Sometimes little points that reflect the Layers and Levels theme will pop up. They won’t require a full chapter, just a brief description. For example this first one:
Punto 1
Languedoc Cooking Pots
I read years ago that in the South of France each peasant family has a large fireplace over whose fire hangs suspended a large cast iron pot into which pretty much everything gets thrown – vegetables, herbs, meats, spices and leftovers. The pot is never cleaned since it is always over the fire off to one side such that the ingredients are pretty much always simmering.
Over time, each family’s stew ends up having a similar but also very distinct flavour. Even though most families contribute more or less the same ingredients, some favor one spice over another, some family’s meat is more pungent or plentiful than another due to the terrain or other such particularity, some favour carrots over onions and so forth. (Accumulated layers and levels, manifesting as family stew!)
Some of these pots, I was told by a Frenchwoman - albeit one who lived in the Loir et Cher near Paris, not in her friend Marcel Pagnol’s Languedoc region in the South where this culinary tradition is reportedly practiced - have been continuously simmering for centuries. And nearly all the stews which came out of such pots were, and hopefully still are, seriously delicious.
Peasant gourmet: one of many things at which the French excel!
[Note: Have re-named the first two offerings from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 to Introduction and Chapter 1. Author-Editor.]