Uzes morning markets – Typically French!

Uzes morning markets – The perfect place to experience a French culinary adventure.

When you visit France, it doesn’t take long before you realise that wine and food is a national obsession. Although this obsession is percolated right across the country, each region has different food and wine related traditions, all offering a distinct insight and varieties of that region’s almost worship-worthy dish.

In the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the south of France, one of the regional gastronomic preoccupations happens to be truffles.

The area excels in providing all-year round truffles, which vary in taste quite considerably in each different season. The medieval town of Uzes, situated approximately 30 miles from Nimes, is a particular truffle-tasting haven.

Despite being a small town of only 8,500 residents, Uzes is home to some wonderful food and wine fairs, of which people travel for miles to visit, including its highly esteemed annual Truffle Fair, held in January each year.

This delightful medieval town, with its quirky streets and cosy squares, is a delight to visit any day of the week, but is particularly colourful on a Wednesday and a Saturday morning when the local markets create an aroma of deliciousness to waft down Uzes’s streets.

The local restaurateurs and gourmet shops make up a considerable proportion of the ancient arcades that ring the town’s charming central square.

Truffles, along with truffle oil, truffle vinegar, truffle salt, truffle knives truffle wine, truffle pasta and truffle honey are sold in abundance at these morning markets, although are rarely mimicked in aroma, taste and appearance with each passing week.

Restaurateur Reynaud, who owns Place aux Herbes, a small gourmet boutique on the edge of the town’s square, plays an active role in these weekly gourmet markets, as well as organising many of the truffle events held in Uzes. Although truffles provide a fantastic year-round taste, it is “winter truffles which have the most delicate flavour”, Reynaud confides.

Of course it is not just truffles which create such a mouth-watering aroma to fill the air around Uzes on a Saturday and Wednesday morning.

The stalls sell many a gastronomic delight.

From olives doused in garlic, to cheeses synonymous with French quality and taste, Uzes markets are the place to be if you are wanting to embark on a quintessentially French culinary adventure – Could a Saturday or Wednesday morning get any more idyllic?