This is our first Travel Session.

A small incursion into the PACA region (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), to explore a specific idea: provençalité. Not to define it, but to try to understand it.

A territory that expresses itself through the senses: lavender appears as a crop, as a raw material, in food, in perfumes and in aesthetics.

We encounter many other products, such as almonds, cheeses, navettes, Cavaillon melon and sweets such as calisson, among other confectioneries.

And here, part of the historic Route Nationale 7 also lives on, along with the old Relais Routiers and the traces of other ways of travelling, reflecting an identity that never stopped moving.

All of this forms small pieces of an identity that does not necessarily present itself as a catalogue of heritage.

But alongside this, other layers coexist: food trucks, burger joints and Neapolitan-style pizzerias. Italian épiceries. A world cheese affineur. People who have arrived from other places, tourists, artisans and artists.

So, can a gastronomic identity also be built from what arrives, becomes incorporated and eventually becomes part of everyday life?

All of this is also part of what we can look at when we talk about food heritage: what remains, what is transformed and what changes meaning over time. What is considered new or fashionable today may become memory tomorrow. The definitive incorporation into the heritage of a place is not something that is entirely in our hands.

And within this coexistence of different times, products, people and ways of doing things — or savoir faire — a unique gastronomic identity emerges, with its own nuances, without losing the imprint of the terroir.

This edition is just a small sample, only a “pinch” of this rich and surprising region, simply an attempt to get a little closer to provençalité.

Rocío Lopez
Lawyer, Master’s Degree in Public Policy from UTDT, currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Advances in Gastronomic Sciences at the University of Córdoba (UCO)
She can be contacted at rocio.lopez@debuencomer.com