Cucugnan

On arriving at the restaurant’s Parking on this calm, sunny morning, we were dismayed to see that we had been preceded by two German tour buses. Would the restaurant be jammed?

Our foreboding deepened when we were jostled by an archetypically objectionable French person pushing through the little crowd at the restaurant entrance, a stout woman baring a lot of yellow teeth in a grimace only technically a smile, braying "pardon, pardon…" on two notes like a city police van.

Yes, the restaurant was jammed. But after we settled at our reserved table in one of the three upstairs dining rooms we realized that the place was well set up to take the crowd. The waitresses moved swiftly yet without any appearance of haste, dispensing pitchers of cuvée du Curé de Cucugnan 1992, assortiments de charcuteries and assiettes de crudités to the proper places on the polished-wood tables.

These items were similar to the corresponding ones we sampled earlier, but the charcuteries included as well a thin-sliced jambon cru of splendid, rich flavor and texture curiously rubbery. This was a cured ham to be dawdled over.

Magret de canard grillé (saignant, à point), jardinière de légumes. (x2) The duck breasts were served as single, oval-shaped pieces with the skin slashed to release the fat. The one ordered rare was cooked to an interior color between light pink and dark rose at the center. The meat was soft and juicy, and it tasted characteristically of duck. The one ordered medium-rare was light pink to medium rose in color, solid-textured, juicy enough and, while clearly recognizable as duck, it had more of a generic "meaty" taste than did the rare-cooked version; in this case most of the fat had been rendered, leaving crispy strips of skin as a bonus.

There are two aspects to the enjoyment of food, the quality of the food itself and the quality of the consumer’s reactions. On this occasion my reactions failed me. I had registered the vegetable garnish only to the point of noting deep-fried potatoes so crisp they rustled on the pewter plate, and mushrooms that had absorbed the duck cooking juices very satisfactorily, when zonk!—protein and fat overload hit me like a chef’s mallet. On our way out we had a brief chat with the chic and kindly Mme Villa, assuring her that our sudden departure was due to a cold—always a credible excuse in France—and not anything to do with the restaurant. The total at Auberge de Cucugnan was F340.