Gasconha/Occitania – Page 3 – Nicole Peyrafitte

Loose in Toulouse

I left my hometown of Luchon this morning to travel back to Paris. I had a 5 hours lay over in Toulouse in order to catch the cheap €29.29 iDTGV. I locked my belongings at the “consigne” and took off.

I lived in Toulouse in two occasions: In the mid 70’s while being a student at Lycée Raymond Naves and in 1983-84 while trying to be an actress. These times were certainly not the rosiest of my life. As a student I lived at the home of an extremely rigid & dark family where I felt inadequate & stupid most of the time. As a pretending actress the situation was no better, despite landing a small role at the famous Grenier de Toulouse. I had troubles hiding my accent, I was bold —in many ways as I shaved my head at that time— untrained, uneducated and I was also mostly focused on my son Joseph then a toddler. I had separated from his father when he was less than two years old and my pride was to take care of him myself. I was 24 years old had already been a clerk at a pharmacy, a chef/restaurant owner, a door to door vacuum cleaner salesperson, but wanted my dream was to be an actress as I had done a lot of acting in high school. Well it didn’t work the way I had envisioned though my first, and only, professional role at the Grenier was to be a waitress in the Arnold Wesker play The Kitchen! That might explain why I wasn’t fit for it…I thought I knew how to be a perfect waitress and could carry it on stage, but I totally missed the point it was not about being “real” but about to be theater real and I was certainly not prepared for that.

Anyhow I have returned to Toulouse many times since then, & performed several of my shows there: Deplacements with Pierre Joris, Ninon at the Cave Poésie & The Bi-Continental Chowder/ La Garbure Transcontinentale at the Festival Occitania. Toulouse is also the inevitable transit hub to Luchon —about 1h 1/2 south, straight toward the high pics.

Today was the first time in years I was there alone. I had no friends nor family scheduled to see & a very strong desire to let the city carry me. The day was beautiful, I walked along the Canal du Midi for a while and then directed myself towards downtown thinking that I might enjoy getting some lunch on a terrasse around place Wilson. When I crossed the boulevard I noticed the sign for Marché Victor Hugo and followed it. I love markets and this one is very special. Unfortunately as it was around 1h30 PM it was closing time. I still got a glance at the beautiful meat displays, so fresh, so perfect. I also remembered that there was great restaurants on the mezzanine above the market and last I stopped there in 2007 I bumped into a childhood friend, Christian Lazorthes,then known as Kiki, he worked at Le Louchebem.

Christian Lazorthes Sure enough he was still there, I spotted him out right away, set myself at the bar, he also recognized me immediately & that is alway reassuring! I asked him for a spot and he sat me in his section of the communal table. He brought me a glass of Tariquet for apperitif and advised me to eat a piece of onglet roti —hanger steak— with raw shallots & round new potatoes, I made sure I wasn’t getting frozen fries — as in the USA, most of the french restaurant now serve frozen fries, please help me put pressure on the abolition of frozen fries!—. While I was waiting for my plate a man sat across the table from me. We exchanged a few banalities, that ended up not being so banale because something made me understand that he spoke occitan. I asked him about it and he said yes of course. After that almost our entire conversation was conducted in his beautiful perfect occitan and in my broken pyrenean gascon. While eating the most delicious hanger steak with Mustard of Meaux, I found out that we had many common acquaintances. Once of them the occitan scholar/philosopher Alem Surre-Garcia, I have been very inspired by his work and was glad to find out that he had two new books out: ARCHIPELS ET DIASPORA : ESSAI D’ÉMANCIPATION La théocratie républicaine & LA THÉOCRATIE RÉPUBLICAINE Les avatars du Sacré. I went to buy them at Ombres Blanches (Best bookstore in Toulouse and maybe in France) as soon as lunch was over.

My new acquaintance, Jacme Delmas, turned out to be a radical occitan writer author of the blog: http://democraciaoccitania.blogspot.com/ and contributing editor at El Triangle an independentist Catalan newspaper. A very passionate man that has put a lot of thinking and practice of being an occitan. I had a great time, it was energizing to be able to feel the depth of my culture and feeling totally inside of it even though I Iive so far away from it. Once again my favorite mantra “Things fall where they lie” & my identity as a Gasco-Rican were confirmed! Mercés Jacme per la conversacion, eth partatge de la passion del país e espèri que me mande al puslèu l’explicacion dera prononciacion de Jacme. Adishatz!

Fire up 2011

BONA ANANDA GLÉCKLECHT NEIT JOER BONNE ANNEE
HAPPY NEW YEAR 새해복 많이 받으세요
Switching year is always exciting and this is how we FIRE UP 2011!

Poem Pierre Joris—Video N.P.

Thank you for reading the blog and the most read pots of the years are:

Charles Bernstein Poetic Birthday Buffet

Ninkasi: “The Lady who fills the Mouth”

Three Sisters Soup

Lo Magret goes to Paris!

29000 years ago…and Paleo Lunch

Fast Poulet

Squids Part I : Clean & Keep the Ink

Squids Part II: Kept the Ink ? Now Cook with It!

What was your favorite? Love to know. Merci & Bonne Année!

In Pétéram We Trust!

In the county of Luchon (where I was born and raised) we are really serious about Pétéram. Pétéram is an ancient local dish made from a combination of tripe (intestine & pluck), lamb & veal feet, ham, carrots & onions. During my last visit home I had to have my fix of Pétéram; so one Sunday, part of the family took off to the village of Oô, where the restaurant “Les Spigeoles” serves one of the best Pétéram. Jean-Pierre Oustalet, a friend & the chef-0wner of the establishment, is a very creative man always up to something fun. Recently he printed a series of t-shirts with the motto he coined himself: “In Peteram We Trust!”.

peteram t-shirt

This summer a Flemish TV from Belgium came to film Jean-Pierre’s Pétéram for one of their shows. Though the video is in Flemish & French I urge you to watch it: Touristique: de pétéram.
Tripe dishes are cooked around the world (list here), and as we know these less desired cuts were left for the poor. It was the same for Pétéram, I don’t think it appeared on restaurant menus in Luchon until the 20th century and my family restaurant was certainly one of the first to offer it. Though I don’t know the exact etymology of the word, one can read its the humble origins through the Gascon language : petar— French translation: “crever” or in English:”to die” or “to be famished” and hame— in French “faim” or in English “hungry”. Thus Pétéram can be interpreted as “a dish for the famished” or as a dish that will kill hunger! Then again this may be an invented etymology (much work remains to be done on the Gascon language, and especially certain of its regional versions, such as that spoken in the Luchonais.) On the other hand, to quote my husband, the poet Pierre Joris, “are any etymologies really ‘false’?”
I used to make Pétéram when I was working at the family restaurant (other posts related to the family hotel here) and though we received “clean” tripe from the butcher, the smell was still strong and the tripe would require extensive blanching in order to get rid of the offensive smell. I got used to it and it didn’t bother me, except this one time. In the late fall of 1981, I had to cut a big pile of intestines and honeycomb for my Pétéram and that time, for some reason I was to discover a few days later, I couldn’t bear the smell. Two days later I found out I was pregnant with my son Joseph. Throughout my pregnancy I had to stay away from tripes.

Jean Pierre Oustalet’s Pétéram is as good as it gets. He achieves the difficult task of making a tripe dish light. The texture of the tripe still firm but tender. The sauce, in which the tripe have cooked for over twelve hours, release the rich and comforting aromas of all the ingredients. The creamy potatoes that have been added late in the cooking provide the perfect starching effect. Some places serve it as a first course, though we had it as a main course. We had soup to start with, then a plate of artisan salamis & cured ham, followed by the Pétéram as the main course. Then we had a slice of delicious mountain cheese, a slice of apple pie and voilà! we sure were full and happy! Below are a few pictures of the fun outing where you can see my parents : Jean & Renée Peyrafitte ( 88 and 81 years old!) in the gorgeous village of Oô. This village is also very dear to me because I premiered my performance The Bi-Continental Chowder /La Garbure Transcontinentale there in 2005. One of the reason is that one of the main Romanesque female figures featured in the show is from the village; you can hear the song related to it here.

The recipe is a translation of the family recipe transmitted by my grandfather Joseph Peyrafitte & typed by my mother Renée Peyrafitte:

for 5/6 people:
1 lamb stomach & 6 feet 1 kg veal honeycomb & 2 feet
3 carrots whole
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1 ham bone
1 bouquet garnis of thym, laurel & parsley
1 cup of ham prosciutto like— diced
2 onions
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 quart chicken stock
1 kg potatoes
Hachis (50 gr garlic & 50 gr fatback grounded together)
1/3 cup Armagnac

Blanch and scrape the tripes thoroughly. Cut the stomach & honeycomb in trips of about 1 x 0.5 inches. Place is all in a stew-pot with a ham bone.
Add 3 whole carrots, the bouquet garnis, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, 1 cup of ham, 2 onions whole, salt, pepper & a touch of nutmeg. Add wine wine & chicken stock so tripes are immersed and “swimming”.
Bring it to a boil, cover the pot and let cook for 10 hours, one hour before serving add potatoes peeled and quartered.
When ready to serve add hachis and the Armagnac.

Stade Jean Peyrafitte

Luchon’s Mayor Louis Ferré & Jean Peyrafitte

On Saturday November 13th, 2010 the soccer stadium in my hometown of Luchon (French Pyrenees) was named the Stade Jean Peyrafitte. Jean Peyrafitte is my father and today he is a dashing 88 years old. His political career lasted for a span of 24 years. Among many mandates the most significant are: mayor of the town of Luchon (1974-1995); Conseiller Général —county executive— (1977-1992) & Senator (1980-1998).

He was of course touched to be honored during his lifetime but the real thrill was to have the soccer field where he played as a young man named after him. Dad started his soccer career while he was in boarding school in Toulouse; during that time he finished second at the regional best young player contest and therefore was qualified to participate in the final in Paris. Unfortunately his mother, who was a control freak, didn’t allow him to go; her excuse was: “You are too young to go to Paris”, at that time parental authority was not challenged but I still can feel today how sad he was .

Team 1942 — Team Bagnères Luchon Sport 1942

When he was done with school he came back to his hometown and integrated the lead soccer team (équipe première) despite his young age. In 1942 the team won the division championship and managed to play up to the 32th final of the Coupe de France — the French National Soccer Cup. After an intense and dramatic game they lost against Toulouse, a pro team. It was only in the last part of the second half that the then international player Mario Zatelli scored twice.

After being requisitioned for STO — that was the Compulsory Work Service during the German occupation of France — and spending a couple of dreadful years in German factories, my father got drafted in 1946 to serve in the army. His battalion was stationed in the town of Menton. There he got to join the town soccer team where he once again excelled. He got noticed by the Monaco managers. At that time the Monaco soccer team, very close to Menton, was trying to reach professional status. On Mondays during the soccer season they organized friendly games against professional teams in order to prepare for promotion. They needed better players and they invited my dad to play. At the end of the year they reached promotion to pro level and they offered dad to join the team for good. He seriously considered; he was done with the army, loved the area but once again his mother thwarted his dreams and pressured him to come home. Many times I heard the story of my grand father showing up in Menton to convince him to come back home. Dad was an only child, and they were able to pressure him by claiming they needed help with the family business; once again he obeyed and returned.

Other offers to play in professional clubs came, but he turned them all down, returned home for good and threw himself into many successful ventures. Before getting into politics, he coached the soccer team, created a night club —where I got to listen to great jazz!—, wrote for local newspapers, promoted Southern French Tourism and food, created an independent hotel chain with friends…well the list would be too long to name them all.

Anyhow, back to the naming of the stadium: Dad being concerned that his voice would not be strong enough since he is struggling with light bouts of Parkinsons that have an effect on his throat, and as he is also concerned with getting over-emotional, he asked me to read his speech. I also typed it for him and that was interesting. When I arrived at his house on Tuesday the dining room was cluttered with boxes, old files, envelopes filled with photos, articles and various dossiers. My mom said: “And that is only a small portion of what we have”! We sat down and started sorting and organizing. We kept all the soccer related documents at hand so dad could refresh his memory to write his speech. We only started typing the speech on Thursday, because we got caught up in looking and filing photos of his night club in the 50’s. I will have to do a separate post on that because there is way too much to say.

So on Thursday we sat side by side and he started dictating me what he wanted to say. I had to listen to many of my dads speeches over the years so I know his style pretty well. I helped trying to keep it concise and focused as he had about 5 minutes to respond to the mayor’s speech. It went pretty well despite how opinionated we both can be. One of the keys was to keep it only between the two of us. He wanted my mother around, for details and dates, but their constant fighting mode of communication would have been too much for me, so I agreed to go consult with mom every time we needed details. He worked on the speech everyday until Saturday. He is a perfectionist and completion comes when there is no more time for revision! Anyhow, everything turned out great. It was a very sweet moment, both my brothers where there too and in his speech my dad mentioned that his three children had played on that field. Pierre played goalie, he actually had a bit of a carrier in Paris, Jean-Louis played forward and I was part of the first woman’s team of the town! Dad also mention that his father Joseph Peyrafitte had been at the origin of the stadium. He had been a team manager when my dad played and in the thirties it was he who actually had facilitated the transfer of the stadium to this location and part of the land had been his at some point.

Team BLS 2010 with Jean Peyrafitte Family & Louis Ferré & Serge Santiveri

Below are many pictures of the moving ceremony with all of us. The ceremony was followed by a soccer game where the local team (now playing in a lower division) won 3-0. It looks like they felt inspired by the brillant history — may they begin their rise to a great future. To conclude as my dad did: Vive le Bagnères-Luchon Sport (the name of the team!) —Photo © Domy-Luchon

My Montanha & My Soup

I arrived Monday afternoon in Bourg d’Oueil after a long but pleasant trip. My Pyrenean home is closer to Spain than to Paris and I am not kidding: it takes 15 minutes by car to reach the Spanish border and about 8 hours to reach Paris! My travels began Sunday at 1:30 p.m. from our Brooklyn home and I finally reached Bourg d’Oueil on Monday at 3:30 p.m. local time or 9 a.m. Brooklyn time. After taking two planes, two buses, and two car rides I reached our little house in the village at the far end of the Valley. As my intention was to cook a soup on a live fire, the priority was to light the fire.

I had planned to get some veggies in town before my last climb up to the mountains. I arrived too late to get to the market, so my only option was the local supermarket. The offerings where pretty sad and I couldn’t come to terms with buying any of these mass produced veggies. I placed a call to my good friends Joseph & Paulette asking them if they had anything left in their Bourg d’Oueil garden. They had already winterized the garden but had plenty of veggies in their Luchon garden. Not to worry, said Paulette, Joseph will bring me leeks, celery, potatoes, chards, carrots & onions later on. Great! I can always count on them. I did hit the cheese counter and was pleased to be able to get a couple of local cheeses.

The most delightful part of the trip is the 17 kms climb from Luchon to Bourg d’Oueil. Despite the weather forecast there was neither rain nor snow but a slightly overcast sky that let me have a partial view of my mountains. Driving through the villages triggers images: In Benqué Dessus et Benqué Dessous, it is Jules’ face, the Fournier’s house, and the cromlecs above them. Before Saint Paul d’Oueil, the sign for Saccourvielle brings up my friend Emingo, who makes the best goat cheese I ever had, and Mme Labry, a writer who was my French teacher in high school. In Mayrègne, I look at the old “kiosque” where I use to go eat crêpes in the summer as a child; I also think of the recently deceased mayor who was key on having me perform the Bi-Contimental Chowder/ La Garbure Continentale in the Valley. Then comes Caubous, Cirès, and at this point I can’t think of anything else than trying to get a glimpse of the Peirahitta (my totem!) that sits at the pass of Pierefite. And finally I reach Bourg d’Oueil the very last village at the end of the valley. I park the car and start schlepping my stuff to the house. It is almost impossible to reach the house by car, the street is so narrow, evidence if need be that this place was not build for car traffic!

After a quick tour of the house, I lit the fire — we are at 1400m or 4600 feet here, so the air is nippy on this November afternoon. Once the fire was going strong I started opening my stuff, got my art supplies out, opened a bottle of wine, got the cheese out and waited for Joseph et Paulette who brought the veggies at around 5:30 p.m. — they had added a jar of duck fat and one of honey, all home produced. While the soup was cooking I worked at a drawing that includes some attempts at writing in Gascon. And then, accompanied by the sound of the stream running under the house, the crackle of the fire and the occasional ringing of the church bell, I savored my soup. The flavors are indescribable. They call on all my senses and the experience is totally gastoorgasmic!

So here is my soup:
2 generous spoons of duck fat
1 onion
2 small leeks
3 carrots
1 branch of celery
3 leafs of chard
Salt & fresh ground pepper
Grated brebis cheese

Sauté all the vegetables in order in the duck fat then add water and let cook until done. The soup is even better the next day, and of course feel free to add other veggies like beans, turnips, cabbage….

Now can you smell? Just try:

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Category: Gasconha/Occitania