They had to dodge only one cordon or blockade on their way back from a holiday in the Charentes region of France, a young couple with two small children. Then, when they got to Roscoff for the boat home, they found no demonstrations or any delay. That was just about a week ago. Full of good health and cheer. They had rented half of a farmhouse down inland and found it as things used to be: chickens, ducks, guinea-fowl and geese running free around them. A change of diet too, of course.
Being not too far from Bordeaux, they tasted the famous lampreys. We've had them before in this corner, fished out of a river near Limerick, but certainly not eaten. For lampreys, as you remember, are those eel-like creatures with sucker mouths which attach themselves to other fish and suck their blood. A famous dish around Bordeaux is lamprey a la Bordelaise. Very dear, our friend says. Sturgeon were introduced a long time ago to the Gironde, but now seem to be farmed. They had some, but no caviar.
They brought home some wine from the district, with the lovely name Chateau Siffle Merle, i.e. the whistling blackbird, and such a bird appears on its label. A jar of confiture or conserve is labelled as being wine conserve. As well as being put to the primary use as a jam, it is an excellent ingredient says the label, in sauces for game, poultry, red meat and fish. Very practical, the French cooks, for they also remind you of many other ways of enjoying it: on apple tart, baked apples, pancakes and other delights.
But how do you make wine jam or conserve? The label tells you: 50 per cent wine, 50 per cent sugar, plus spices and pectin. Interesting flavour. Wouldn't think, eating it, of grapes or wine - perhaps an unusual blackberry. Anyway, the vineyard of Siffle Merle at Marcillac is 20 hectares covering the three different types of soil: given as silicaclay, clay-gravel and limestone clay.
Why, when writing about holidays in France, is so much attention given to food and drink? Obvious. A sporting magazine they brought home, in a full-page advertisement for a hunt-organising agency, lists Ireland for snipe and woodcock shooting. Also listed: Kazakhistan, Poland, Senegal and Scotland.
Meanwhile, this writer goes on holiday, and In Time's Eye will reappear on Monday October 2nd.