Friday Morning at the Ribérac Market

 Friday Morning at the Ribérac Market

Photos posted later

There are markets you visit because you need something, and then there are markets where the market itself is the destination.

This morning we went to Ribérac, about ten miles from the château, for its Friday market. The map showed us heading toward Place André Pradeau, but once we arrived, we really did not need a map. We just had to follow the people, the delivery vans, and eventually the rows of colorful umbrellas spreading through the center of town.

[PHOTO: Map showing Place André Pradeau and Ribérac]

Our first view was wonderfully ordinary. Cars were squeezed into every available parking space, a butcher shop sat across the street, and people carrying baskets and shopping bags were already moving toward the market.

[PHOTO: Ribérac street with the boucherie and parked cars]

Then we walked toward the square.

From a distance, it did not look enormous. There were white vans, a few tents, tall trees, and stalls tucked beneath them.

[PHOTO: Long view toward the market beneath the trees]

But the closer we got, the more the market seemed to unfold.

There were stalls in every direction.

[PHOTO: Fountain and market stalls around the square]

This was not a little tourist market assembled for visitors. This was a working French market, the kind where people come to buy what they will actually eat and use during the coming week.

And that is what made it so interesting.

Soap, Perfume and Donkey Milk

One of the first stalls to catch my attention was filled with soap and personal-care products.

[PHOTO: Green-and-yellow umbrella over the soap vendor]

There were rows and rows of soaps, bottles, shampoos and small containers. Some were products I recognized, while others were distinctly French.

Then I noticed the sign:

Savons au lait d’ânesse.

Donkey-milk soap.

[PHOTO: Close view of the donkey-milk soap display]

The sign said the soap contained 40 percent donkey milk and was made artisanally using a cold saponification process. Nearby were donkey-milk lotions and other products, solid shampoos, perfume extracts from Grasse, mosquito products and traditional Marius Fabre soaps.

I love markets for exactly this reason. You can walk ten feet and discover something you had never considered buying five minutes earlier.

Under the Trees

The setting itself was beautiful.

Huge mature trees formed a canopy above much of the market, their branches stretching over the stalls and filtering the September sun.

[PHOTO: Tomato stand beneath the large trees]

In places, the vendors had simply tucked their umbrellas and tents underneath the branches.

[PHOTO: Shoppers walking beneath the tree canopy]

Sunlight came through in patches, catching someone’s hair, a tablecloth, a pile of produce or the edge of an umbrella before disappearing again into shade.

It was a photographer’s kind of place.

There was always something happening at the edge of the frame.

People stopped to talk. Vendors rearranged displays. Shoppers inspected food. Someone carried flowers. Someone else hurried past with a bag already filled.

[PHOTO: Two women talking beside the market stalls]

And no one appeared particularly hurried.

Then Came the Food

This is where Ribérac became dangerous.

There were pastries.

[PHOTO: Pastry cases under the white canopy]

There were fruit and vegetable stands piled with produce.

[PHOTO: Produce market beneath the red umbrellas]

One stand had strawberries arranged in their little clear containers, bananas in the foreground, and pineapples and melons farther back.

[PHOTO: Strawberries, bananas and fruit stand]

Above us, the red and yellow market umbrellas overlapped so closely that they created an enormous fabric ceiling.

[PHOTO: Red-and-yellow umbrellas over the produce stalls]

The color was wonderful. Red canvas above, green crates below, brilliant strawberries lined up in wooden boxes, and little glimpses of blue sky appearing between the umbrellas.

This was not supermarket perfection. It was much better than that. Food was being weighed, selected, discussed and carried away.

There was even a polite reminder hanging from one of the poles:

Pour le bien de tous veuillez ne pas toucher aux fruits et légumes SVP.

For everyone’s benefit, please do not touch the fruits and vegetables.

So apparently my American instinct to pick something up and inspect it myself needed to stay under control.

The Cheese

And then I found the cheese.

[PHOTO: Périgord Fromages truck]

Not a few wedges of cheese.

Cheese.

A refrigerated counter stretched across the front of the Périgord Fromages truck, filled with one variety after another. Customers stood studying the choices while the vendors worked behind the glass.

[PHOTO: Customers at the Périgord Fromages counter]

This required closer investigation.

[PHOTO: Close-up of the cheese case]

There were several Bries, including Brie de Meaux, Brie de Melun, Brie fermier and even Brie truffé. There was Saint-Marcellin fermier. Large mounds of fresh butter sat above the cheeses, including salted and unsalted varieties.

The prices were handwritten on small black signs, with the type of milk and other information listed underneath.

This was cheese being sold with an assumption that the customer actually cared which cheese it was, where it came from and how it was made.

I could have stayed there quite a while.

Olives, Olives and More Olives

A few stalls farther along was L’Oliveraie Sandra et Lucas.

Its slogan was:

la qualité, le choix, le prix.

Quality, choice, price.

[PHOTO: L’Oliveraie Sandra et Lucas]

Behind the glass were seemingly endless trays of olives.

Green olives. Black olives. Purple olives. Seasoned olives. Olives mixed with herbs and spices. Tapenades and other Mediterranean specialties.

[PHOTO: Close view of the olive selections]

Even the vendor’s schedule was posted inside the truck. Monday in Sainte-Alvère during July and August, Wednesday in Périgueux, Thursday in Lalinde, Friday in Ribérac, and Saturday back in Périgueux.

That little sign explained something important about these markets.

The market comes to town, but many of the merchants travel with it.

The same cheesemaker, olive seller or produce vendor may spend the week moving from village to village, serving a different community each morning.

And Eventually, Coffee

There comes a point in any good market morning when you need to stop walking and simply watch.

For me, that required coffee.

[PHOTO: Coffee cup on the café table]

So I sat down with a café au lait while Perrier cans and glasses accumulated around the table.

From there, the market became something different.

Instead of moving through it, I could watch it move around me.

People passed carrying baskets. Conversations started and ended. Vendors called to customers. Friends encountered one another. Shopping bags gradually became fuller.

And I realized that this is probably the part of these French markets that I enjoy most.

The cheese and olives are wonderful. The strawberries are beautiful. The soaps are interesting. The umbrellas make great photographs.

But the real attraction is watching an ordinary Friday morning unfold.

For the people who live here, this is not an excursion.

It is Friday.

They need cheese. They need vegetables. Perhaps some olives. Maybe bread or pastries. They stop to talk to someone they know. They buy what they need. Then they go home.

For us, it was an outing.

For Ribérac, it was simply market day.

And perhaps that is exactly why I loved it.