Long table Sunday lunch

Our stay in Brittany was enhanced by our spacious home exchange which was set, along with a pair of detached studio apartments also available for our use, in a couple of acres complete with a large swimming pool, BBQ cabana, vegetable plot, orchard and cider press. 

The living areas comfortably fitted our steady stream of visitors and the wonderful Lannion markets ensured our kitchen was always well stocked with locally prepared dishes of succulent pork cassoulet and paella, great chunks of meat from the rotisserie, not to mention giant slabs of confectioner's nougat for the sweet-toothed among us.

So the food for even everyday meals was memorable. 

But one long lunch at Mr and Mme Doyen's restaurant in a little nondescript building, barely identifiable as a restaurant, in the tiny village of Ploumilliou, was worth a standing ovation. 

Following the advice of our hosts we'd attempted to eat here several times previously, but were thwarted by mishaps in communication and timing. Finally we secured a booking. Understanding, only, that our meal was to involve "fruits du mer" we arrived at midday for Sunday lunch and sat down to a long table preset for our reservation of seven, already holding aloft two giant platters piled high with the freshest Brittany seafood available: crab, oysters, prawns, langoustines. 

This seafood feast took us, and everyone else in the restaurant who was fortunate enough to make a reservation for it, well over an hour to crack, pick and probe, and when, finally, we polished off the last morsel we fully expected to be handed our bill, and to head off home. 

We'd had elegant sufficiency. We were replete. We thought we had finished, in truth. 

Instead, another course was placed in front of each of us: a sublime skewer of fat white scallops, strips of smokey bacon and charred red peppers over a mound of fragrant rice, topped with champagne sauce, and slivers and squares of blanched vegetables as garnish. Too perfect not to touch. We all dug in, moaning with delight, but groaning that we, literally, had no room to spare. 

By now some of us had cottoned on that this was only the fish course, so, when a meat course inevitably arrived at our table, a jog around the restaurant block was never going to create enough room for it. Sadly most of us just looked at this delicious plate of perfectly cooked pork and mushrooms and wept. It looked sublime. It smelt sublime. We simply had no space. 

By now we were used to the Bretagne tradition of a madly generous cheese board served with beautifully dressed green salad leaves tangy with mustard, which typically follows the main course. When this arrived at our table some of us recalled the previous Sunday in another restaurant in another village, when a couple at a table beside us, finding they couldn't manage their cheeses, came prepared with plastic takeaway doggy bags and a large capacious purse. Those two are likely still eating their Sunday cheese selections. No doubt, superb. 

Finally, dessert. Not a wee slice, not a small dab of a little something sweet, but a mountain of a dessert, individually prepared, and presented as a choice among many: each sufficient as a meal in and of itself. Around four o'clock we settled into rich serves of dark coffee and a side of luscious chocolate, and in a state of stupefied satiation chatted with our fellow diners at La Doyen, one of whom happened to be celebrating his 96th birthday. So, in fine spirit, we amped up the Aussie noise, birthday wishes and kisses, ensuring the day remained memorable for him always. 

An amazing lunch. Made even more amazing given that we had no notion what was on offer, what was coming next, or even what it might cost in the end. As it panned out, even adding in four bottles of red and four of white, the bill, per person, barely pushed $AUD40, including the tip. 

Bravo, La Doyen! 

Our exchange home

The hub of the house

You could smell the pork crackle

Nougat the size of cheese wheels

Seafood platter

Scallops en brochette

Pork main

Cheese board and green tangy leaves

Sinful dessert

Gibbets, dungeons and disillusion

One of the prettiest villages we visited in the western Finistere was Guerlesquin (gair-less-ken) which today is noteworthy as a petite cite de caractère and well deserves its classification.

Guerlesquin historic centre harks back to the ancient regime operating in France until it was overthrown by the French Revolution. The square held the functions of the manorial administration and justice was meted out on Mondays.

Offenders heading for the hereafter were promptly directed to the gibbet in the Place de la Liberte: off with their heads.

While offenders to be imprisoned were thrown into the icy dungeons in the dark basement of the Seigneuriale prison called the Presidial, built in the heart of the square in 1640 by the Lord of Guerlesquin, a commander of Richelieu's guards.

This prison, today, is a very pretty square fortress-like building with circular watchtowers, called bartizans, sited on each corner of the building. It was saved from destruction, classified as an historical monument, then set to function as the town hall as late as 1965.

There were market days aplenty in Guerlesquin, and the little granite town became famous far and wide for its horse fairs. A stone corn measure dating from 1539 is all that remains of the original market hall, this to measure local grains for taxes paid to the local seigneur. The hollowed-out measures were supposed to represent portions of a bushel, but the measuring stone came to be called Ar Men Gaou, the Liar Stone--as it measured too generously, of course, in favour of the tax collector.

Which was just another trigger, another of the disillusions, that lead to the revolution by the people, of the people. for the people.

Ninety lime trees were planted in the park called the Champ de Bataille, the Battlefield, and here, though no battles have ever been recorded, local lords were trained in the militia. Today, an old stone fountain of Saint Ener has been re-sited in the gardens of the park.

The church of St Tenenan replaced one to St Ener in the 16th century and its pretty bellower is all that remains of the original. Beams on the walls of the porch bear remarkable wooden statues of the twelve apostles, saved from the earlier chapel to St Ener.

An historic little village, Guerlesquin, filled with bits of history that have not yet been lost. 

Guerlesquin, petite cite de caractère

Seigneurial prison, Guerlesquin

Ar Men Gaou, the Liar Stone, corn measure

  

Lime trees all in a row

Saint Ener fountain

Wooden statues of the Twelve Apostles