I noticed that each week the Martins would sell crate after crate of black radishes, and I asked Jean-Claude what people did with them, for I had only ever come across black radish grated and tossed with rice-wine vinegar. Jean-Claude opened his eyes wide and looked at me as if I was an imbecile. ‘Suzanne, you don’t know what to do with black radishes?’ he said in an exaggeratedly surprised tone. ‘Monique, viens dire à Suzanne ce qu’il faut faire avec les radis noir. Come and tell Susan what to do with black radishes.’
She laughed and said, ‘C’est simple.’ She told me to slice them thin and serve them on fresh bread slathered with butter, or toss them in a shallot-rich vinaigrette. I do both and we all love their nutty, slightly hot flavour. It turns out they have medicinal properties, too, the most common being a cure for a sore throat once they’ve been cooked with sugar to a golden purée.
The Martins periodically invite me to stop by the farm, which is a twenty-minute drive from Louviers. Most recently I took Fiona, and with Monique we ambled along the ‘chemin de halage’, the towpath that was used by horses to drag barges down the River Eure. Almost every riverside town and village in France has such a road, and it provides an insight into the life of the community, as it is hidden from the main streets behind homes, farms and factories. In this particular farming village it runs along behind tidy productive gardens and small fields, a restored manor house and little fishing huts that have been turned into vacation homes. We saw flowers and vegetables, rabbits and chickens, people having drinks under huge parasols, fishermen reeling in their small, wiggly catch. We even picked some redcurrants that hung over a fence into the pathway. Our return to the Martins’ farm, which is in the centre of the village, coincided with Jean-Claude’s return from the fields, and it gave us a chance to take a drink together at the large table outside. Monique’s parents joined us too, and it was a warm, friendly time.
When I’ve finished at the Martins’ stall at the market I pack everything carefully into my basket and they tell me what I owe. How, I always wonder, is it possible to get so much for so little? I would be willing to pay so much more for all this gorgeous produce that my family, my luncheon guests and my cooking school students enjoy so much. I walk away from the stand thinking that I’m getting much, much more than I’ve paid for.
When I’m shopping for my cooking classes or for a special lunch I buy a lot of produce, and take no end of teasing. After I’ve chosen multiple heads of lettuce, enough carrots and leeks to make soup or turn into a garnish, radishes and baby potatoes for an appetizer, aubergine and tomatoes to accompany something from the grill, my basket is overflowing. One week I was asking about the keeping qualities of their shell beans: I needed them on Friday morning to serve as a garnish on sautéed foie gras, and our market is on Saturday morning. ‘Xavier can deliver them to you on Friday morning: he goes to Louviers every day,’ Monique said. Xavier nodded in acquiescence. I looked at him a bit sceptically. ‘Are you sure that this is convenient for you?’ I asked. ‘If you don’t mind getting them at seven-thirty in the morning, I’ll do it whenever you want,’ he responded. Imagine: farm-fresh vegetables delivered to my door. I accepted, gratefully, realizing that this might change my shopping habits forever.
I walk right by the gorgeous loaves of sourdough bread that are displayed at a stand next to the Martins’, and which beckon like a siren’s call. I’ve succumbed before to this bread, which is sold by the pound, and each time I’ve been disappointed. The crust is dark and shatteringly crisp, the ‘mie’, or crumb, is filled with irregular holes, just like good bread should be, but there is an aftertaste of chlorine. I assume it is from the water used in the bread since, according to the man who sells it-who I don’t think is actually the man who makes it – the only ingredients in this bread are the sacred triumvirate of flour, water and salt. Unfortunately, not everything at the market is as it seems.
Baptiste’s stand is next. The farm he works with his uncle must be in a microclimate, for while he has just about the same variety of produce that the Martins do, his is always a bit in advance, which gives him an edge – he’s got the first tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, courgettes, and a variety of strawberry called Mara des Bois that produces from early spring into autumn with a flavour and aroma so musky and sweet it should be bottled. I always think I’ll serve them with a cake or a crème brûlée, but we usually end up eating them all before I can do anything with them.
In the winter Baptiste makes his fortune, a word I use as hyperbole, on Belgian endive. This he cultivates in soil, unlike most endive in France, which is cultivated hydroponically. It is in season from November to March or April, depending on the year, and he sells every single endive that he harvests.
I get milk across the way from Baptiste, then continue on down the row of stalls to a vendor who specializes in Hass avocados which, depending on the time of year, are either from Spain or Israel, and are unparalleled in flavour. On my way I bypass Guy-Guy, the charcutier, despite the delicious aromas emanating from his huge pan of bubbling choucroute, or sauerkraut, his fat sausages, his smoked hams and his enormous, garlicky pâtés. I shopped at this large, colourful stall until I discovered a charcutier whose products are finer, more richly and carefully flavoured, less mass-produced than Guy-Guy’s.
I don’t know why it took me so long to discover him, for his pork products are head and shoulders above anyone else’s at the market, or in the town of Louviers, for that matter. A dapper little man with pomaded hair and a tidy white coat, he and his plump, blonde-haired wife are old-fashioned and gracious, products of a different era. On Saturdays they have two young men working alongside them, one of which, I’m almost certain, is their son. Though they are all very pleasant, they have no time for chit-chat, since the queue at their stand is long and insistent. As I wait I watch people load up for the week on pâté, sausages, garlicky saucisson à l’ail, ham, tripe, head cheese, jellied pigs’ feet. I buy ‘jambon à l’os’, ham on the bone, which the charcutier hand-cuts into sumptuous, uneven slices, which I like to serve along with a green salad dressed with chive vinaigrette. I’m not even a ham lover, but for his boiled ham I make a huge, almost gluttonous exception. We all love his garlicky sausages, which I serve with vinaigrette-dressed green beans and potatoes, or atop a salad. His lightly smoked bacon, which, like all bacon in France, is lean and delicately flavoured, is delicious too.
Beyond the charcuterie truck and past the honey man, his card table loaded with several kinds of honey and handmade beeswax candles, is the quiche truck. Here Madeleine, Monique Martin’s cousin, and her husband Jean-Pierre sell quiches, cakes, pizza and a few fruit tarts. They make everything themselves at home, except for the quiches – their specialty – which they cook in the two gas ovens inside the truck. I always wonder, when I watch Jean-Pierre put a baking sheet crowded with quiches into his oven, where I can see the blue flame burning, why the whole thing doesn’t explode. I would have thought it would act like an incendiary bomb, but so far as I’m aware there has never been a mishap. And the quiche truck is hardly a threat compared with the pizza truck and its wood-burning oven that parks in one of Louvier’s car parks every Friday night – but that’s another story. In any case, Monique and Jean-Pierre make the most delicious little quiches I’ve ever had. The crust is crisp and tender, while the filling – which is seasoned with Gruyère or a classic blend of Gruyère and bacon, with salmon and leeks, or with tomatoes and garlic – is just the right creaminess.
Often Fiona and I go to the market together, and when Monique sees us coming she’s already got a quiche that’s not too cold, not too hot, all ready. ‘Bonjour Mademoiselle,’ she says, and hands it down into Fiona’s waiting hand. Sometimes I’m so hungry I’ll eat mine right there, too, along with all the other people who are doing the same thing. Like them, I’ll