Stuffed Sardines

A great friend of mine has a pretty pink-washed farmhouse in Provence. A long straight avenue of chestnut trees leads up to it. Once, arriving for lunch on a baking-hot day, we stopped the car at the bottom of the avenue and decided to walk up to the house under the shade of the trees. Immediately we got out of the car we knew what we were having for lunch: fresh sardines. The smell of sardines grilling, the most common method of cooking them, is powerful; appetising yet pervasive. The tast