Anatomy of a Sunday Lunch in Gascony

Finding France: a Day to Rest and Share the Table

This is the beginning of the third part of Finding France: A Memoir in Small Bites, Anatomy of a Sunday Lunch in Gascony. Thank you for reading and sharing! And remember, you can read any part in any order. However, all the posts are archived on the website and app here. If you become a paying subscriber, you will have access to all the archives, all recipe files, and new video cooking classes. Enjoy!

Sunday Lunch at Camont-2019

Anatomy of a Sunday Lunch in Gascony

Memoirs are seldom chronological. Rather, we peer back, around, and through time as we layer fleeting experiences and delicate memories until a semi-rigid story can be told, honed,  and retold.  The years of Finding France didn’t begin with me looking for it; it only began when I started to see a pattern emerging from the anecdotes and funny stories. And like the classic Gascon recipes I would come to learn and love and share and teach, it began in small increments—a taste here, a truc (trick) there, a growing understanding of what kept me here.

I would tell people who asked, “Why did you come to France?” that was the wrong question. The real question is, “Why did you remain?” The answer is complicated, but it begins with a native curiosity about how things work… and why. 

The answer to “Why France?” is wrapped in thousands of years exposed through the veil of time on a daily basis in everyday France—from prehistoric tools to high fashion culture, from a love of art and language to an honoring of culinary traditions as sacred as Sunday lunch. Magically, without too much effort, one can reach back and draw a viable thread from a solitary pile of grains that had roasted on a terracotta grill in a prehistoric cave site to the holy daily baguette gathered, still warm, from an artisan baker in a small village. Soon, there will be a gathering, en masse, at the same time, around hundreds—no, thousands of family tables across the land. Everyone will be sitting down and eating between twelve and two. Seriously, almost everyone in the entire country! 

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Faire le Chabrot Chez Pompele- early 1990s

The Holy Table 

Do you believe in holy sites, sacred rituals, and other spiritual energies as people gather together? I imagine the French kitchen table is as consecrated an energy receptor as any lofty medieval cathedral that perches over valleys and villages. A worn and well-scrubbed wooden altar that levels all ages and sizes at the right height.  As I began weaving my life here into my neighbors and their families, I learned the French rituals from first apéros to final funerals at this holy French table. 

Today’s kitchen table at Camont and the dishes I place there aren’t taken from one recipe or one cookbook; rather, it is a compendium of thousands of meals shared at a single crowded table and talked about long into a quiet afternoon that ends with a walk along the canal. This Sunday lunch is every ‘Sunday Lunch’ in France. But they all began down a long, narrow country lane that follows the Canal de Garonne to the tiny canalside village of Lagruère, population 326, a 3-day boat ride or a 40-minute drive to Chez Pompèle.

I distinctly remember the first time I arrived at the home of Claude and Vétou Pompèle house, fresh from a boat ride down the canal to the little and convivial Halte Nautique at Lagruère. My fellow crew and I had been invited for aperitifs by Yannick Pompele, their 24-year-old son. That would have been in 1990, and I had been cruising these placid waterways for a couple of years, had bought “Camont the Ruin,” and found my way around teh markets of my long village. But there was more to come. It wouldn’t be long before the Pompèle family adopted me, my boat, and all my friends and crew as family. There would be some years of comings and goings between their home, my winter mooring spot where Yannick guarded the boat, and Camont until I left the California winters and one marriage behind permanently. Claude had built their welcoming family home in the heart of the village and across from the Liberté, Equalité et Fraternité banner of the tiny town hall, and he would help me restore mine. Their family home became the center of my universe while I was just beginning the restoration of Camont’s roofless kitchen.

Vétou has long been my kitchen mentor, la Reine de la Cuisine, and best chum on many a cooking adventure both here and abroad. But long before Claude passed away, and we two single ladies hit the road on cooking adventures, I would sit across from Vetou at her kitchen table, where the family ate every meal except for one, and watch. I would watch her like a hawk as she cooked. Vétou is one of those instinctive cooks, trained by the tastes of her family rather than trends. Claude had an exacting palate, and he would coach his wife with feedback every meal. “Delicieux!”  “Pas mal, but better the last time you made a Tourte aux Poireaux.” “Un peu plus de sel?”  And so, at every meal for 25 years, Vetou improved as a cook until she only knew what worked the best. 

The Jokes on Me

The first time I was invited for a Sunday Lunch, one of those long-winded family affairs that lasted five hours at the table, my French wasn’t up to the level of joking and banter in which the Pompèle family likes to play. I hate being the butt of the joke, so I accepted these invitations reluctantly at first. What began as hours of tortuous verbs and tenses, masculine and feminine articles, and lots of finger-pointing laughter gradually refocused as it should on the meal and the company. My French improved as I began to decipher the Sunday Lunch code—“we take the time to take the time…”

While the perfect roast chicken is a delicious French cliché across this land, in the southwest corner called Gascony, the chicken is replaced by an older laying hen, la poule, that is stuffed and poached for many hours in a large marmite or soup pot with a garden basket of vegetables: leeks, carrots, onions, turnips, potatoes, etc. Its bouillon or broth is served first, followed by the bird, stuffing, and vegetables.

And whether Vétou’s kitchen was extra generous or typical, I didn’t really know yet. But the Poule-au-pot and its soup were sandwiched in between and before several other courses that comprised the Sunday lunch.

a Poule-au-Pot at Camont

Sunday Lunch Chez Pompele—a wealth of courses.

Aperitifs— Vin de Noix- green walnut wine, Kir Gascon- crème de mûre and red wine, with a slices of Tarte de Tomates

First course—La Soupe, the bouillon from the Poule-au-Pot with vermicelli noodles and finished with wine “faire le chabrot”

Second course—Poule-au-Pot chicken and vegetables served with Vetou’s Special Tomato Caper Sauce.

Third course—Tourte au Champignons et Poireaux- a savory tart with mushrooms and leeks

Fourth course—Roast Duckling with green olives and garlic served with a potato puree

Fifth course—Green salad and its vinaigrette

Sixth course—always Two Desserts, including a tarte and some fruit.

Afters—Coffee and Prunes in Armagnac digestive

The many courses are served casually at the larger dining room table, dressed with a linen cloth and freshly pressed serviettes. Not fancy, but elegant, clean, and crisp. If there are flowers on the table (one would always bring flowers to an invitation!), they will be whisked away at the last minute by Yannick to make more room for the tureen and the platters, each one presented to the table as a gift that they are. 

I thought the double meat course might be an anomaly, but I experienced it later with a beef pot-au-feu, the soup treated in the same way and served separately from the meat and vegetables. It was followed by a Rôti de Veau served with Pomme de Terre Dauphinoise. Each boiled meat (and its bouillion) was then followed by roasted meat. Something boiled, something roasted. 

When the winter season arrives, there might be oysters first or smoked salmon for a fête. A terrine of foie gras, home-preserved usually, would be served to extend the aperitif hour but shared as a pre-first course at the table with toast and caramelized onions or another such condiment. A glass of sweet wine like Sauternes or a regional aperitif like Floc de Gascogne would accompany the foie gras en terrine. Then, a bottle of local red, direct from the family cave in the basement, bought en vrac or in a big jug and rebottled and corked for the year’s consummation. Claude had a stash of a Vendeen wine called Malec (not Malbec) that, at 15% alcohol, was stored in unlabeled bottles and deemed illegal, which he got from an oysterman who traded oysters for wine. A glug of this was poured into the last ladle of hot soup in your soup plate at the end of the course and drunk directly from the bowl. It’s called faire le chabrot and is a Gascon custom still practiced among friends. I loved all of this! Everything was new, had a long story, and fueled my imagination for what was to come at my own kitchen table.

Take Sunday Slower

At first, I focused on what was being cooked- the products, the recipe, and the accompaniments of side dishes, wines, etc. It was a while before I noticed that no matter what was on the menu and no matter which house, on Sunday, there was a recognizable rhythm to the table different from midweek. Slower, longer, more spaced out, and full of all the banter of family events and historical anecdotes that stretched before us for hours. Some days, it was just too much. I longed to crawl away, snooze, and shut down my French ears, which seemed to be smoking from my overworked brain and the extra translation efforts. 

Then, one day, one year, a switch happened. And I found myself slowed to the same pace as my French family. I was reluctant to leave the table. I was anticipating the endless parade of platters and dishes instead of moaning about too much food. I had stories to share and jokes to tell. I had survived the many learning Sundays and was enjoying the final result of sitting at that French table with those whom I loved best and sharing the best food on the earth—a Sunday Lunch in the French Countryside.

I would learn these special Sunday dishes from Vétou, often simplifying them for my galley kitchen, and add them to my repertoire. Practice, repeat, and master became my kitchen mantra as I returned to Vetou’s kitchen again and again for the sort of little touches she would tell me as I sat at that Holy Kitchen Table: “Just one mint leaf for a pot of peas and asparagus,” “Some more black pepper, to brighten the pan juices at the end,” “Arrange the slices of mushrooms in a pattern around the tart pan, even if it is hidden by the top pastry. Why? Because it cooks more evenly.”

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Next week: Portrait No. 3- Queen of the Kitchen, Vétou Pompèle. With her intuitive French ways, a twice-a-day practice, and a flair for storytelling, Mme Pompèle was my kitchen mentor. Her kitchen was my school room, the kitchen table my desk. Let me tell you more…

Recipes File Archives 3. Vétou’s favorites: Poule-au-Pot or Chicken in a Pot, Tomato Caper Sauce, Roast Duckling with Green Olives and Garlic, That First Tomato Tarte, Pomme de Terre Purée three ways: classique, a la tripe, souffléed, and to finish with a Tarte au Poire et Chocolate

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Finding France: A Culinary Memoir is an edible tale of a young traveling cook who gets stuck on a barge in France and stays to become a wise old woman with a head full of ideas on French food and cooking. Kate Hill—cook, teacher, mentor, and author—invites you into her world of French food as learned over three dozen years of practice in the rural farmlands of Gascony.

Kate Hill is the author of over a dozen cookbooks, including A Culinary Journey in Gascony, Cassoulet: A French Obsession, and A Gascon Year Series of 12 recipe and story volumes (available here). Published in America’s Best Food Writing 2019, curated by Samin Nosrat, she has written for Saveur Magazine and The Los Angeles Times. Kate and her cooking, butchery, and charcuterie programs have been featured in Bon Appétit, Food and Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Boston Globe, Faire magazine, My French Country Home, and countless websites.

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