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was unusually cold with bustling clouds in a bright blue sky. When we arrived at the house we were thankful that our friends Hugh and Sally had switched on our one, rarely used, electric fire and lent us another one to heat the bedroom. We laid a great wood fire for the morning and put hot water bottles in the bed before going down to the farm for our evening meal.
    The first meal of the holiday in the warm kitchen where we have been so generously fed over the years is always special. We drink
pastis
or a home made
apéritif, vin de noix
or
vin de pêche
or, my favourite,
quinquina
    Here is the recipe, which was given to Claudette by a friend with family in Italy.

QUINQUINA
    Ingredients: Four Seville oranges, one sweet orange and a lemon, a vanilla pod, and a kilogram of sugar.
     
    Cut the fruit into quarters and macerate all for forty days in three litres of red wine and three quarters of a litre of
eau de vie
. Strain, bottle and leave for six months.
    We, too, now make
quinquina
in London.
    We began the meal with
le tourin
, the special soup of the region. The first time we tasted this garlicky broth topped with bread and melted cheese, we had been aroused in the middle of the night to taste it, with half the village, including the mayor, in our bedroom, but that’s another story and one that I have already told. This time the soup was not, said Claudette,
fabrication maison
, but was apparently left over from
le repas des chasseurs
, the hunters’ reunion of the previous evening. Raymond’s eyes shone as he described the meal they had eaten, especially the
salade de gésiers
, bits of preserved duck gizzard, which followed the soup. He then extolled the next course, a
civet de chevreuil
, jugged venison, which was followed in turn by yet more venison, this time a roasted haunch, then came the
fromage
, and, to complete the feast, a tart; no doubt all washed down with excellent wine. Clearlythere had been soup left over that evening, perhaps in anticipation of all that was to follow, and Claudette had simply brought it home. Nothing is ever wasted here. We,
chez
Claudette, followed the remains of the hunter’s soup with a delicious salad; golden-yolked eggs, tomatoes, sweet onions, potatoes and a smidge of tuna, everything fresh and delicious. Our hostess then produced an
omelette aux asperges
, followed by roast guinea fowl and potatoes sautéed with garlic.
    As we discussed current affairs on both sides of the channel, Raymond declared himself perplexed by the approach to the problem of the outbreak of foot and mouth, then at its height in England. He couldn’t understand the wholesale slaughter.
    ‘
La fièvre aphteuse
,’ as it is called in France, ‘
c’était toujours là
,’ he said. ‘It’s always been around. If an animal got sick we treated it. Sometimes we used
poudre de cuivre
, or something else…
c’était quoi
, Claudette?’
    Claudette frowned. ‘It’s all so long ago.
Grezille
was it called?’
    ‘
Oui. C’est ça
,’ said Raymond. ‘The same stuff they used to use when they shoed an oxen. And we used
chaux vive
, quick lime, to wash our boots. We did isolate the sick animal but it was very rare for any of the others to catch it. If it got better, which it usually did,
tant mieux
, so much the better. If it remained feeble…well, off to the abattoir, but…killing the wholeherd,’ he threw up his hands ‘
Jamais! C’est de la folie!
Mind you,’ he added gloomily, ‘until ten years ago we did vaccinate against it. Then –
les gens de Bruxelles
,’ his face made it quite clear what he thought about them, ‘they changed their minds. It was Britain and America who persuaded them. It’s the large industrial farms that cause all the problems.’
    ‘
Comme toujours!
’ said Claudette, carrying in an enormous flan.
    She then proceeded to tell us just what she, as a working farmer, thought about common market regulations. Each year she hand-rears one calf, which stays with the