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Posted on Monday, 29 September 2008 |
 The South of France took off as a tourist destination in the late 1800's. The rise of the rail network and the subsequent accessibility that it afforded meant that much greater numbers of people could get there. Prior to then, it was simply too difficult and too expensive to even contemplate travel for the masses and so such journeys were exclusively the prevail of the extremely rich and the occasional adventurer.
Initially the great attraction was the mild climate and the natural beauty. The mild winter climate was of a much starker contrast than it is today. Cold and wet in the northern climes in the 1800's was a whole different story than the cold and wet we observe today from our double glazed, insulated, oil heated homes.
So it easy to see the attraction and the trajectory of the South of France as a holiday destination. Early writings of foreign travellers to the area describe the wild and natural beauty of the area, the climate, the mountains, the rivers, the impossible blue skies and the soaring heights of the surrounding hills.
Much less was written of the locals and of the people who knew this area as their home. Early writings refer to the peasants and of 'serving girls' and 'maids', washing the hotel linens in the rivers but the fact is that, at the time, tourists were not in the slightest bit interested in the locals or how they lived their lives.
We, as a modern people, strive to find the authentic, the local, the personal experience in the maze that is the cultivated travel industry. Then, the people were simply peasants, charming or offensive depending on your sensibility but certainly not worth much more than a mention in your turn of the century travel diary or your letters home.
Now the South of France is a highly prized, highly developed and highly protected holiday destination in the French repertoire. It is polished to perfection by time and experience from it's picturesque perched villages to it's prettily planted board walks and swept streets. On questioning one Italian tourist why he chose the South of France as his holiday destination over his almost identical Italian Riviera just across the border he replied, " Because it is so clean, so ordered and so well preserved which makes it much more relaxing".
So amongst all this order, this preservation and this pristine beauty is there anything left that is authentic? Is it possible to find an original, local French experience. Between the grand hotels, the rows of restaurants offering 'traditional cuisine' and the authentic Italian ice cream parlours with a million different flavours, I don't know did they have bubblegum flavoured ice cream back then?
Well there s no doubt it is harder to find in the myriad of local, authentic and traditional mine fields out there but out there it is. Unlike some other cultures that have become almost unrecognisably diluted by imported foreign culture the French are as famous for their 'resolutely Frenchness' as they are for their beautiful Riviera.
A stroll along a main thoroughfare in London, Dublin or New York will yield a dizzying choice of cuisine, French Italian, Chinese, Thai, Caribbean, prepared and served by chefs from Poland, China or Brazil. On the French Riviera it is not just possible but easy to wander into an establishment and feel the disapproving eye of the owner/proprietress/ grandmother chef when you ask to see a menu.
Menu?! You'll get what you are given which is what she has cooked that day and you will finish it all and be happy. She will wipe her hands on her floral house coat and shoo away a hungry dog from the kitchen table where she will slice up your baguette and slap it down on your table.
On questioning a local gentleman, who was sitting at the bar sipping his daily pastis and smoothing down his facial hair, It was revealed that he seldom went to the sea unless it was to fish in the early hours of the morning and as for St Tropez beach? No he had never been there nor did he plan to go.
A hunter, he saw no use nor no reason to go to the coast, it wasn't a place where he would find his quarry, the wild pigs that roamed the mountains and thickened the stew on the table. He was about as far removed from the Puff Daddy pool parties of St Tropez as is humanly possible to be.
So where was this place, far far into the mountains, hours from the sparkling coastline of the French Riviera? Yes, it was a small village, it was popular with passing local hunters and drivers, it was manned by an old woman who cooked what she had been cooking for generations using the only ingredients that she knew which were all local, not because that is 'the trend' but because there is simply nothing else, no other way to cook. It was a fifteen minute drive from the centre of Nice and was within sniffing distance of the salty sea air.
Authentic French is authentically French because the French have not been swayed by other cultures, or at least less swayed by other cultures. They have not swerved off their own path and so are not battling their way back to it. They simply never left it in the first place and why would they, it is French and French is the best, n'est-il pas? They might have a point.
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