Market Day and Homemade Cheese

In order to remember details heard and seen on the farm in Bretagne, I made notes every night in a red journal stuffed with Greek paper, a gift from Leslie who gave it to me after returning from her trip there.

For me, the farm was one of those experiences that really make you think, enthusiastically opening the mind in a new direction. On the train ride home, I honestly thought I might be able to change the world. I love that feeling. I don’t love the fact that it’s so short lived.

So to continue the tale of my final farm days, weeks later, from a dying, dysfunctional laptop in the US, mental images not burning so bright, yet with the evidence from a small journal:

As a happy frequenter to markets in Europe, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sounds, colors, smells, and sometimes unconventional displays of chow that turning into a meandering tourist who can’t walk a straight line complete with wobbly head looking here and there almost always happens no fail.

When Catherine invited me to help her set up the stand at the Fougères market, I quickly agreed. There would be jam, honey, eggs (that we had collected days earlier), salad, and pigeon for sale. Once I had lined up the display, as shoppers hovered by, the eggs went the fastest. Promises were made, broken, prices forgotten, deals were made for early morning home delivery. It was a flurry of activity that I sat back and watched in awe. All around me villagers had come for miles to sell their wine, herbs, vegetables, cheeses, and meats.

Thinking I might be bored there, Catherine handed me a map to wander around Fougères. I thought it better to be out of the way, but secretly wished I could have worked the market myself.

For lunch, we had galettes, square-like crêpes popular in the northwest made from blé noir (black flour) or what Michel referred to as poor man’s flour. A combination of the fresh air, speaking in French, and navigating the hilly town of Fougères on foot had left me exhausted, but there was still work to do. Picking blackcurrant, I found, was rejuvenating rather than stiffening and monotonous. My thoughts wandered everywhere while I watched the clouds for a possible burst.

Dinner was a bolognaise and afterward the work didn’t cease, at least for the family. Jam cooked on the stove, Michel pitted cherries with a machine, and Catherine stirred milk on another burner to make cheese, a process that takes days. While the milk was heating, she added a few drops of some kind of solidifying agent. The mass was then put into a bowl with tiny holes and left to mutate.

The next day, the cheese was turned over, while a milky white liquid drained away. This is of course added to the chicken feed. Once the mass has completely drained and been flipped, it becomes cheese. The type or name of the cheese depends on the size and shape of the mould it’s put in. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay long enough to taste it, but it was an interesting process to observe.

The little things are really becoming the important ones. One of my favorite parts of the day was taking a shower, rinsing off the day’s work, the skylight open to reveal silhouettes of owl inhabited trees leaning gently in the dark breeze.