Rice from the Camargue

The watery open landscape of the Camargue, a region along France’s Mediterranean coast (south of Arles and Nimes and west of Marseilles), has the feel of a Wild West frontier. There are white wild ponies grazing, marshy wetlands, flocks of flamingos, and very few people. The thick walls of old towns, like Aigues Mortes (which means dead water, because the ground-water is very salty here), are a reminder that the area was for centuries a somewhat lawless frontier, known as a place where gypsies and bandits roamed.