The Beloved Fete

Every summer, Ambialet puts on a festival for anyone who cares to join in on the fun!   These festivals, or “fetes” as they are better known in the South of France, have been celebrated since the Middle Ages.   Having used to take place in October, Ambialet’s annual fete now occurs during the first weekend of August. 

It has been explained to Saint Francis Students by two of Ambialet's locals, Mamie and Christiane, that for years, around two hundred people from the village and elsewhere have made their way to Ambialet’s center square to enjoy the music, dancing, and traditional dishes of the region.  Historically, musicians would visit each home in the village prior to the day of the festival, offering wine or flowers to each of the households in exchange for a donation to support the construction of a stage to be used for dancing.  The traditional fete also included the crowning of a “King of the Youth”--a tradition that was not begun until after the Albigensian Crusades as a form of resistance towards and a way to poke fun at the French king who nobody in the south particularly cared for.  Besides the crowning of this "King of the Youth" were a variety of fun activities organized solely for the children that incorporated running races and water games.

Fetes have changed dramatically over the years, but the idea of having annual gatherings remain.  Today, the fete in Ambialet begins on a Friday by serving a traditional meal to all in attendance.  The menu consists of a half melon with pork; country ham; potatoes that have been chopped and stewed with ceps (the local mushroom); duck leg; Roquefort cheese; and tarte a pommes (apple tart).  The following day, a disco and fairground is set up in the village square; Sunday concludes the festival with a firework display.

For a personal account of the fete experience, you might try reading a blog post written by one of the Saint Francis students or watching this clip.  During one of their first weekends in Ambialet, the Saint Francis group was invited to a fete in the neighboring village of Saint Michel; a great time was had by all!

[Interview conducted on 13 November 2010 with Mamie and Christiane].

Mushroom Recipe

Carpaccio Mushrooms Of The Thore Valley

Clean 8 mushrooms by wiping with a damp cloth. (They should have been picked just before preparing this dish.) Slice the heads. Store them in a baking pan. Salt and pepper the mushrooms. Sprinkle with half a cup of walnut oil.
Cut the legs into small dice. Then, sprinkle with thyme. Pour over lemon juice. Put the diced legs into the dish.
Serve as is.                            


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[Chalendar, Pierrette. La Cuisine Du Tarn. C. Lacour, 2001. Page 147]

Mushrooms

Here in Ambialet, people have been picking mushrooms for centuries. As discussed in the interview with Mamie and Christiane, there are several types of mushrooms in this region. There are cépes, girolles and coulement. These mushrooms each grow in different areas and in different shapes. There are two different types of cépes. There are smaller brown ones that can be found under oak trees and there are larger light brown/maroon ones that can be found underneath chestnut trees. The girolles are found in the woods and the coulement mushrooms are found on Mont St. Michel. The coulement mushrooms look like a small umbrella and they taste like rubber according to Peter and Margaret, the English couple at the bottom of the hill.

            The best time to go and pick these mushrooms is in mid September and October. Sometimes they can be found in the spring, depending on the weather. The weather and environment needs to be warm and wet. If it is cold and wet or warm and dry, the mushrooms will not grow. In our time here in Ambialet, we have seen several people on the side of the hill picking mushrooms as we came to or went from the monastery. There used to be many different types of mushrooms that could be found in the woods of the area of the Tarn River. People used to take care of the forest and treat it like a garden. They would keep the areas clear and make it a perfect setting to grow mushrooms. Since people have since stopped taking care of the woods and they have let it become overgrown, there are not as many types of mushrooms and there are not as many mushrooms because not all of the conditions are ideal.

Mamie and Christiane both said that you can cook these mushrooms by stuffing them with bread and sausage meat and putting them in the oven and cook. Also you can put parsley, dill leave and olive oil and eat the mushrooms raw.

             One fact about mushrooms that I found very interesting is that if you pick a mushroom and bring it into a Pharmacia (pharmacy), the pharmacists has to be able to determine if the mushroom is safe to eat. So pharmacists are taught how to distinguish the mushrooms and to be able to tell if they are safe to eat or if they will make you sick or even kill you. This is something that is very different from the United States. Back in the states if someone bought a mushroom into a pharmacy and asked the pharmacist if it was edible, you would get some strange looks and they wouldn’t be able to tell you.

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[Interview 13 November 2010 with Mamie and Christiane]