Tomorrow morning early I will be learning how to make a mique au petit salé across the street at Le Restaurant au Pont. They serve this at noon time once every week or so and each time the place is packed. Cars and especially panel trucks aren't really parked outside as much as they are just abandoned by the very hungry. Not that they also don't get a lot of customers for the regular lunches. At noon there is only one meal on the menu but it's substantial: soup, main course, cheese, dessert. That's the way a lot of restaurants are around here. Then they have a regular menu with lots of choices at night. The lunches are very democratic: as many expensive cars as rusty little camionettes. I'm still not sure what to expect of this mique thing. According to Philippe, it's not only a Southwestern France thing, it's got local variants for Quercy, the Bouriane, etc. Some serve little individual balls of this bread-like mique, others big round loaves as in this picture, still others coils. The recipes I've seen on line call for flour, yeast, eggs cooked in broth. I think. The petit salé is some kind of pork, salted. Vegetables surround the whole thing.
I asked Philippe what gives with the big crowds and he said that not that many people take the time to make this ultra-traditional dish at home anymore. My standard of comparison could only be my mother's chicken dumplings stew which I'm not sure I'd even like any more but which all my siblings are nostalgic about.
I'm very pleased to have been invited. I've been looking for a pretext for hanging out with Philippe and Marcel and seeing them in action and would have settled for peeling potatoes. In order to get answers to my many curiosities: how can they like their work so much? what did Marcel do before abruptly changing careers? How in this country where people study for years in order to learn the fine art of waiting tables can a couple guys suddenly figure out how to run a restaurant?
