Provence A-Z

Accent There is a popular misconception that the language spoken in Provence is French. It resembles French, certainly; indeed, in written form it is almost identical. But remove it from the page and apply it to the ear, and Provencal French might easily be another language. If words were edible, Provencal speech would be a rich, thick, pungent verbal stew, simmered in an accent filled with twanging consonants; acivet, perhaps, or maybe adaube. Before coming to live in Provence, I acquired a set of Berlitz tapes in order to improve my grasp of French, which I hadn't studied since my schooldays. Evening after evening, I would sit and listen to cassettes of the most mellifluous, perfectly enunciated phrasesspoken, I believe, by a lady from Tours. (I was told that the accent of Tours is considered a jewel among accents, the most polished and refined in France.) Every morning in front of the mirror while shaving, I would do my best to imitate this accent, pursing my Anglo-Saxon lips until they could pronounce something close to the Gallic u, practicing the growl from the back of the throat that is so necessary for the rolling Gallic r. Little by little, I thought, I was making progress. And then I left England to come south. It was an instant farewell to the lady from Tours, because the sound of the words I encountered in Provence was unlike anything I had heard before. And to make matters even more incomprehensible, these words were delivered with an incredible velocity, a vocabulary gone berserk. My ears were in shock for months, and for at least a year I was unable to conduct any kind of sustained conversation without a dictionary. This I used much as a blind man uses a white stick: to identify obstacles and try to find my way around them. To this day, many years later, there are times when words, even sentences, pass me by in a glutinous blur of sound. Living as I do in the country, I have noticed that the rural accent is perhaps a little thickeror, some might say, purerthan in bastions of urban civilization like Aix or Avignon. But then there is Marseille, a special case. Here the unsuspecting visitor will have to contend not only with the accent but with an entire sub-language. How, I wonder, would the lady from Tours react if she were offered apastaga, directed to the nearestpissadou, cautioned against employing amassacan, accused of beingraspi, invited to abaletti, or admired for hercroille? Like me, I suspect, she would find it all extremely puzzling, evencomac. Translations: pastaga= pastis pissadou= toilet massacan= a bad worker raspi= miserly baletti= a small dance; what used to be known as a bal populaire croille= arrogance, effrontery, chutzpah comac= extraordinary Ail It has been said that Provence is a region that has been rubbed with garlic. Whether you think of garlic asle divin bulbeor the stinking rose or the poor man's panacea, there's no getting away from itin soups, in sauces, in salads, with fish, with meat, with pasta, with vegetables, on or in bread. And if there isn't quite enough of it for your taste, you can always resort to this old Provencal habit: Take a clove of garlic (probably the one you always carry in your pocket for just such a gastronomic emergency), peel it, and hold it between the thumb and index finger of your right hand. With your left hand, hold a fork with its tines facing downward on a plate. Grate the garlic briskly across the tines until you have enough aromatic juice and fragments on your plate to season tMayle, Peter is the author of 'Provence A-Z', published 2006 under ISBN 9781400044429 and ISBN 1400044421.