A Market, Duck Liver Pâté, and Bastides
October 20, 2021
A Market, Duck Liver Pâté, and Bastides
The medieval city of Sarlat is beautifully preserved. The Sarlat market occurs twice weekly, when vendors erect stands and sell all kinds of products, from fresh fruit and vegetables to fresh fish, to processed meats. This morning we walked to the center of the old city where the market was underway:
Many vendors had stands
set up, such as the sausage maker and the olive store:
But the product which had
more vendors than any other is duck liver pâté.
Yes, there is lots of goose liver pâté too, but it is the duck livers
which take prominence here. I had a
couple of questions: first, are the ducks force-fed as the geese are? The answer was no, but I’m suspicious. Second, I asked if there is any
feeling/sensitivity/shame in France at the widespread use of pâté, especially
that from force-fed geese, and the answer again was no. It is an integral part of the diet, and there
are many shops dedicated only to the selling of pâté:
We have a wine route in
the Finger Lakes (and some elsewhere, too); they have a duck foie gras route
here:
In addition, they sell enormous quantities of cutesy duck things as if those loveable ducks are just as happy as can be to sacrifice their livers to pâté:
We did not buy any pâté,
although we do eat it when (often) we are served it. After the market we left to visit the
medieval village of La Roque-Gageal, built in and under the cliffs alongside
the Dordogne River. It has been included
in the prestigious “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France” and it justifies the
inclusion. It is best seen from the
river, so we took a small boat, called a gabare, a reproduction of the boats
used in the river trade to and from Bordeaux:
Further upstream was the
medieval Castel-Fortress Castelnau:
Our last stop of the day
was the village of Domme, one of the bastides.
These are early 13th century towns organized by the Philip
the Bold, King of France, as settlements for populations from the north of France
with both a religious and a political purpose.
There were almost 100 bastides built in a relatively short amount of
time; Domme was founded in 1280. The
function was both to stamp out heretics and to occupy the land. Although Domme is on a high place, not all of
the bastides were located with defense in mind.
Here’s the gate to Domme:
And the commanding view from within the city:
Back to the hotel for
washing up and dinner; an early start tomorrow for a visit to the Lascaux IV
cave and the National Museum of Prehistory.
A really good documentary on prehistory cave art is "Cave of forgotten dreams". You can download an watch from several sites including prime video.
ReplyDeleteIt never occurred to me: for every goose or duck liver that gets turned into pate, a goose or duck is killed. This doesn't bother me, particularly. I'm just wondering: are goose and duck meat generally on the menu there, or for sale as sausages?
ReplyDeleteSo much history on display there--never knew about bastides.