Standout moments from nearly 20 years of writing about travelling and eating around France include meals in legendary restaurants and the joy of a shared dinner at a chambre d’hôtes. That said, there’s a venue that can’t be underestimated as an opportunity to enjoy France’s culinary delights: the car boot picnic.
Standing under the shade of an open car boot, I have discovered some products so delicious they didn’t make it as far as a gîte kitchen or dining table. It might have been a chunk of comté so fruity it didn’t get beyond the car park on market day. There was the punnet of gariguette strawberries bought from a farm in Brittany’s Plougastel-Daoulas, famous for its microclimate. My family and I each took a bite and stared unbelievingly at each other – the sweetness was off the scale.
