A House in the Sunflowers by Ruth Silvestre Page B

lunch to give Claudette a free day and to return just a little of their incredible hospitality. With my limited kitchen facilities I planned a menu, aware of the need for quantity, as well as tastes, to intrigue them.
    It was – and still is – a marathon, making Sunday lunch
pour toute la famille
. Soup, even on the hottest day, was
de rigueur
. The fields being awash with huge sun ripened tomatoes, tomato soup seemed an obvious choice and happily turned out to be Grandpa’s favourite. As on the first occasion when they ate with us they all begged the merest taste of each dish before, reassured, returning for a second helping. To follow the soup I had simply whisked a large tin of red salmon with half a pound of melted butter, black pepper and the juice of two lemons, decorating it with cucumber and parsley, to be eaten with thin slices of
pain complet
. Raymond had never tasted wholemeal bread before and was not impressed but Grandpa, reminded of his days in Germany as a prisoner of war, enjoyed it and gave us lurid accounts of the bread he ate then. The salmon was declared
extra
, Grandma’s highest praise.
    All the morning I had hovered over the
gigot
in my crazy oven. To date no one can explain to me the reasons for the different methods of heating in French and English gas cookers. I have peered intogas cookers, from the earliest ones at the new Gas Museum at Bromley by Bow, where I learned that the first experiments in cooking by gas were made by a Paris-trained chef in 1809, to the latest models in French hypermarkets, and the difference between them never varies. The gas jets are differently positioned and this results in the floor of the oven being cool in an English cooker. Not so in a French one. In my French cooker the gas jets are in the form of a ring similar to those on the top, but under the oven floor. They are lit through a small hole and the flames fan out sideways to make the floor of the oven extremely hot. There are two slender slots on each side of the oven floor presumably to allow the heat to rise, but I have found that a great deal of it seems to prefer to stay where it is. Hence the problem. It is clear to me that this is the reason that the French make superb, open tarts with crisp, firm bases and we make equally good, but different, pies with covered, golden-brown tops, but whether the tarts are the reason for the different ovens or vice versa, I have still to discover.
    While the
gigot
was anxiously watched, removed, repositioned and re-basted, I also attempted an approximation of roast potatoes, the local variety being so waxy and flavoursome. At the top of the oven they refused even to change colour. Exasperated I tipped them onto a foil covered baking sheet and put them at the very bottom. Oven-sautéed rather than roastpotatoes were the result but constant turning made them brown rather than burn and they were a novelty to
les
Bertrand
and eaten with relish. Three vegetables were eaten with the
rôti
: I had braised in butter tiny carrots and
navets
, a completely new idea – as was the mint sauce which Mike had made. Claudette, always more adventurous than the rest of the family, tried the sauce and quite liked it but Raymond would have none of it. The
gigot
however had clearly been a treat and we were pleased.
    Salad, cheese and a passion fruit sorbet from the local supermarket was finally followed, for a joke really, by mince pies. We explained that normally they were only served at Christmas. ‘What a shame! Only once a year,’ murmured Raymond, as he reached for yet another one.
    It was a happy lunch. Indoors it was cool, our metre thick walls protecting us from the blazing mid-afternoon sun which covered
le grand champ
in dancing heat haze. Grandpa taught us to say
fai calou
– it is hot, in patois. ‘
Fai calou!
’ he roared, the children copying him and giggling. Both grandparents are fluent in Occitan, the
langue d’Oc
, the ancient language of the Troubadours and the