I loved the description of the cornucopia of goods found at one of the local markets. "We set off for the main square, running the gauntlet between groups of sallow gypsy girls in tight, shiny black skirts selling lemons and long plaits of garlic, hissing at one another in competition. The stalls were crammed haphazardly along the street--silver jewelry next to flat wedges of salt cod, wooden barrels of gleaming olives, hand-woven baskets, cinnamon and saffron and vanilla, cloudy bunches of gypsophila, a cardboard box full of mongrel puppies, lurid Johnny Hallyday T-shirts, salmon-pink corsets and brassieres of heroic proportions, rough country bread and dark terrines" (May page 92). Every French village has a market; some of the larger ones are truly remarkable for the range of produce and miscellany one can find.
Mayle's book makes one appreciate the land, food, climate, and people on a local level. One evening, their neighbor Faustin brought them a large bunch of fresh asparagus which they cooked and ate with "bread that had been baked that afternoon in the old boulangerie at Lumières. We drank the light red wine from the vineyards in the valley. We supported local industry with every mouthful" (May page 86). One can almost taste and smell the local delicacies.
For further reading I recommend Mayle's Toujours Provence, a continuation of his life in Provence and his novel Hotel Pastis. There is also Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin which is a collection of short stories and provencal lore written in the 19th century.
