We visited Mont St Michel after a good drive along the coast from St Malo along a Michelin map green road. It was drizzling but that added a different perspective to the landscape. Sharon thought the Mont was great. It was another big church after all but it was all a bit touristy and I felt I was adding a little to that problem by being there. Once, so I’m told, the tide would prevent us from accessing the island but now a high causeway, soon to become wider allows us all to steam in there 24 hours a day. The surrounding countryside is lovely with farmland growing corn and vegetables, black headed sheep and dairy cows grazing.
We drove to the D Day beach coast hoping to jag a room at some inn but it took 5 rejections until we found a sign advertising chambres in a small hotel just behind Gold Beach where the Americans landed in 1944. We had a beer and a rose and were convinced by the cheerful family group who run the hotel/bar/take away that we should have dinner. A consultation of the menu and many confused exchanged looks led the chef, who had a fine moustache, to bring samples of his food from the kitchen for us to look at. What Sharon thought were scallops ended up being veal so this was rejected in favour of moules. I was convinced, somewhat easily by the chef and his father with a little help from the daughter who was the “expert” speaker of Australian, to try huites (wheats). To help me decide, he held out for me to inspect an oyster the size of his palm. I wanted six. The chef suggested ten, but the father who won out, insisted I have twelve. They were the best oysters I have had in a long time.
Perhaps I showed too much pleasure in eating his food, “Tres bon! Merci! Bonjour! Fromage!” for before I’d finished the last oyster, the hairy lipped chef returned with a bowl of large sea snail shells, fresh from the sea, it seemed, as they still had the green sea grass clinging to the shell. His English was worse than my French so he tried a silly grin and movements of long skewer with small prongs on the end to indicate I should pierce the grey flesh of the snail and ease it from the shell. The family gathered around the table. Father, in his pink shirt and hairy eyebrows raised in anticipation, the thin interpreter daughter with a knowing grin and the wife watching from the doorway, her hands on her hips.
You’d be surprised how much snail can fit inside what I thought was a small shell. I half expected it to pop after it finally came out. After chef showed how I should remove the sucker, which had gone hard in the cooking, and squeezed a little mayonnaise on the plate to help it slide down, I popped the thing straight in. The father broke into a grin and the chef positively sparkled. The snails, I had four more, weren’t too bad. A little chewy, like squid. Later we walked on Gold Beach here at Ver sur Mer which was covered with acres of purple, green, brown and red seaweed.