Smart Mouth: To market, to market in Provence

This was our plan: leave our centrally located villa each day with our rolling cooler in tow and head to one Provencal village or another to shop for supper, eat a long, leisurely lunch while sipping the refreshing local roses, then tour the local ruins and vineyards. Or perhaps go birdwatching in the Camargue or antique-shopping in Isle sur la Sorgue before heading home in time for the glorious sunsets, where we’d build a fire in the outdoor pizza oven, roast a few vegetables, nosh on sausages and drink more local wine.

But honeymooners that we were, we didn’t make it to a morning market before it closed down until the middle of the first week. Those noon closings were the first hints we had of the famous Provencal joie de vivre, an approach to life that demands time out for lunch, for a nap, for a walk, before heading back to the 35-hour workweek.

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• Smart Mouth: To market, to market in Provence
• Details: Where to eat

Wednesday was market day in St.-Remy-de-Provence, about an hour from our villa outside Isle sur la Sorgue. We chose to travel on back roads, where the iconic towering plane trees lining the lanes were being pruned, delaying traffic. But we arrived in St.-Remy in time to explore the expansive marche provencal, which meanders through the picturesque old town center, for two hours. Though it was a brilliantly sunny day in October, the mistral was blowing hard, and the pruned trees that a day before had shaded the plaza in front of the town hall now resembled giant Neanderthal clubs, giving the outdoor bazaar a wintry feel.

We bought handmade chestnut-filled pasta from a Sicilian with whom I got to speak my own “franglaisiano,” a combination of three languages that’s not uncommon in the south of France. We sampled a dozen varieties of charcuterie and purchased olives, tapenade, tomato confit, salted almonds, dried fruits, anchovies, duck sausage, several local cheeses, stuffed grape leaves and some of the biggest, most delicious (giga) oysters I’ve ever eaten. I was surprised at not only how large, meaty, briny and tasty they were, but also at how inexpensive they were. I asked for a dozen ($7) before I tasted them, then doubled my order after one bite.

Most Provencal towns have an open-air market at least once a week. (A schedule is available at provencelive.com.) All of the dozen markets we visited ramble through cobblestone streets, radiating out from town squares, the regular town merchants setting up outdoor displays under tents as well. People take breaks and sit in outdoor cafes, and everyone waits patiently as a vendor takes his time removing the pin bones from a side of salmon, giving detailed recipes to a shopper, or helping a possible customer choose a hat, a gift or a scarf.

Lined up outside bakeries and at bakers’ stands, sardined bargain hunters clog the narrow passageways with their dogs and children and baby strollers and shopping bags, waiting for the best baguette, the flakiest croissant, the healthiest whole-wheat loaf. One elderly woman we saw was choosing sausage based on which her dog liked best.