He was puzzled by a piece he’d seen in the newspaper, which he had enclosed, and the article made sad reading. It condemned Provence as a region of clever peasants and bad food, and here was the source of Simpson’s puzzlement. I don’t remember it being like that at all, he wrote, when I was there on vacation. It’s not like that in your books. What’s happened? Can it have changed so much in the last few years? I read the article a second time, and it did indeed make Provence sound unattractive and poorly served by its restaurants and food suppliers. I’ve been sent similar pieces before, written by journalists in search of what they like to think is a different angle. They are anxious to find what they call “the reality” that lurks behind the postcards of sunny lavender fields and smiling faces. Give them a disenchanted visitor, a surly shopkeeper, or a bad meal, and they go home happy; they have their story. I rarely agree with what they write, but that’s fair enough. We all have our own ideas about Provence, and mine will inevitably differ from those of people who come for a week or two, particularly if they come during August, the most crowded, least typical month of the year.
