Herbes de Provence

Another view-altering food experience that I had was a month long foreign exchange program to France, where I lived with a family in the Southern Provence region. This warm region near the Mediterranean is not unlike the Hill Country of Texas so much of the food has overtones, if not similarities, of each other.

Teaching the French about Texas. The cowboy hat may have been a little misleading but it was still fun to wear and it sure kept the kids’ attention

I never had the same dish twice; Madame Carrascosa was careful always to adjust the ingredients just enough to that it tasted completely different. One of my favorite and easiest to make dishes was composed of sausage and peas tossed together and cooked in an herb-filled broth. The vegetable and meat were mutually complemented, giving each a taste of the other. The French especially seem to employ this idea of balance with every meal. The food groups were always intertwined and never eaten alone. Lamb with carrots. Fish with cucumbers. Come to think of it, it was an ingenious idea to mix it all up; it gave the food a flavor that no one ingredient could accomplish. Pollan discusses the way humans –omnivores- debate what to eat more than any other species, but I say the French are an exception. They don’t deliberate over what food to eat; they simply use whatever ingredients are available and magically morph it into haute cuisine.
Many of my favorite dishes were homemade recipes. I was reminded of this recipe in particular because of our class tour to the herb gardens, and I noted we made our pistou rouge almost entirely with ingredients we had ourselves or were bought at the local Carrefour from local suppiers. The recipe was simple enough:


Pistou Rouge- much like tapenade but red
1 cup dried tomatoes
½ cup Pine nuts
50 ml Olive oil
50 g parmesan
50 g basil
3 pieces garlic
¼ squeezed lemon juice
Dash of Salt
Dash of Pepper
Grind everything into a paste for use on crackers or bread. Enjoy!