2 replies to this topic

[Arey]

In the Proencal author Jean Giono's short story "The solitude of Compssion" which is set in Provence a cure has been given a bundle of pig tripes by his brother. His housekeeper initially starts it sizzling in fat with "bits of purple liver like flowers and rice on the stalk".
When the cure asks his housekeeper what she's making she responds "it's a picoche", and than pours a a "thin stream of thick wine with the smell of wood root" into the pan. Can anyone tell me what the housekeeper is making

[Lisa Shock]

Sorry, a cursory look through several editions of the Larouuse, Ranhofer, and a few other older books has yielded nothing.

[Ptipois]

Either the term is an old Provençal one and it can't be found anywhere, so it may have disappeared, or Giono entirely made it up and that wouldn't be the only time he's done that. He was known to embellish reality, often departing from the mere description of things to create a universe of his own. All the while keeping the appearance of perfect plausibility so it is not easy to tell his inventions from his observations. That is what makes him a great writer.

If that's a real dish, there does not seem to remain any trace of it. Giono was fascinated by food and cooking. Since he suffered from the gout, he could eat very little of what he liked. So he put the descriptions in his novels. The wine "with the smell of wood rot" sounds exactly like those old bottles of "madérisé" (oxidized) fortified wine that house cooks used to keep for cooking purposes long ago. I suspect that if he didn't made it all up, the writer is recalling a childhood memory.