Market day in Castres and a parking place opens up after a single tour–thanks to our Parking Fairy–who has been kind these last two weeks after the ticket.
Teeming today–du monde–too many people, making it difficult to move along.
I resolve to make the effort next week and get there before 9am.
Queues at each stall.
I have to stand and watch one punter filling her bag with those sweet Spanish lemons I’d driven in to buy.
Not all of them–please!
She left a few and then the vendor magicked more lemons from under the table!
This is a new-ish stall—a breakaway from the neighbouring stall selling organic vegetables.
Seems she has a source south of the border supplying her with said lemons, the odd grapefruit and almonds that taste like almonds.
Until last week she had rosy red apples but warned that there’d be no more next week–the tree was bare—until next season. I like seasonal– it makes sense.
Last week she handed me a sheet of paper dense with text about a new idea she’s hatched: Adopt a Chicken!
You pay 12 euros. She looks after the chicken, which lays eggs for you which you buy after getting your first 12 euros worth. She includes a photo of your little dear one, so you can prop it up at the breakfast table while eating your boiled egg.
Merci infiniment ma cherie—je me regale!
We are buying into the idea–and I handed over 12 euros.
Meredith translated the dense text and found a sweet drawing illustrating the special kind of chicken, La Flèche–a rare French breed.
Our stall holder—yet to know her name—was delighted!
Go to it, Matilde*!
(*I christened her–sight unseen!)
Robin Ellis 
Goodness Robin you have writing talent as well as acting talent! I so enjoy reading your essays. As much as cooking your recipes I think.🤗🍞🧀🍷
Thanks, Sandy!
Delightful post! What an excellent idea.
What did you do with the lemons? I love lemons and lemony things – the tarter, the better!
I love reading your posts. I can just imagine visiting your market. I love the rent a chicken idea. I shall have to send it on to a few farmers that I know here at the Matthews Farmers Market near Charlotte, NC where I’m a market volunteer.
Robin and Meredith,thank you for this absolutely delightful slice of Saturday market day in Castres! I admit,though,that I am most taken with (now little)Matilde,and the whole idea of Adopt a Chicken! What a wonderful way to start the morning with a truly fresh organic egg from your own cage free hen.(And with Easter just around the corner,a terrific head start in celebrating the holiday!)
Also a much more pleasant way to go about the process than raising them yourself (which we did as kids)(mostly acceptable except for cleaning up,and ,alas,the inevitable ending once the eggs stopped coming).
I love that! Great Idea. Also,…why are these lemons special?
They taste good–a thin slice in hot water.
I can’t resist lemons! My heart would be captured in a moment! I look forward to hearing some wonderful egg recipes — perhaps lemon curd? Or maybe not… a little too dangerous!
Are the sweet lemons actually sweet or not so mouth puckering?
Just good lemony lemons is what I mean
R & M, I would def buy into the idea of adopting a hen and her chicks. What a great thing. And helping a local business person. Look forward to seeing their bounty and your creations.
You must enjoy much telling us your market stories, Robin! And we are so much amused! You made me heartily laugh thinking at the picture of your chicken given by the lady to put on the breakfast table while eating your egg 🙂
I sincerely wish that we here in the USA could have this option to adopt a chicken. A wonderful idea!!! Cluck, Cluck!!!!
Now you have to come up with a name, buy her gifts when you travel, include her in your Christmas card photo, maybe have her come spend a few weeks with you every summer…..
Matilde is her name.
How lovely. Lucky chickens. !
I love the `adopt a chicken` idea – perhaps I should mention it at my Farmers` Market, where my egg producer has about 2000 free range birds! Unfortunately, at present all free range birds are kept in barns due to Avian Flu restrictions, but we hope they`ll be freed soon. Please keep up your accounts of French markets – it`s as though we`re there with you. Best wishes, Pam Jacob.
I adopted an olive tree from a farm in Italy one Christmas for my daughter in law. Sent her a picture of the tree and a liter of oil in the spring. Delightful! Anything to support a family farm. Can’t wait to see your first eggs!
Matilde is a good name for a chicken. I love the idea of adopting one, as I would like to have them but there’s no room for them. A Matilde egg must be a special treat. May she have a long and happy life. And you too…
Organic chicken roasted with cut up lemons and waxy potatoes , strewn with oregano is my go to fast food .
Mathilde is safe obviously!
Delicious.
We woke early to a grey Oxford Sunday morning and weathered Radio 4’s ‘Archers Omnibus’. Then your joyful account of your trip to Castres Market flooded the world with scent and sunshine. Luscious lemons and a clucking hen called Matilde. You brought it all to life. Just love it.
Geraldine x
Too kind, Geraldine!
Wonderful journalism!
We learned of your site as a result, 40 years later, of watching the series for the first time. Had watched Brideshead, I Claudius,… this had escaped us.
My wife has checked one of your books out at the library. Great book. .
I happened across a book on Monet’s Table some years ago now. Normandy. Acquired some Creil Montereau Japo tableware…
Thank you for posting such things.
Thanks, Gerald.
Delightful, as always. Fresh eggs would be a delicacy here. A couple of years ago there was a BIG fight about keeping chickens as “pets.” Unfortunately, the “chicken-pet” owners lost. Domage. Now it’s strictly store-bought eggs.
Nancy, Santa Fe, NM
I now want to adopt a free-range chicken, but I don’t think our local farmers are strictly organic, even though their hens are normally free-range when there’s no avian flu around. I remember the six Rhode Island Reds we kept in our back garden in Highgate in the late 40s and loved them, but because they started pecking each other, we had to put little red plastic ‘spectacles’ on them, which did the trick. I believe you can still get them! When the hens had all gone, I used their hen-house as a wendy house and played having a cafe!! Simple pleasures from a time gone by!
Lovely story–thank you, Mary.
What a great idea!! Imagine how well-treated the chickens will be–no factory farming there! Good for you, Robin & Meredith!! 🙂
Waltzing Matilde?
Our smallish Idaho city allows chickens in the city limits. It is wonderful to see them happily scratching and clucking in people’s gardens in the summer.
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