How many of you have ever thought to pop a few flowers in your cooking to make them taste a bit nicer?
Probably only a handful. But then if you were in Provence then it’d be the absolute norm to spoon a few dried lavender flowers in your Coq au vin along with the other Herbes de Provence. And what’s more, it’s not the only thing the southern French people use the little purple flower for either.
From air freshener, to washing up liquid, to your grannies soap and everything in between, lavender seems to want be the choice smell these days. It such a familiar smell to us now it’s a wonder we can smell it at all. But in Provence, where the air is literally full of the stuff, it’s something of a way of life. There are many uses for the plant, from the culinary one above, to the drying and hanging of the flower for making a room smell nice, to extracting the oil for aromatherapy usages and even to boost the oestrogen level in people, which is why it’s often suggested young teenage boys watch how much lavender oil they’re exposed to.
As well as being in products all over the world, the lavender of Provence is a fully fledged farming industry and, quite similar to the tulip fields in Holland, there are regular guided tours and visitor centres dedicated to the plant all over the region.
July is a great month to travel to Provence and go for a week long lavender tours. Travel by car from the Cote D’Azur, to the Vaucluse, to the Cote du Rhone. Not only can you drive out to the acres of flower fields, stopping off as you go to wander around, breath in the sweet smell and sometimes pick some of your own to take back as gifts, but you can stop along the way which will undoubtedly have some sort of thematic resonance with your new favourite flower.
Stunning Medieval villages are stopped at one route and you can include a local cooking course, where you can put to the test and the taste what that flower does to a dish. What’s very interesting is a visit to the distilleries, where the lavender flower is drained of its essential oils and made into a very popular aromatherapy oils. This has a particular medicinal quality and is great for skin disorders, headaches and massages.
Photo of lavender field by ‘toni.r
Topic: General Travel |
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Tags: food, Provence
About the author
Phil is a freelance writer working on various writing and editing projects ranging from feature film scripts to travel writing. He enjoys writing from experience and sharing information on the many places he has visited over the years
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