A small truffle marinated in oil can be bought for about 20 Euro. Thinly sliced, just a fingernail sliver of truffle is enough to flavor an omelette or a soup. If you're on a budget, 8 Euros will buy you a bottle of aromatic truffle oil, which will almost double as the real thing.
Day three, after our banquet, and we feel as gavé as a goose. Sensible eating is in order, and the trip to Rocamadour's a timely reminder of our over-indulgence. One hour away from Sarlat by car, this bastide is perched 500 metres above the river, almost carved out of the limestone caves that dominate the countryside. Today, as in medieval times, it's a place of pilgrimage. The faint-hearted can take the lift, but mindful of our gastronomic transgressions, we climb the 465 steps to the Shrine of the Black Madonna. Here, the local Bishop, St Amadour, who gave his name to the village, is said to have cured Richard the Lionheart of a wound he suffered during the Crusades.
In summer Rocamadour is packed with tourists and souvenir shops. Off-season, you can sense the mysticism of the place. In a little chapel the Black Madonna, a rough-hewn 12 inch high walnut carving of mother and child, sits quietly above the altar. Birds nest in the eves, darting in and out, tantalized by rays of sunlight sweeping in through stained glass windows.
Time to retrace our steps and find a light lunch. But we see nothing but duck or goose, pậté and more pậté, and the occasional nod to something more exotic - pâté de sanglier: wild boar. There's something almost churlish about admitting you've had too much of a good thing in this gourmets' Paradise, but maybe our penance is to go hungry today! Finally, we come across a bistro that offers salad and a panoramic view over the valley. We order une Périgourdine: a bowl of crisp lettuce and truffle-infused walnuts, in the middle of which nestles a perfect, round miniature Rocamadour, the crumbly white goat's cheese of the region.
We ask our waitress if the locals ever tire of eating pâté, if goose or duck lose their appeal. She looks at us in disbelief.
“Mais non! Pas du tout! We are very proud of our produce.”
And what about high cholesterol?
“Ça non! It is the local wine. A glass or two of our good red every day combats the problem. We have no bad cholesterol in the Périgord. C'est le paradoxe français!”
- Air France flies from Paris to Bordeaux, capital of Aquitaine, and Sarlat is 3 hours' drive away. Bergerac Airport is a low-cost option if flying from London.
- We stayed at: La Villa des Consuls, 3 Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sarlat. Tel: 55 331 9005.
- We ate at: Le Quatre Saisons, 2 Côte de Toulouse, Sarlat. Tel: 55 329 4859.
