The jewel-toned cubes stacked on trays in the patisserie caught my eye: pâtes de fruits. These aren't your ordinary fruit jellies; these are concentrated drops of flavor, not too sweet despite the sugar coating. They're solid bites of flavor, and pressed on to pick one among the various flavors, I went with the fraise--strawberry--anything strawberry is bound to be good. Next time I'll try the coing (quince), or perhaps the framboise (raspberry).

Coming back from climbing, I'd have popped half a dozen in my mouth before leaving the pastry shop, but somehow I restrained myself. The French know how to appreciate a good thing, for good reason. So, after dinner that night we ate our little fruit jewels, sliced into quarters, and enjoyed between sips of a good red wine.

:: La Maison du Chocolat's pâtes de fruits are available here.
:: If you're feeling particularly ambitious (or curious), try Jacques Pépin's recipe for raspberry pâte de fruit.

As an aside, we had a lengthy discussion on AOC (appellation d'origine contrôllée, or appellation of controlled origin) some time ago. While it's nice to say that such-and-such honey/olive oil/peaches from such-and-such region is the best, these things come with a price tag that can border on the ridiculous. At the weekly market, we walked by, and chuckled at, a table selling 1-liter bottles of organic olive oil at 40 Euros. Suffice it to say, everyone walked by that table. We've had our share of regional specialties; some were excellent and others did not live up to our expectations.

But of course, it goes beyond the product and into economics and regional and cultural autonomy. I'm currently reading Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: What makes the French so French by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow. It's by no means the authoritative guide to France and French culture, but it does explain a few things we've noticed here in our corner of southern France.