Passadoc Gazette - No 175

The weekly 175

Gift!

Gift : the confidences of André Peyron, his love for Provence and for the Provençal language. A report by André Abbe.

– I like to say that I am bilingual by birth! I was raised by my grandparents who, among them, spoke only Provencal... So I learned at the same time Provençal and French!

1983 – Guest at Michel Drucker, he sings
The Great Bear.

2019 - His confidences
to André Abbe

The Echoes of the Week
Quiz!
The sea urchins
The hamlet of Roya
The Bay of Saint-Tropez
The 101-year-old bed!
Any little Provencal history
Onions!

Quiz!

The sea urchins

The sea urchins! A treat for young and old... We open them in half and eat gonads commonly called « coral » because of their orange colour (most often); cooks say « languages »..

A sea urchin meal is a sea urchin.

Fishing is a beautiful family activity in Provence. Before, whole baskets of sea urchins were brought back without great effort; but sea urchins are rarer today.

Highly regulated, their fishing is allowed from 15 December to 29 February (variable dates depending on the region). The minimum catch size is 5 cm... Without the pricks!

Claude Boyer

There are chandeliers that I haven't eaten a sea urchin!

We were going to fish them in Saint-Aygulf with my grandfather in his Juvafour.

They were placed in a wooden cage on the sides of which he had fixed two large pieces of cork to act as floats, a glazed box to see the bottom as with a mask and a broom handle whose end was equipped with a trident to grasp the sea urchins.

There's no need to go offshore, it was enough to get in the water. At the time they were sweating and, depending on where we were bathing, it was better to be equipped with plastic sandals.

It was not uncommon for him to take advantage of the sea urchin to make the soup and harvest bious, rastègues, rags, snails or small rock fish and sometimes even an adventurous octopus.

I didn't like it when the cephalopod imprisoned him with the arms of his tentacles sticking to his skin and he was forced to shoot him to let them loose. He laughed at me making a grimace.

He was of this generation who was afraid of nothing or anyone; It must be said that he had survived three years of hell in the trenches then to impress him it took more than a octopus.

I haven't bathed in these rocks for a long time, but I imagine that the places must have become completely sterile.

The hamlet of Roya

A magical place, north of Nice!

– The last time we went there, there was a lot of people. It's really worth the detour; Don't miss that! recommends François Abbe.

The Bay of Saint-Tropez

For centuries, Saint-Tropez was a quiet little fishing village... Although... in ancient times, « this small Mediterranean bay attracted a large number of Roman, Celtic and Greek conquerors ».

His charm, his light are certain and in the 1920s many artists – painters and writers – succumbed to it: Matisse, Bonnard, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Colette... In the street of Mercy, the Bardot family has a house in which the girls of the family spend much of the summer.

In 1950, Brigitte, who is not yet BB, met Vadim... The cinema invades the city with its stars and gendarmes! Goodbye, calm down. Today, Saint-Tropez is known worldwide.

Jean-Philippe Tinois
Arriving by the sea in low season and getting served a little coffee on the port it passes and it's a nice perspective.

On the aesthetic side, two hours of traffic jam in the middle of the canard to park on the tarred parking lot and look in the streets lined with shops for a famous head... It's a tourist delirium that will only have the merit of telling his office colleague when returning tanned like a carambar:
– I went to Saint Tropezzz.

Jeanne Monin
I spent a summer long ago... No desire to stay, no desire to come back – if not to discover the calm of the hinterland.
Too many people, too many yachts that seem never to leave the dock...

Marie-Dominique Germain
Saint-Tropez was a large port of commerce centered by an amiralty and shipbuilding that carried out the great cabotage to the countries of the Levant whose exclusivity it had.
A village of sailors in the long run.

Giselle Penat-Lorde

Memories of tea and tea...

I sometimes had the opportunity, a few years ago, most often out of season, to accompany my husband, whose work forced him twice a week to go to the Gulf, including Saint-Trop of course.

We often ate in Ramatuelle, or the Tour Plan, or in Grimaud, Port-Grimaud, Cogolin ...

In the summer, he managed to be there before 7 o'clock when the noctambules were coming home with scrambled faces!...

By far I preferred his tour throughout the Haut-Var or in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (Castellane, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie)... and in the Alpes Maritimes, the small village of Caille for example!

At a very distant time, it happened that I had to accompany German tourists, to play guides also for foreign friends who dreamed of Saint Tropez, BB or other celebrity, I didn't...

What a chore... and have to install on the terrace of the well-known coffee, the summum.

What more wonderful, indeed, than choking on this terrace that the scarlet red blind turns into a real oven when the sun hits?

Ah! Saint-Trop with his Russian billionaires in gouguette, his « people » with glitter, its opulent yachts that spoil the view, its bimbos in insolent microshorts, its indecent luxury evenings, its Ferraris and its 4×4 with tinted windows that make the atmosphere irrespirable ...

As for the price of consumption, slurp !! Better be invited!

My most beautiful memory, however: the smile of my Czech friend Ivana, discovering Saint Tropez, in autumn 1969 and saying, laughing:

- Wow! I will now be able to play Marie-Chantal in Prague speaking of St. Tropez and perhaps showing all the photos, but in a circle of intimate friends...
What was preferable yes...

We read together a book whose title I forgot, but it was a story of Marie-Chantal, perhaps Chazot's book at the time, The Books of Marie-Chantal... Don't know!

It was her last exit west after Prague Spring and she had spent almost a year in France. She had to return a few years later several times, so of course after the velvet revolution and the last time in 2002 or 2003... Te pic mulkuIvana, I haven't forgotten anything, especially your crystalline laugh, your joy of living... rest in peace in your white paradise...

The 101-year-old bed!

– A perfect blend of modern comfort and family heritage, tells the story François Abbe.

A 101-year-old bed coming home! After passing through generations and even floods, this bed, which belongs to the history of our family, returns to the village of Roquebrune-sur-Argens.

A bedding specialist (and not just any one since he is called by major hotels in Cannes!) intervened to renovate some mortises.

Claude Boyer
They were of these furniture that could be assembled and disassembled over generations without suffering from it, not displeased by some Swedish brand with reconstituted wooden furniture...

Stories of Montlaur
What a wonder! And what a beautiful story this bed that continues to be cherished after 101 years.

Giselle Penat-Lorde
Quite the bed of my paternal grandparents, whom we had, after some repairs, again in Roquebrune... Impossible to move to Draguignan, he must have made the happiness of abrocantor.

Martine Chazalon
I just got inherited from a great great grandma... He's over 100 years old... A boat bed.

Jean-Pierre Violino

- Thank you François! What a pleasure to find him in his village!

In the trunk of the car, back some renovated rooms.

Any little Provencal history...

François Abbe

– We love the great stories of Provence; We also like little stories... We like lavender, Saint-Tropez, Cannes...

And then the people of Provence! Not necessarily famous people, but people indispensable for everyday life.

The shepherds... My father André Abbe often met, such as Gilles Bremond and J-Y Trigance, of the shepherds also: Martine Baron.

_________________

Raised early in the morning and often lying late in the evening, it is the daily life of the men and women of the earth. Without Sunday, without holidays or barely, and a salary of misery... Who accepts this?

– The problem is that it's a passion job, which is passed on from generation to generation, that's why we keep going! Answers a farmer.

Jean-Philippe Tinois
Maybe getting up early and going to bed late is just natural when you like the activity you practice.

It is also the rhythm of animals who first think about their subsistence and have their brain regulated by solar light.

The men who manage herds can only get in tune and during the transhumance the nap is obligatory, not because the man decides it but because the herd stops, puts itself under the trees in circles sheltered from the sun at its zenith, and rubs quietly...

On this subject do not forget a light and very breathable integral veil to put at least on the face under penalty of being the only one not to sleep, because who says sheep, says cloud of flies! And when we self-administered about ten slaps, we're less rested than the others to go back!

Jeanne Monin
For having met for several summers a couple of peasants at my usual holiday place, I often thought that they were doing a dog job!...
It was enough to see their faces wrinkled before age by the summer sun and winter rigors, their often callous hands, always fleshy.
Were they getting up early? Probably... Were they sleeping late? I don't know... What I know is that they weren't taking a nap; Maybe because they didn't have sheep!

Onions!

André Abbe

Vegetables are expensive, including modest onions. What a pity!

Ceba (cebo) was the basic, inexpensive plant for feeding the Provençals. Crude or cooked, salad, with meat or fish.

I long thought that it was about onion when I was a kid I was screaming « Ceba! » After losing a friendly fight. But no, this This one From Arabic: Please..

When I eat onion, which is not very common, I sometimes think about my youth trips to Iran in the 1960s. There were mounds in front of the restaurants. On the tables, peeled raw onions were waiting for customers. They accompanied the delicious Chelo kebab and Chelo rorecht.

I do not know if this tradition was maintained in this unfortunate Iran of 2023.

Claude Boyer
– No, but you saw the price of onions this year?

– Oh, it's still okay, they're not that expensive.

– You think so?

It didn't take more than that for the most violent pugilate to burst that we saw of Brivist's memory!

A Setois who was passing by told this algarade, the local pandoras of which made the following:

At the Brive-la-Gaillarde market,

About onion boots,

Dozens of young girls

One day, the bun was cracked.

Onions Inspire Georges Brassens and Sidney Bechet.

Cited in The Gazette
André Abbe
François Abbe
Claude Boyer
Martine Chalazon
Marie-Dominique Germain
Stories of Montlaur
Jeanne Moniin
Giselle Penat-Lorde
Jean-Philippe Tinois
Jean-Pierre Violino
Editor in Chief
Jeanne Monin