Having been very busy at work, and in the garden tidying up for the winter, it was a pleasure to take an afternoon off on Sunday to visit the local Apple Fair. Nothing to do with iphones, ipods or computers, but a celebration of the wide variety of apples grown in France, and more particularly in Burgundy.
I am a keen apple muncher: I even have a bowl of fruit in the office and often have to wipe sticky marks off the keyboad, but even I was surprised to see the variety of colour and textures on display.
Other local produce on show and available for tasting included apple juice, honey and saucission, the latter being dried sausage which we love to eat with a glass of red wine! Try it, you might actually like it. At one time, this was the Burgundy farmers' staple breakfast and lunch!
We chose saucission de cerf, sanglier et morbiere: Deer, wild pig and a local cheese. So much for the diet this week. These are just too good to resist, and the fact that they keep for months does not interest me at all: I prefer to eat them now, thank you very much.
If you ever get the chance to visit a rural fair in France, often called La Jour de.... , do go. Not only were our tastebuds awakened, but we also met some local musicians, a wood turner, sculptor and still life painter. It's a great way to meet the locals: Even Chataigne the dog enjoyed it (especially the saucisson de cerf)
