eatDordogne: The diary of a summer, week 2

The local village came to dinner. The chief of police stood up and sang "Do you do you do you Saint Tropez" - one of those songs the French think are the coolest thing and leave foreigners baffled.

He Who Must Sometimes Be Obeyed did the cooking. He made his curry. This involves an intriguing mix of chopped chicken breasts, carrots, canned Petits Pois which bare no relation to frozen peas, pots of natural yogurt and a jar or two of ready-made curry sauce. The French were as bemused as we were by the lyrics of the police chief's song. For a nation that believes there is really no other food worth eating but their own, they behaved gamely.

Foreign food is appearing more and more in the night markets. These are weekly gatherings where local producers cook their home-made, home-grown produce for tourists and locals sitting at picnic tables in village squares. Alongside stallholders cooking duck every which way are stalls selling satay and noodle dishes, Chinese stir fries, and proper Indian curries. Why, puzzled a neighbor, would Parisians come down to the Dordogne on holiday to eat Chinese? Perhaps they're as worried as I am about growing webbed feet.

Ducks consumed so far: 2 pots of duck rillettes; 3 portions of duck confit.