday to the Lot in Southwest France. I hadn’t been back there for almost 6 years until this summer, when I went to help out with the catering for the week-long singing holiday, Chanson Combard, that my mum organises and our friend Krista holds in her barn. Inevitably, this trip became a long and evocative walk down memory lane, and one stormy night, watching the lightning approach from the horizon, I, my mum and Krista reminisced about our most favourite restaurant in the area, the Unicorn.

The Unicorn was a single-room restaurant in an old building on the side of a busy road. The interior had probably not been altered since the sixties or even earlier – the wallpaper was stained with decades of cigarette smoke, and mice and cockroach sightings were not unknown. The old couple who ran it (Madame and Monsieur) were delightful, but if you peeped into the miniscule kitchen you got something of a shock hygiene-wise. One wall of the dining room was flush with the roadside, so you were serenaded by the sound of trucks roaring past as you ate.

None of this mattered in the slightest however, because the food was absolutely incredible. For nine and a half Francs, you got five courses – salad, a starter, a main, cheese, and dessert – and all of the most fabulous rustic French cooking.

The portions alone made the Unicorn amazingly good value – they were enormous. Piles of fresh prawns, stewed in Ricard, reached almost level with one’s nose; the duck baked with prunes in an earthen-ware pot was so huge it was nicknamed ‘Bucket o' Duck’; and the cheese course was encyclopaedic. The food was so copious and delicious, in fact, that my father would go on little walks between courses to recover and build up his appetite for the next onslaught.

We ate countless times at The Unicorn, and even though the menu hardly ever changed we never got bored, and came back year after year. I can remember the food there better than any other restaurant we ever ate at in the Lot – perhaps just because the menu stayed the same, but perhaps also because it was so unbelievably tasty.

When I was about 17 or so, we heard that The Unicorn had closed down, due to the death of Madame. Since then, every trip to the Lot has felt incomplete in some way, lacking in excess and indulgence. So, in honour of The Unicorn, in honour of over-eating and in honour of immoderation, I offer you the menu of this year’s Chanson Combard; not quite as luxurious as the Unicorn's, but still in the same vein nevertheless. Bon appetite!

Sunday
Dinner: Melon and grapes with vinaigrette; Roasted Vegetable Lasagne and Salads; Chocolate Tart.

Monday
Lunch: Courgette Bake and Falafel
Dinner: Tomato and Mozzarella Salad; Homemade Pizzas and Salad; White Chocolate Cheesecake.

Tuesday
Lunch: Provencal Pancakes and Potato and Tomato Bake.
Afternoon Treat: Chocolate Brownies
Dinner: Lentil Casserole with Raita; Spinach Pie and Salad; Pain-au-chocolat Pudding with Hot Fudge Sauce and Ice-cream.

Wednesday
Lunch: Stuffed Aubergines
Dinner: Caramelised Onion Tart; Courgette Bake, Olive Bread; Cheesecake and Chocolate Tart.

Thursday
Lunch: Lentil Bake and Chinese Aubergines
Afternoon Treat: Chocolate Fudge
Dinner: Bruchetta; Pasta with Tomato, Goat’s Cheese and Salads; Peach Clafoutis.

Friday
Lunch: Caramelised Onion Tart; Pasta Bake; Couscous Salad.
Afternoon Treat: Banana Bread
Dinner: Stuffed and Roasted Red Peppers; Spinach and Ricotta Lasagne; Charlotte Aux Fruites.

Continuing the picnic theme, here are a few photos from a rather magical one by the Lac du Tolerme in Southwest France last month.

This picnic was also particularly memorable because, in honor of World Hiroshima Day, some members of the party organised a mass candle-lighting and sending off of these little lights onto the lake. Here is what they looked like as the sun set...

...and here we are enjoying them.