"Madame, try some cheese," said a seller in French, extending a slice of Cantal on his knife. Cut from a huge, craggy round with a brown, lunar-like rind, the cheese tasted like butterscotch, hay, sweet cream, and dried mushrooms. I bought a wedge for our cheese plate, along with an ivory disc of young Cabecou, the region's velvety, rich goat cheese. Having decided on escalopes of veal as the main course, I purchased some golden yellow girolle mushrooms and a bunch of leeks to saute in walnut oil and serve over the meat.
A tuft of mâche and some sliced tomatoes and fennel would compose our salad, dressed with more walnut oil, walnut vinegar, and chopped toasted walnuts. Yes, we were in walnut land.
Toward the back of the market, I spotted several spice cakes as big as hat boxes. "Go ahead," said the young man, nodding to the sample plates. I tried several, then bought a large slice flecked with dark chocolate. "Keep it wrapped in plastic, and it will last for several weeks," said the seller. The cake would be our dessert, along with tiny, scarlet strawberries, so ripe, I was warned, they'd spoil overnight. Now, all we needed was a great bottle of local wine.
Seventeen years ago on our honeymoon, we fell in love with this picturesque pocket of France that the locals call Périgord. Besides the duck and walnut-rich cuisine, we were taken with the area's soaring cliffs, deep gorges, and lush valleys filled with orchards, nut trees, and small farms. Named after the two rivers (Dore and Dogne), the Dordogne belongs to the larger region of Aquitaine, which extends from the Gironde estuary in the north to the Spanish border in the south.
