Les Legumes

NO VISIT TO South-West France ever fails to re-create the initial enchantment of shopping for vegetables at the market, feasting the eyes on neatly arranged bunches, bulging boxes or just a few bundles of produce, all displayed with loving care by the smallholders who have grown them with skill and affection, picking only the best to sell. Monsieur and Madame Testas, for example, an old couple who live in the valley below us, go to market each week with, say, a basket of walnuts, three or four fresh vegetables, some heads of garlic or a few dozen eggs, delighted to chat to two English people because a niece of theirs once went to stay in Littlehampton. Further along the same trestle table in the market place a furious woman chastises a rabbit in a basket for stealing a stick of celery from the stallholder next door, while her own chicken is demolishing a lettuce displayed too near it. Market day shows the local populatation at its most gregarious and noisy.