With so many generations of this landscape’s wine, asparagus, lamb, and oysters in her blood, Anne de Ravel is of Languedoc’s terroir. When you sign up to visit Anne, which anyone can do, you sign up for Languedoc-Roussillion’s not secreted but not tour-guided either, like the cheese monger, Jerome, who sells powdery, ashen bricks of artisanal goat cheese make by a cheesemaker named Jesus – not kidding – from the Lanzac.
We all loved Jesus’s sheep’s milk gouda, and the brilliant green cheese made with basil, but his cheese made with nettles raised the “you have just found an amazing corner of the world” flag for me.
Impish, charming Jerome was just part of a small weekly market in the town of St. Pons, a tiny village with an enormous church built for kings, gilded in gold and the local red marble.
Under the title Saveur Languedoc, Anne takes people wanting to know about the area to the places the tour guides don’t, and she knows the food that may not have stars, but is either excellent or of the Languedoc terroir. Anne will make sure you find the most local treasures to eat, like tielles, an ocotopus pie which we had for lunch today warmed. Dinner last night in Beziers, at the restaurant La Companie des Comptoirs, Francois had this masterpiece of a bowl of tagliatelle.
She will take you to this most local of French markets, where you’ll see things like those Navit de Pardhailhan turnips, and a native shallot that’s long and oval. We were looking for small spring artichokes that Anne would serve beside a braised squab for the dinner party our last night.
When we were freezing cold from wandering in that towering church, and rushed into the closest bar/cafe to get warm, we also fell upon the happy accident of this simple, country bar’s daily special, a thick yellow omelet made with local cepes.
Sign up for the Anne tour, and she’ll drive you, as she did us, into the foothills of the Massif Central where you’ll be awed how in one moment you’re looking across miles of plains checked with vineyards and the next standing upon gnarly precipices looking into the diaphanous air.
Leslie and I had been in dire need of a walk this morning, so Anne dropped us off at the Canal du Midi where it seemed we strolled into a Degas painting. We went along this graphically pristine landscape to the next village, where cafe au laits in a noisy bar warmed us again.
The next Languedoc adventure was antique hunting in Pezenas, a medieval city where Moliere and his troupe once lived and performed.
Some kitchy antique cafe au lait bowls later, we rushed home to begin the dinner party for that night – or, ok, we rushed home for Anne to prepare the dinner party.
Before I describe the entire menu I must digress: Anne is a duck authority. She’s written a cookbook titled, “Foie Gras, Magret, and Other Good Food From Gascony.” Next week she’s going away with five of her girl friends to drink good wine, eat good food, gossip, and prepare foie gras, rillettes, cured duck legs and cured duck breast. Forget the nail polish.
So the first course for dinner tonight was Anne’s foie gras. Like a treasure chest half buried in sand, the rosy foie gras’s corners stuck out of its layer of yellow duck fat. The first taste – ethereally rich, the faintest hint of cinnamon -instantly said this is very special. As the delicate flavors began to make sense, I swear I began to question whether or not I was worthy of them; the taste, the texture, the entire of it was divine.
The next course was brandade de morue, the classic salt cod, potato and olive oil dish, which Anne brightened with a fresh herb sauce and salad.
For dinner, those beautiful shallots found their place on the platter of braised squab, while the small artichokes reminded us that spring would be here soon.
Dessert was the chocolate tart from the other night and an apple croustade the St. Pons market.
Our dinner guests, Carl and Anita, are developing a beautiful chateau which will be both homes and a hotel, and for which Anne de Ravel is designing a restaurant menu of small dishes that reflect the truest Languedoc flavors in her own succinctly chic manner. I think the hotel’s clients will be very lucky to have both Anne and Languedoc, where, as Carl said, “ou il ya de tous!”
Anne, Francois, et Soustres, merci et au revoir mais pas pour longtemps!
