Food of Provence
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Provence market

Lyon is renowned as a gastronomic centre, combining southern and northern ingredients. Its rich and hearty food is very meat- and offal-oriented, with sausages of every variety and a fine selection of cheeses. A Lyonnais salad includes bacon and a soft-cooked egg; potatoes also tend to be cooked with egg, cheeses and cream; and meat, fish or cheese are turned into fat, filling quenelles, or dumplings. Pâtisseries specialize in extremely rich chocolate gâteaux.

Olives were introduced to Provence by the ancient Greeks two and a half thousand years ago and today accompany the traditional Provençal apéritif of pastis; they appear in sauces and salads, on tarts and pizzas, and mixed with capers in a paste called tapenade to spread on bread or biscuits. They are also used in traditional meat stews, like daube Provençale. Olive oil is the starting point for most Provençal dishes; spiced with chillis or Provençal herbs (wild thyme, basil, rosemary and tarragon), it's also poured over pizzas, sandwiches and, of course, used in vinaigrette and mayonnaise with all the varieties of salad.

The ingredient most often mixed with olive oil is the other classic of Provençal cuisine: garlic. Whole markets are dedicated to strings of pale purple garlic. Two of the most famous concoctions of Provence are pistou, a paste of olive oil, garlic and basil, and aïoli, the name for both a garlic mayonnaise and the dish in which it's served with salt cod and vegetables.

Vegetables have double or triple seasons in Provence, often beginning while northern France is still in the depths of winter. Ratatouille ingredients – tomatoes, capsicum, aubergines, courgettes and onions – are the favourites, along with asparagus. Courgette flowers, or fleurs de courgettes farcies, stuffed with pistou or tomato sauce, are one of the most exquisite Provençal delicacies.

Sheep, taken up to the mountains in the summer months, provide the staple meat, of which the best is agneau de Sisteron, often roasted with Provençal herbs as a gigot d'agneau aux herbes. But it's fish that features most on traditional menus, with freshwater trout, salt cod, anchovies, sea bream, monkfish, sea bass and whiting all common, along with wonderful seafood: clams, periwinkles, sea urchins, Oysters, spider crabs and langoustines piled into spiky sculptural plateaux de fruits de mer.

Cheeses are invariably made from goat's or ewe's milk. Two famous ones are Banon, wrapped in chestnut leaves and marinated in brandy, and the aromatic Picadon, from the foothills of the Alps.

Sweets of the region include chocolates, notably from Valrhona in Tain L'Hermitage and from Puyricard near Aix, almond sweets called calissons from Aix, candied fruit from Apt and nougat from Montélimar. As for fruit, the melons, white peaches, apricots, figs, cherries and Muscat grapes are unbeatable. Almond trees grow on the plateaux of central Provence, along with lavender, which gives Provençal honey its distinctive flavour.

Some of France's best wine is produced in the Côtes du Rhône vineyards, of which the most celebrated is the Crozes-Hermitage appellation. Once past the nougat town of Montélimar and into Provence, the best wines are to be found in the villages around the Dentelles, notably Gigondas, and at Châteauneuf-du-Pape. To the west are the light, drinkable, but not particularly special wines of the Côtes du Ventoux and the Côtes du Lubéron appellations. Huge quantities of wine are produced in Provence, many of the vineyards planted during World War I in order to supply every French soldier with his ration of a litre a day. With the exception of the Côteaux des Baux around Les Baux, and the Côtes de Provence in the Var département, the best wines of southern Provence come from along the coast.