At the Washmatic in Pézenas I can do a large load of washing for only seven francs. Since I’m not ready to join the women at the lavoir municipal, it’s always first stop on market day.
Next to the Washmatic is a butcher, and he becomes My Butcher. His shop is old-fashioned and authentic, not a bandsaw in sight: instead, a sturdy, slightly uneven chopping block and, above it, a row of choppers of different sizes and weights. In his one-shouldered apron, the butcher is as solid as his chopping block and lord of his domain, gravely dispensing culinary wisdom. Like la boulangère at Nizas who gently rebukes my French, the butcher corrects my gastronomic grammar, making sure I choose the right cut for the dish I want to cook and checking that I know how to prepare it.
My first lesson is about lamb. Entering the shop one Saturday, early in our relationship, my eyes light on a loin of lamb on the chopping block. Instantly I know what I want on my dinner plate and my mouth salivates at the prospect. Having patiently waited my turn, I point to the rack, still on the chopping block, and confidently place my order: Quatre côtelettes d’agneau, s’il vous plaît. At least I assume it’s lamb. It looks exactly like the lamb I’m familiar with, but the butcher is clearly offended. He draws himself to his full height and puffs out his chest. Ce ne sont pas des côtelettes d’agneau, madame, he replies, elles sont des côtelettes de mouton. Not lamb chops, mutton chops. Reprimanded and roundly humiliated, I can only reply, Oui, quatre côtelettes de mouton, s’il vous plaît.
French lamb, I’m made to understand, is not the same as lamb in Australia, which can be as young as three months in spring or as old as 13 months at the end of the following winter. So long as it still has its baby teeth it can be branded as lamb. No matter what the season, in Australia it’s always lamb chops we buy. No one goes to the butcher and asks for mutton chops. Only when it’s in meat pies or disguised in some other form do we unwittingly eat mutton.
Here in the south of France things are clearly different. Lamb in January is inconceivable, it’s simply not the season. Lamb invariably implies a young animal, and it is indissolubly associated with spring. It’s a seasonal delicacy, a luxury meat. The baby lamb we inspected in the Nizas vineyard will be ready to eat at Easter, around March. If allowed to enjoy life for a little longer it would become mouton, a completely different beast. Never disparaged as old lamb, mutton has its own respectable place in the seasonal repertoire.
Yet if I’d served these chops in Australia I’d be praised for the quality of the lamb. My four côtelettes de mouton are superb: tender, meaty and flavoursome. I grill them on an improvised barbecue in front of the house. Having smelled the distinctive aroma in the streets of Nizas on the day the butcher makes his weekly visit, I’ve learned from the old women that there is only one way to cook côtelettes de mouton, and that is to make a little fire outside your house and grill them in the open air over hot coals. It’s not because their stoves don’t have a grilling element, although they don’t. Rather, it’s because this is the way it’s always been done and, most of all, gives better results. I heed the lesson, and never again do I do I try to ‘grill’ chops on a gas or electric stove.
The Pézenas butcher doesn’t hesitate to reprimand me if he thinks I’m making the wrong choice. One Saturday I ask for tendrons de veau, veal brisket or flank, as I want to cook a recipe from my collection of Elle cards: Tendrons de veau bordelaise, a slow-cooked dish that includes mushrooms and red wine. Approving my choice of cut, the butcher tells me that tendron de veau is good when slow-roasted on a bed of potatoes and onions. And how will I cook my veal?, he asks. I explain that my French recipe uses red wine and mushrooms. He is appalled, shaking his head in disbelief. Non, Madame, jamais du vin rouge. Avec le veau il faut le vin blanc. And he appeals to other customers for support. You never use red wine when cooking veal, do you? And they all nod silently, condemning me as a heathen.
At least I’m not banned from his shop; he considers it his duty to enlighten the ignorant. Now that we have a relationship of sorts, an implicit trust in one another, I decide to save precious market time and leave a verbal order: une queue de bœuf, s’il vous plaît. Returning at two minutes to midday, I am shown the heart, le cœur, that he’s wrapping. Horrified, I try to explain that it was the tail I wanted, la queue. Clearly, it’s my pronunciation that’s at fault, and une queue is very different from un cœur. The butcher laughs it off and finds me an oxtail before completing my order, whizzing a blend of beef, veal and pork in his electric hachoir to make the children’s special viande hachée.