Sud de France 3.8: A Day in Sète, the “Venice of the Languedoc.”

Someone wrote once that Sète “smells of fish.” Ptolemy mentioned the town around 75 A.D and he didn’t seem to notice that. But Sète's never smelled of fish when I’ve been there, just a delightful hint of salt in the air from the sea that surrounds the town. 

Sète’s has a unique location, nestled up against the 577 foot (176 meters) high Mount Saint Clair and bordered on one side by the Mediterranean and on the other by the Bassin de Thau a very large, salt water lake.  

 These elements make for a strikingly beautiful setting. Mt. St. Clair stands out high above the nearby landscape that it can be seen from miles off the coast, making it a convenient coastal landmark for sailors for centuries. Today the mountain is home to a number of restaurants and hotels with spectacular views of the harbor and sea. 

The Bassin de Thau is filled with thousands of crisscrossed mussels and oysters growing racks. It is separated from the Med by an eight mile (13.5 km) long sand spit full of sandy beaches and bird filled marshlands. In the past the beaches were packed in summer with campers from all over Europe. Their parked camper vans often blocked traffic but today a newly completed parking and traffic revision has eased the problem. 

Sète is the largest French fishing port on the Med and is called the “Venice of the Languedoc” because of the system of canals that thread through the town. Bridges cross these waterways and while not as Renaissance pretty as Venice, it still makes Sète a lovely water loving city. It’s also the southern end of the Canal du Midi, a manmade waterway that goes all the way through France to Bordeaux and the Atlantic. The Canal is a favorite of boaters who kayak or rent barges to take leisurely up the Canal on a summer vacation. 

The other day we went to Sète for its annual used book fair. Our first surprise  there was parking our car in the underground or rather under the canal lot that was literally cut out of the rock beneath one of the city’s waterways. We drove down through what looked like a cave tunnel. Happily like other parking facilities in France, calming classical music was piped in to the chambers of the lot to reassure drivers that all was okay.  

We were parked under this lady's dog.

 

The used book fair is a modest affair held in the Place d la Republique, a small park with the Mayor’s office on one side of it. Across the park is the main office of France’s second major political party, the Parti Socialiste. I guess the arrangement allows the Socialists to keep an eye on the Mayor. 

The book fair was a small and easy event. A dozen folding tables were set up under the trees and books were laid out in piles. The texts ran from manga Japanese comics to 16^th century travel guides.

Browsing the book fair's offerings

 We went through the fair but didn’t find anything special to buy. So we next set off to Sète’s “Les Halles.” Like the Halles found in most large French towns and cities this is a covered produce market with a high glass and iron framed ceiling. Inside the Halles are the usual vegetable and meat stand as well as a number of lively restaurants. 

The sports bar in Les Halles

The owner of Chez Leon Louis on les Halles

In Les Halles we got some olive oil and preserved fruits and then headed out for lunch. Despite it being a late fall Sunday the streets were full of people. Many were shopping others just strolling along the canals. 

We walked a block down from Les Halles to the Quai de la Resistance along one of the main canals. We chose a small sidewalk place from the four or five restaurants that were open. As we entered the place, a waiter dashed by us with a huge tray of clams and oysters perched on his shoulder, evidently he was off to deliver a take-out order. We took a seat under a large tent like canopy facing the restaurant so we could watch the owner standing one side of the sidewalk shucking oysters. He worked calmly and meticulously but always stopped for a minute to greet and chat with passersby. He seemed to know everyone on the street.  

For me the treat is not oysters but the local mussels. I ordered a bucket of moules (mussels) in a light cream sauce that was incredibly fresh and tasty. One of my favorite things about living here in Mediterranean France is access to totally fresh, locally caught seafood. Especially mussels, that are petite and delicate and about a third the size of the monsters mussels (read older and tougher) we’d get back in the Pacific Northwest. 

Finishing lunch and our “demi piche”, half pitcher, of rosé we got up and strolled along the Quai. The whole meal for two us came to under 20 euros.

About a block from the restaurant we came upon “La Biscuiterie, Sucré & Salé. It’s a new shop that’s only been open for a few months and it was doing a lively business. Sucré & Salé bakes and sells only biscuits and Madeleine cakes. 

Seemingly simple things you’d think, but they make these two humble cakes something of a culinary art form. They have Madeleine cakes flavored with lemon, with apricot, pistachio, walnut, olive oil, spice, honey, chocolate and more. And the biscuits receive the same treatment spiced with everything from paprika to Provençal herbs.

The two young couples that run the place are taking Proust’s humble Madeleine and improvising on it in a most delightful way. 

Their whole presentation is whimsical and most theatrical.

Naturally we loaded up on cakes which made for a sweet way to end a very pleasant day in the Sud de France.

Sud de France 3.7: American Politics as Kabuki Theater

It’s rather pleasant today here in the South of France, partly cloudy with temperatures around 60F. Lovely weather that hardly feels like the end of fall to a Northern bred North American. Yesterday was November 1^st, All Saints (Toussaints) Day and as in many Catholic countries it’s a day to go to the cemetery and remember those who have passed. 

But that was yesterday and today is America’s midterm elections. The date got me thinking about politics and how I grew up in politics. 

My dad was a district “captain” for our neighborhood in the Bronx. All Saints Day was often the day before Election Day, we didn’t go to the cemetery to visit the dead, instead visited the living-the electorate.  My dad would drive his 1948 black Pontiac sedan slowly though the neighborhood, flashing the car lights and honking the horn and I’d pass out little voter choice cards to anyone within arm’s reach. The cards urged people to vote for the Democratic Party the next day. Yes, in those days you voted for the party and not simply for the candidate. The total cost of a Congressional campaign was a few hundred dollars for the cards. 

But what the hell, the Congressman and other elected officials were people you knew. They’d turn up at weddings and funerals and you knew them by their first names. Who needed to see them in a campaign ad on a Black and White TV set?

Well, I’m rather glad to be far away from America’s political kabuki theater and 24/7 news cycle coverage. It’s sad that people have to vote for people they hardly know on the basis of bizarre TV ads. I mean how believable is an ad that says “vote for Tom Brown or the world will end and the Muslims will impose Sharia law.” 

In New York the political parties understood real grassroots politics. You supported the people in your District. All politics was local. At Thanksgiving and Christmas we’d fill the Pontiac up with turkeys bought by the local Democratic “club” and deliver them to neighbors who were having hard times. I even came to believe that helping a neighbor was a really good kind of political corruption.

Since those days in New York I’ve worked on a lot of campaigns as a photographer and over the years watched politics change. I discovered that no one who got elected to office ever became poorer. A shabbily dressed “man of the people” would inevitable turn into a Brooks Brothers suit in a few months.

Part of it is about the power relationship. Campaigners want your vote. They will kiss a baby’s ass and promise two kitchens in every house. They will swear to throw out the rascals- you name ‘em- and clean up government.

The 2008 Campaign got people excited but now they've lost heart.

 Anything, just please, please vote for me. They will stand on street corners and shake hands until their hand’s ready to fall off. Once in office though the situation flips. (And trust me despite any of pledges of the TEA party or the left this is how it will be.) The people who were begged for their vote have to sign up to see their representative. And if you are lucky enough to get to see the elected one you discover that they can’t do much for you. 

“Well you know that just how things are,” they say or, “I’ll see if one of my people can help you.”

It’s all a kabuki theater now with grotesque figures in painted masks playing out a well rehearsed script, feigning deep feelings and wildly gesturing and it’s successful because it works on that cool medium of TV. A medium that needs big gestures and sound bites. 

On the Right and Left, American politicians have lost touch with their own communities. I’ve seen it happen to Republicans and Democrats. The cheerful newsletter of accomplishment has replaced the presence of an actual person.

Maybe things would be better if politicians were required to attend constituents’ weddings and funerals or to deliver turkeys at Thanksgiving to families in need or every once in a while to sit with a foreclosed family as their stuff is thrown out on a sidewalk.

At least the French are cynical about politics and have little expectation that anything a politician does will improve things. That’s why they go out into the streets.

A humble patriotic gesture

And it’s no wonder Americans are angry. They’ve been left behind. Today no matter who wins--Democrat, Republican, Progressive or TEA party-- the kabuki play which is bigger than individuals and go on. Same show, same costumes, just with a different cast. 

P.S. The results are in and the Republicans have"taken" the House and some Senate seats. I'll bet that an awful lot of those 'rebel' TEA party types will get their Brooks Brother suits and their professional staffs and their media training in no time at all. 

As G. Flaubert wrote, "Stupidity is unshakable." Damn right.

  

text and photos ©2010 Steve Meltzer