Flavours of France

Week two in France. Five bodies in a small tin chalet. Spectacular thunderstorms. By far the closest experience I’ve had to being sautéed in a saucepan with tight fitting lid. The saving grace of the week, (apart from the sunny spells and dreamy sunsets) was a plastic bag of damp, grey salt... and not because we’d left it outside on the barbeque... because it had been freshly harvested from the Île de Noirmoutier salt marshes. Crystallised by the Vendée sun, rich in minerals, simply raked up and bagged. I had no idea salt could be so delicious, just a pinch and I’m back at the coast, lungs full of bracing sea air.