Markets, I

In fact this is not a proper message on French markets, sorry for the deception.  But I have just been to the Wednesday market and am a tad overwhelmed in the senses. I had planned to take my camera but 9.30 this morning ended up quite cloudy and dull, and the market is just so colourful it deserves sunlight of some kind. The creole stall is there every Wednesday, and I will one day buy my lunch there, but today I got a banana doughnut right out of the frier and it was brilliantly crispy hot and covered in sugar. I also succeeded in finding the spice stall and wish I had done so before buying mystery curry powder in a jar, because the man had all sorts of garam masala and other curry mixes he'd made himself. I did come away with a little paper bag of cinnamon to turn the glut off apples into various sauces and crumbles which I'll start this afternoon before they go rotten. But all this really deserves photos, especially the organic bread stall with a man in a rainbow jumper (not Dad) from whom I bought a slice of sort of dark rye brioche with chocolate chips and raisins, which was made in an oven. And there were pumpkins everywhere, some for about three euros a piece, and giant courgettes, and punnets of potatoes, and freshly made apple juice, and honey gingerbread, and honey vinegar! Once I have been paid I am going to do so much cooking.

And there are so many fish, most of them with names that only exist in French or Spanish. It turns out the fish which we put in parcels was called Mostelle, and it was delicious. It had a pretty flakey white texture and so I was worried that it was cod without knowing the proper translation. It cooked brilliantly in the parcels, and what's more it's a relatively unknown fish that comes from western Med and the Atlantic and so is very local. I think I'm going to work my way through each unknown fish name or weird looking creature on the stalls. This one also doesn't seem to have a commonly translated English name - it's called Physis Physis, though  and is this little fellow: