Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Pradelles - 24th June

On Armistice Day the French wear blue cornflowers rather than poppies. The blue refers to both the cornflowers that grew alongside poppies on the shattered battlegrounds and as an affectionate name for French recruits thrown into the war wearing blue uniforms.

We have seen red poppies in fields in most areas of France, but only occasionally have we seen cornflowers.

Today started with a trip to the market; the specialities in Le Puy are very mature sheep’s cheese, strawberries, morel mushrooms and of course the Green Puy Lentil. Lentil’s are only sold uncooked, so no taste test for us.

Cheese Experience No.64 - Faisselle Vache the most popular cheese vendor was selling a great deal of fresh cheese in pottles called Faisselle Vache. Faisselle is the container the cheese is strained through and vache is cow. The texture is possibly close to crème fraîche, however the later is made from cream. It can be eaten with savoury accompaniments or with honey, fruits and nuts as a dessert or yogurt.

After our siesta we went out on a 6 hour geocaching drive south of Le Puy.

• Solignac-sur-Loire: We couldn’t see the river, but did visit a nice village with a church made of volcanic rock built next to the ruins of the old church. There were statues, interesting war memorials, and a missing geocache. We left the search just in time for the wedding to start.

• Arlempdes: This small town had an old chateau and church made from the basalt rock. It also had the Loire river by it, but not up on the hills where we were, so we cooled down with the help of an Australian-macadamia ice cream. The 120 residents of the village are very garden proud, when they see somebody loitering by the geocache they pretend to be weed eating or hedge trimming.

• Pradelles: Another lovely village that was having their bread fete tonight. They have a geocache at one end of town near the red virgin and one at the other end of town near the museum with the red father of said virgin’s child; it was his turn for custody this weekend. In between the red parents were some lovely terraced gardens.

• Langogne: The residents also have nice gardens, a lake and lots of old buildings.

• Cayres: nearby the town is a crater lake, from satellite pictures it looks like a perfect circle of water up in the mountains. We only have photos from the car and no geocache finds thanks to the 100s of flies buzzing the windows. French supermarkets stock a few cans of ant and mosquito spray; what fly spray they do have feeds the flies - you can guarantee no mortalities.

 

Essence of France Photo Challenge No.26 - Le Coq The Rooster is France’s National symbol. He represents pride, he is pretensive with his chest puffed out, he struts, fights and sings. He sounds a whole lot braver and more exciting than a boring brown bird who is skittish and hides until night time. You see so many rooster motifs on things, rooster statues and the real thing in public streets.