Local Producer's Market. Argenton Les Vallees, Deux Sevres

The concept of a “staycation” was something I had only heard once before, and ever the pragmatic soul that I am , I felt it to be a top idea in these hard times.
As a family it was something we had already decided to do last year, less the fancy label – we were simply staying at home for the holidays here in France.
There is a slightly different angle for one of my daughters, Holly who lives and works in the UK – Her recent trip here was technically a staycation, but she got to travel to France in with the deal – no bad thing.

She was excited at the prospect of annual producer’s market, as she had never been.

What is it?
Quite simply it is an evening market in its usual venue, but you take along your flatware and the food is cooked for you. Everyone sits down to eat together under the huge wooden awning on long trestles and benches and tucks in to their purchases.

The bill of fare is exclusively based on local food and wine with some producers from the coast adding a seafood theme to add diversity to the offer – platters of oysters were priced at five euros a go and set out our first course along with snails, foie gras and apricot and fig bread.

We followed with duck and prune brochettes and sausages and polished of the meal with Charentais melon and a selection of goats cheese from my neighbour. Not forgetting the excellent wine produced by Gilles Lemoine from Domaine de la Gachere.

The evening was concluded by a firework display which had us all craning our necks and clapping like children.

With this type of high end eating and entertainment on the doorstep, who would want to go abroad?

Not me.

Story provided By Helen Aurelius-Haddock read more from Helen here

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Posted by: MyGuide2 Admin on 07 May 2010