We are so lucky to have British cooking and the long list of amazing British chefs proves our global talent for amazing food. Provence is almost the antithesis of British cooking based on the simplicity of local produce and it makes the most fabulous contrast to our own national dishes.

The Provencal region is huge running from Orange in the north to the Italian border along the east side, held back by the Mediterranean on the south side and the Carmargue in the west. It edges the notoriously wealthy Principality of Monaco and yet has some of Frances most rural areas including the Vaclause region where the population is tiny relying mainly on farming and tourism as its main source of income. It is here where I spend a lot of my time discovering the unique ingredients and cooking methods which make Provencal cooking some of the finest on the planet.

Provence relies on its delightful climate and nature to create its menu, from wild boar which are abundant and hunted during the winter months to several hot dry months during the summer producing not only some of France’s finest wines but also some of the most succulent fruit and vegetables you will ever taste. My greatest regret about discovering Provence is that it is now nearly impossible to find a tomato in a British supermarket which tastes “real.” While France has supermarkets like ours, they buy much of their food from markets where local farmers and growers sell their crops. Totally free from issues such as health and safety or VAT accounting issues the markets rely on farmers bringing their goods and crops and locals and visitors bringing their cash. It is the original principals of barter and trade which in a time of global recession seem so much more appealing that our own way of life buying shrink wrapped vegetables on a credit card. The market only sells product made or grown locally. Rather than a choice of New Zealand or Australian honey which we might find on our British supermarkets, the honey in the Provencal markets is either lavender, acacia or oak depending in what exists plants and trees exist at that farm. This brings an altogether different taste to the ingredients. They are fresh, no farmer has a refrigerated lorry and products wilt fast in the warm climate. No sell by dates or best before labels, there is no inventory control, the farmers sell whatever they picked that morning and rather than being specialist in any one field, they might produce vegetables, cheese, wine and olive oil so long as they are all in season. The other source of amusement for many first timers is the wide range of shapes and sizes of the fruit and vegetable. We are used to every red pepper in our local supermarket being identical in size and shape to the next, yet here you will struggle to find two which look vaguely similar. No genetic modification here and much of the produce is organic because they can’t be bothered to use pesticides or fertilisers. The markets grow with the tourist season, visit a village market in March and there will be you and a dozen locals. Visit the same market in August and you will struggle to move in the crowd, hearing every nationality of language from West coast American to German all hunting down elusive ingredients. This is a Mecca for the amateur chef, the ultimate larder of amazing ingredients from freshly found white or black truffles which grow abundantly in the area to Banon a local goat’s cheese wrapped in a vine leaf which does not travel well and needs to be eaten when it is ripe.

The markets move from village to town to village each day repeating weekly so locals always know where to go. Travelling an hour to the “local” market seems quite normal in an area where everything is relaxed and time goes slowly, but there is a theme of visiting a selection of the markets as each features a slightly different specialisation, Carpentras has an excellent selection of local fabrics on Wednesdays, while Gordes has a lot of carpentry and woodwork on Tuesdays. Cavaillon has a lot of housewares on Friday while L’isle sur la Sorgue has an antique and bric a brac market on Sunday although everyone goes there via the fruit and vegetable market at Le Coustelet at 8am on a Sunday morning. All markets pack up at lunchtime for the traditional Provencal lunch including some local Cote du Rhone which assists the siesta which starts early afternoon.