Cookery Lessons in Provence

Apart from the difficulty in finding an open space at your favorite school, you may also find that the cost of the courses (with or without lodging) can be quite hefty. Or, you may not want to spend a week or even five days in the kitchen or at the market buying ingredients or visiting an olive mill. Just a half day might be sufficient for you, and, if possible, at a reasonable cost.

Well, last week I joined just such a course with a friend of mine and 13 other culinary enthusiasts. The clientele were mainly French, from the region or farther away from Nice and Marseilles, plus a few foreigners. There were 13 women, 2 men (one of whom supplied the wine from his vineyard) and the Chef, Guy Gedda.

Guy is a very well-known chef in France, his specialty is Provençal cuisine. Until ten years ago, he had a restaurant in Bormes-les-Mimosas. Now he devotes his time cooking for the French President and his invités, writing cook books, appearing on TV and giving a monthly course in La Garde Freinet.

For practical reasons, the course was more of a demonstration than a participation. The kitchen of the restaurant where the course was held was just too small for everyone to go cutting and stirring. Still, this did not prevent some to pick up a wooden spoon, a cutting knife or a sieve and take up a more prominent role. Guy certainly didn't mind letting someone else stir the polenta, because it gave him a "tennees-arm."

Though active cooking was not practical, participants were asked to do the cleaning and cutting of asparagus and strawberries
The menu for this course:

Feuilletés aux asperges et sauce mousseline
Epaule d'agneau farci à la Provençale et polenta
Tarte au fraises

Despite the more or less passive participation, we enjoyed the course immensely. It is not for everyone - you need to understand French (with Provençal accent and idiom), there are no translators. You also need to be able to appreciate stupid French jokes. Since the sauce mousseline that accompanied the asparagus was a variant on the sauce hollandaise, some of the French just couldn't stop making references to the Dutch visitors and the sauce.

One of the delights of that morning's experience was to discover how passionate the participants were about cooking. While Guy was explaining this or that, the participants were discussing among themselves how they would go about it, exchanging recipes, astuces. Any other chef might have thrown the towel down or in and asked: "whose show is this?" But Guy just continued, sometimes overhearing a conversation and correcting a perceived mistake.

The finale of the day was when we all set down at a long table and enjoyed the meal with its three courses and the wine brought by one of the men. The total cost of the course, meal and wine was 30 Euro per person. It was money well spent.