VAR’S TRUFFLE MARKET
From around mid-November, Aups in the Haute Var, becomes the scene every Thursday morning for some rather secretive dealings, for Aups is one of most important Truffle markets in the region.
It starts pretty early as soon as it is light, with customers arriving in the central Place, to talk to local farmers in their battered old farm cars, quite often accompanied by their - truffle hunting - dogs, and very likely all business will have been completed by 10 am. Buyers are looking for the ‘black gold’ - the black truffle - that is found locally on the high Aups plateau, buried at the bottom of holm trees, and disinterred or sniffed out by their very specially trained dogs, just tiny scrapings of which can transform any dish into a gourmet delight.
Prices are very high and getting higher every year. Last year prices ranged from 500 to 1000 euros a kilo, most truffles range from around 100 to 200 grms in weight. This year the crop may well be small and hard to find, there has been very little rain all year, and few thunderstorms, the latter thought to be essential for the development of this very special fungi. The buyers, look, ask, trade, the farmers bring out small lumps of what looks like clods of earth from a back pocket, wrapped in a dirty handkerchief, small pocket scales are produced, and an incredible wodge of euros will change hands.
The Var Aups Truffle market happens only on Thursday mornings from mid-November to around the end of February.
CHRISTMAS SEASON IN THE VAR
Christmas starts early in this part of Provence, with all the major villages starting to have their annual ‘Foire aux Santons’, when the Provencal Santon makers show and sell their delightful terra cotta figurines for building up the home Christmas Creche.
The Provencal Santon tradition goes back to the French Revolution, when religion was forbidden. The religious Provencals found this prohibition hard to tolerate and in typical fashion circumvented it their own way for Christmas, the holiest time of the year, starting to make little terra cotta figurines based on their own local village life, not too obviously connected with religion - figures of the butcher, the baker, the shepherd, local village characters. In this way would put together small ‘creches’ for their own homes, where they could hold their Christmas in private. The tradition grew, many of the more famous Santon makers coming from Marseille, the likes of Carbonel and Lambert. Now the Santon makers ply their wares all over the Var from November onwards on all through the Christmas season, so every home can supplement their home crèche with new figures - ‘LArlesienne’ the Goose lady, etc. Villages hold ‘Creche Contests’ for children and adults.
Finally in the days before Christmas numerous inland villages celebrate the season with a ‘Living Creche’ performed by people from the village. Some of the more notable of these happen in Le Val, a great fun event, and Les Arcs.
Culinary aspects of Christmas in Provence include ‘pompe a l’huile’ a sort of bready dough made with olive oil, the Grand Souper, which happens Christmas Eve, finishing with the Treize Desserts, thirteen sweetmeats that finish the meal, nuts, dates, apricots, everything you can think of from a medieval larder.
But it’s not all tradition. Now several towns go with the flow and provide huge entertainment for all the young and not so young, but brave, by building special Ice Rinks.
GET YOUR SKATES ON
Skating rinks will be going up in several towns, early in December in Toulon together with lights and all sorts of animations including a giant Christmas Tree, followed a few days later by one in St. Tropez, when that seaside town’s Christmas Lights will be inaugurated together with the skating rink, and their Magic Forest, plus normally a super Ice Show. The animations run until early January.
The town of Draguignan starts their ice rink ‘Fete de la Glisse’ mid December, accompanied by a Christmas Market in the Allees Azemur, and another rink opens just before Christmas in St.Maximin, until around the 7th January, And of course skates are for hire for everyone.
GET ALL THE DETAILS FROM THE VAR VILLAGE VOICE WEBSITE AT WWW.VARVILLAGEVOICE.COM
