Ce N'est Pas Un Pizzè

Surrealist humor aside, the famous Galettes de Pèrouges are ubiquitous. Along with the day-tripping tourists who must have it explained to them: "This is not a pizza; this is not a brioche." I mean, there's a stand by the info booth, another before you enter the main gate, one right next to our hotel, two competing shops 30 meters up the street, and another by the south gate. Also, it's what's for dessert at every restaurant, and woe the diner who dishonors this proud tradition with a mere glacé or crème brûlée.

About the only thing that rivals the galette and the tourist for its sheer pervasiveness is the foie gras. Every restaurant offers at least six variations, from turrine to gâteau to côte to rillette to salade gourmande to foie stuffed into an artichoke heart. That one I must try. I think there are an equal number of foie dishes to every other dish on every menu. And it's not just here: we stopped for lunch in St. Lager and guess what was featured? Even better, it came with fig compote. Karen's salad came with bacon, which she donated to the cause, so I stacked the above along with some greens and goose fat gelée onto a poppy seed roll and ended up in my fourth foie coma in as many days.

Wait. What was I talking about? Pèrouges has a galette-based economy. It is the focus of labor and production. It is a final product and a mechanism of trade. It is customizable, but only in the approved fashion--cream, berries or sorbet (i.e., you can have it in any color you like as long as it's black). It is breakfast, dessert, mid-morning, mid-day, and mid-afternoon snack. Pèrouges eats, sleeps, breathes, and presumably farts galette. And we wouldn't have it any other way.