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TO THE memory of Jane Redon and to all our countless friends in South-West France who gave us the idea of writing this book, I owe its dedication. I am profoundly grateful to them for handing on to me their own skills and recipes and their family traditions.

I am also most grateful to Kyle Cathie who has been more than a publisher, an enthusiastic and constructive editor as well.

Finally I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following publishers and authors who have allowed me to quote from their works: Editions du Seuil and Fernande Costes for Bonaguil ou le château fou; Editions Duculot for Les Mangeurs de Rouergue by A. Merlin & A.Y. Beaujour; Scolar Press for Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Mainstream Publishing and Gordon Golding for The Cevennes Journal by Robert Louis Stevenson.