10 Foods we miss in England and are overindulging in this summer

Tariette probably wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t moved to the UK and started missing French food quite so much. Not necessarily fancy food, and definitely not all Provençal food. Often it’s the everyday things. A properly ripe tomato. A rotisserie chicken from the market. Good garlic. A very strong cheese. The sort of things we grew up eating without giving them much thought, until suddenly we couldn’t find them quite so easily anymore.

So every summer when we’re back in Provence, there is inevitably a slightly excessive amount of catching up to do. Some things on this list are local to us in the Luberon, others come from completely different parts of France, one is Corsican and one comes from the frozen aisle of a supermarket.

Here are the ten foods we’ve been craving from England and are making absolutely no effort to eat in moderation this summer.

1. Banon cheese

We might as well start with the obvious one. Banon is probably the most predictable entry on this list, particularly for a family from the Luberon. It’s our local cheese and has always had an important place towards the end of our very long Sunday lunches. The real AOP Banon is made from goat’s milk and matured wrapped in brown chestnut leaves, tied with raffia. Slightly controversially, the one we buy most often isn’t actually certified Banon. It’s what we affectionately call our non-Banon Banon, made by a cheesemaker we buy from at Apt market on Saturday mornings, on Place de la Mairie. And we absolutely love it.

For us, the creamier and stronger it gets, the better. There is also something wonderfully satisfying about untying the raffia and undressing it from its chestnut leaves before lunch. Give us a very ripe one, some good bread and another half an hour at the table.

2. Andouillette

Possibly France’s ultimate Marmite food. Andouillette isn’t Provençal at all. The best-known version comes from Troyes, but that has never stopped it making regular appearances on our table in Provence. For anyone unfamiliar with it, it’s a coarse sausage traditionally made using parts of the pig’s digestive tract. Which admittedly isn’t how we introduce it when trying to persuade an English guest to taste one.

We actually find it quite funny serving andouillette to people who have no idea what’s coming, especially English guests. The smell usually gets a reaction before they’ve even tasted it. Even better when they look completely unimpressed by the whole thing while we’re sitting there thinking it’s absolutely delicious.

Some people are genuinely repulsed by it. Others, like our family, absolutely love it. Grilled until beautifully browned, with mustard, potatoes or proper frites, it is magnificent. You’ll sometimes see AAAAA, or 5A, associated with particularly good andouillettes. It isn’t an AOP, but an award from the wonderfully named Association Amicale des Amateurs d’Andouillette Authentique. Very French. And definitely not for everyone.

3. Mousse au chocolat

Mousse au chocolat is one of those French desserts we should probably be able to make brilliantly ourselves. We can’t. We have tried plenty of recipes over the years and never quite mastered it. At this point we have also decided there is very little reason to keep trying because we have found LA mousse au chocolat.

It comes from Grand Frais. Yes, the supermarket. You can buy it in little pots or, much more dangerously, in a large one. It is somehow moussy and gooey at the same time. Very chocolatey, rich and decadent without becoming sickly. The sort of dessert where everybody announces they’ve had enough, the lid goes back on, and then ten minutes later someone has quietly taken it out of the fridge again. I am salivating just writing this.

4. Proper tomatoes

This one becomes a recurring frustration every time we go back to England. I have tried dozens of varieties and producers in the UK. Some are less disappointing than others. Isle of Wight tomatoes can be good, and the ones from Wild Country Organic in Cambridgeshire are actually pretty decent. But none quite taste like the tomatoes we eat here.

In Provence, and really throughout much of the Mediterranean, tomatoes can be so juicy, sweet and meaty that you could bite into one and eat it like an apple. A little salt, olive oil and perhaps some basil and there really isn’t much more you need. Tomatoes might genuinely be our favourite fruit or vegetable of all time.

Melons only just missed this list. They’re incredibly local to us too, with producers all around the Luberon from Céreste towards Cavaillon. We eat ridiculous quantities in summer, either as dessert or with cured ham. But if we had to choose? Tomatoes win.

5. Fresh truffles

Truffles remain one of food’s great mysteries. They look like slightly disappointing lumps of earth, grow underground and somehow manage to taste unlike anything else. They’re also not necessarily as unaffordable as people imagine, particularly here in Provence (80% of French truffles come from Provence). The price per kilo can sound terrifying, especially for winter black truffles, but nobody needs a kilo of truffle for dinner. A 30 or 50g truffle can go surprisingly far when finely sliced or grated over a dish.

Summer truffles are considerably cheaper and we particularly like them served raw, shaved over salads or finished over a dish at the table. Their flavour is delicate and easily lost if you cook them too much. Winter truffle is another story. Eggs, pasta, risotto, cheeses, meat, sauces... suddenly almost everything becomes an excuse to add truffle.

And if you’ve only ever eaten truffle-flavoured crisps, oils or sauces, fresh truffle is a completely different experience. A lot of those products rely heavily on added flavourings and can be overpowering. The real thing is much subtler, earthier and far more interesting.

6. Rotisserie chicken

Have you ever seen a proper rotisserie chicken stand at a normal market in the UK? Outside somewhere like Borough Market, probably not very often.

Here, they are everywhere. Markets, village épiceries, butchers. You walk past rows of chickens slowly turning behind the glass, their skin getting darker and crispier while all the juices drip down through the rotisserie. Resistance is pointless. Quality varies, so we always try to buy at least a poulet fermier, preferably Label Rouge.

Then there are the potatoes. If they have potatoes cooking underneath the chickens, absorbing everything dripping from above, buy them. And always ask for some jus. That salty, intensely chickeny liquid spooned from the bottom of the rotisserie and poured over the potatoes is perhaps one of France’s least sophisticated and most delicious pleasures. Crispy chicken skin, good frites or those potatoes and plenty of jus. Perfect.

7. Ravioles de Romans

They’re technically Ravioles du Dauphiné, but we have always called them Ravioles de Romans. Imagine ravioli, then make them much, much smaller with an incredibly thin pasta casing and a filling of cheese and parsley. They come joined together in delicate little sheets and originate from the area around Romans-sur-Isère and Saint-Jean-en-Royans.

You can poach them, fry them or put them into a gratin. We nearly always do the latter. Our version is hardly Michelin-starred cooking. Layers of ravioles in a gratin dish, roughly a cup of milk shared between the layers and plenty of grated Gruyère over the top. About 30 minutes in the oven. Done. It is ridiculously easy and one of those comforting dishes we somehow never tire of.

8. French garlic

This is one of those ingredients you don’t really notice until you regularly cook between two countries. Garlic tastes stronger here. Much stronger.

We actually have to adjust our recipes between England and France. If something needs four cloves in the UK, we’ll often use two here and somehow end up with more garlic flavour. In our opinion some of the very best French garlic comes from the South West, but we can still find excellent garlic around Provence too. A good head should be fragrant, punchy and almost spicy when raw. When we see huge bunches of fresh garlic at the markets in summer, we buy far too much of it. Then spend the next few weeks finding excuses to put garlic in absolutely everything.

9. Figatellu and proper Corsican charcuterie

Corsican charcuterie deserves an entire article of its own. A really good lonzu or coppa is extraordinary. There are, however, plenty of imitations. Some products are made in Corsica but using pigs raised on the mainland, rather than genuinely Corsican pork, so we always look carefully at the provenance.

Then there is figatellu. It’s a traditional Corsican fresh sausage made with pork and liver, with a deep, distinctive flavour completely different from a normal sausage. We love it cooked on the barbecue. Grill it properly over the fire, slice it up and bring it out at l’apéritif, preferably with a glass of slightly chilled red wine. One slice becomes two. Two becomes five. Dinner gets pushed back another hour. Exactly how summer evenings should work.

10. Basically anything from Picard

This may be the least romantic entry on the list. We stand by it. Picard is brilliant.

For anybody outside France who hasn’t experienced one, it is essentially a supermarket devoted almost entirely to frozen food. That description does it absolutely no justice. Of course you can buy frozen peas, vegetables and everyday basics. We’re not talking about those. We mean the pâtisserie, elaborate desserts, tartares, tiny apéritif bites, seafood, foie gras, en croûte dishes and all sorts of surprisingly sophisticated recipes that look as though somebody has been cooking for hours. They haven’t. You opened a cardboard box.

No offence to Cook in the UK, which has its place, but we are playing a slightly different sport here. Fewer Scottish pies and sticky toffee puddings. More millefeuilles, foie gras and beautifully presented dishes wrapped in pastry. There is almost always something from Picard hiding in our freezer during the summer. Usually quite a lot.

We’ll miss them all again soon

The ridiculous thing is that while we’re here, all of this feels completely normal. There are tomatoes on the kitchen table, garlic everywhere, a cheese getting increasingly ripe in the fridge and probably something from Picard lurking in the freezer.

Then we go back to England and within a few days we’re talking about all the things we miss again. In a way, that feeling is where Tariette started.

We wanted to bring some of the foods, producers, flavours and little rituals we grew up with in France into our everyday life in the UK. We obviously can’t bring everything back with us. Which is perhaps why, while we’re here this summer, we’re making the most of every single one of them.