Luceram

Not far north of Peillon is Lucéram, whose close proximity to Provence’s border with Italy is much in evidence: at least half the town’s 550 residents appear to speak Piedmontese, the local Italian dialect. One cold February day, while new show clouds rolled in behind the fifteenth-century church tower, Lucéram’s mayor, his two guests, the entire staff of the Hotel Méditerranée, and three of the hotel’s ancient residents sat in the restaurant discussing, in a curious linguistic mixture of Provençal and Italian, the past and present of the local gastronomy. Monsieur le Maire could be heard above the squawks of the parrot in the window and the Gitane roar of Joséphine, the 69-year-old grande dame of the Méditerranée