French Bounty

Sue Aran

“I think food, culture, people and landscape are all absolutely inseparable.” Anthony Bourdain

The lure of France has never dimmed, nor has the lure of French cuisine. In Gascony, the Pays Basque, Occitanie and Provence in particular (where I currently lead slow travel tours) good food, carefully prepared with first rate ingredients is not a luxury but an essential ingredient in the daily art de vivre, art of living.

careful selection of dishes using recipes reflecting the terroir and diversity of a region.
the marriage of food and wine.
a beautiful table setting.
the celebration of the importance of being with family and friends, so that a meal becomes a moment of sharing and discovery.

In the Gers department where I live, considered the heart of Gascony, there’s a deep affection for foods of the heartland, a pure, distilled culinary embodiment of the Gascons’ rural origins, an extension of the land itself. The special attention paid to the pleasures of the table are found in la vie quotidienne, ordinary life.

Since the love of good food and community is at the heart of rural village life, there’s no better way to step into the rhythm of the countryside than through a class at the local cooking school, Le Atelier de Fourcès.

We are fortunate to have the cookbook author, and teacher, Laura Washburn Hutton, living in our midst. Laura trained at the prestigious Paris school, Ecole de Cuisine la Varenne, and worked as an assistant to the renowned American food writer, Patricia Wells, and the influential French chef, Joel Robüchon.

In 2020, she and her husband walked into the kitchen of a house for sale in the storybook village of Fourcès, decided this was the place they needed to be, and now divide their time between England and France.