Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

16 страница из 105

Having run out of France to the south, and skirting a furry tail currently draped over the Pyrenees, my route turns east for poule au pot, and the cassoulet country of the Languedoc, before hitting the Côte d’Azur, with its rust-red fish soups and deliciously oily ratatouille. Tempting as it is to head for Provence proper at this point, that herb-scented heaven-on-earth where I spent every rosé-soaked summer of my twenties, I fear I’d never tear myself away in mid-June and I cannot ignore the siren call of tartiflette from my second-favourite place in France, the Haute Savoie. I wish I could say that it’s the thrill of the physical challenge that attracts me to the mountains, but it isn’t, it’s the cheese.

From there, the map suggests I’m quite close (i.e. a-whole-day-on-a-train close, due to aforementioned size of country) to Lyon, often touted as the culinary capital of France. Though I’ve only driven past it, my reading suggests it specialises in an extraordinary array of animal parts, and oddly, one of France’s best salads, the lyonnaise, with its bitter leaves dressed with salty bacon fat and rich, runny egg yolk.