Les lentilles and les Coquilles St. Jacques

We left Lyon Tuesday morning, the 25th of February to drive to Toulouse where we would be staying with friends of Jacqueline and Philippe and undertaking the big project of making confit du canard and foie gras--from scratch...well these ducks don't scratch like chickens, they have been FED.
Our first stop was the medieval village of Le Puy-en-Velay. Remember the lentil soup? Le Puy is the home of the famous green lentils eaten in France. The city is built at the top of basalt peaks--there are three significant sites--the Chapelle St. Michel d'Aguilhe, the statue of Notre Dame which overlooks the town and the valley, and the magnificent Cathedrale de Notre Dame built in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The cathedral is famous for its black madonna. These madonnas, carved out of walnut or cedar, have darkened over the years, and are notable in this region of the Auverne in the Massif Central. The one in this cathedral is a copy made after the Revolution, which destroyed the original.
And the Coquilles St. Jacques have a role in this cathedral as well --this cathedral was the one of the four starting places for the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the tomb of St. James --St. Jacques en francaise-- the cathedral dates back to 813, with the "current" cathedral having been started in 1075. When the pilgrims completed their search for redemption, they returned with a scallop shell--a coquille St. Jacques and thus, scallops are Coquilles St. Jacques to this day!
Compostela in Spain is located near the coast of Galicia, and scallops are native to this area. There are legends of scallops covering the body of St. James when it washed ashore and other stories, and perhaps the shells had the practical purpose of being used for eating or drinking. Of course, the coast of Spain was the end of the world before 1492......I wonder what the Spaniards thought when they found scallops in the new world! Perhaps they too earned a plenary indulgence (which for those of you not familiar with the pre-payment of redemption, grants access to Heaven as all of your earthly digressions have been paid for by acts or gifts). Might have been re-affirming to those with Columbus!
I do not know if Philippe planned our dinner on the eve of this journey as a preview of our trip --or it was divine intervention-- I do light a lot of candles!
Le Puy is also famous for its lace--la dentelle. We stopped in shop and the young woman there showed us how the bobbin lace is made --it is a family tradition to this day. There is a resurgence in these handcrafts and there is even a school there for lacemaking.
Leaving this medieval city, we made our own pilgrimage to see one of the recent marvels of French construction and engineering, the Viaduc de Millau. This bridge which opened in December 2004 is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world --and it is taller than the Eiffel Tower! It is only 125 feet shorter than the Empire State building.....it is a magnificent cable stayed road bridge that is over two miles long over the valley of the Tarn --it has the longest cable stayed road deck in the world. Interestingly enough, the Zakim Bridge in Boston is the widest cable stayed bridge in the world. The bridge has its own tourist stops on both sides of the valley--they have models, and information and a great film of the construction. In Boston, there's no place to even look at the bridge! C'est la France!

Our last stop before Toulouse was Roquefort-sur-Soulzon --home of the famous Roquefort cheese and the caves where it develops its blue mold. One of the guide books describes it as having one main street (it's a rather old stone main street, however) and one main product. I can attest that this is true --we could not even find a cafe or bar to get a much needed cafe-- we had to resort to a machine in the Society Roquefort building while we were waiting to visit the caves! It is an interesting process--these particular penicillin spores are mixed into the sheeps' milk, the curds are molded into "cakes" about 10"-12" in diameter. After some time, they are de-molded and then a device with 48 long needles pierces each cheese to allow the air from the openings in the caves --the openings are called fleurines-- to help with the fermentaion process. The cheeses are arranged on slatted oak shelves to allow air circulation and are turned to ripen. This process takes 14-25 days and once completed, the cheeses are wrapped in tinfoil by hand and stored in cold rooms for several months. The milk for the roquefort is only collected from December to July. It has been around for a long time --Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his Natural History in 76 A.D. The story is that a shepard left his milk in cave after a rendez-vous with a young lady, and when he found it months later (perhaps another rendez-vous??) it had been transformed into this blue grained cheese --under the exterior mold! We of course tasted samples! And it was good!

Next stop, Toulouse!