A PROVENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY

travel

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Provence Byways
in Spain

Traditions

The Markets of Provence, by Dixon Long, 1996

A medium-format book with lots of photographs and specific information useful to the traveler. Subtitled "A Culinary Tour of Southern France," it features seven outdoor markets, one for each day of the week, all of them located in the Vaucluse/Bouches-du-Rhone region of Provence. The author characterizes each market, pointing out its unique features and also describing as he goes the products that you see at most of the markets--cheeses, olives, breads, fruits, vegetables, soaps, fabrics, pottery. If you enjoy outdoor markets, you'll like this book. It whets your appetite and it gives you some idea of what to expect. Buy now at Amazon.com.

Provence, A Country Almanac, by Louisa Jones, 1993

With many color photographs and a medium sized format, this is almost a coffee table book. It's organized according to the seasons, and in each of the four sections the author features about twenty Provencal items that somehow relate to the seasons. These include portraits of people and small family businesses, restaurants, classic Provencal dishes, regional products, wineries, out-of-the-way villages, public gardens, traditional crafts, and museums. Each vignette is associated with a place you can visit (to buy, eat, drink, learn, relax, etc.), so this clever book is both a wide ranging description of Provencal culture and a very useful travel guide.

The Quilts of Provence, by Kathryn Berenson, 1996

This is a book for someone with a particular inteest in quiltmaking and textiles. Lavishly illustrated, it gives the history of the textile industry in Provence, with particular focus on the intricately stitched and beautiful quilts called broderie de Marseilles that were popular in the seventeenth century and eventually evolved into what we now think of as "Provencal prints." Buy now at Amazon.com.

The Gardens of Provence, by Louisa Jones, 1992

Another book by Louisa Jones, this one is in large-format book with superb color photographs. A resident of Avignon, Ms. Jones spent five years visiting Provencal gardens and researching the region's gardening traditions. Her thesis is that there is a continuity between the sculpted and lovingly tended agarian landscape of Provence and its many gardens, the latter being a more intimate and refined version of the former. She also provides a list of plants traditionally found in Provencal gardens and addresses of gardens open to the public. For garden lovers this book is a treasure. Buy now at Amazon.com.

Lavender: Fragrance of Provence, text by Christiane Meunier, photographs by Hans Silvester, 1995

A very beautiful large-format book of stunning photographs of lavender fields in every season and every setting. The long introductory text is very good, describing the history and culture of lavender in Provence. Buy now at Amazon.com.

Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit, by Mort Rosenblum, 1996

In 1986 Mort Rosenblum, former editor of the International Herald Tribune, bought a five acre overgrown Provencal farm and found buried in the underbrush 150 ancient olive trees. He set out to revive his trees and eventually press his own olive oil, and in the process he became an olive nut. Starting in Provence and then circling the Mediterranean (with side trips to California and Mexico), Rosenblum visits olive growers, poking around their orchards, studying their olive presses, and joining them for extravagant olive-based meals. In the process he teaches you a lot about olives and infects you with his mania: you will find yourself wanting to rush out and buy the best olive oil you can find. Buy now at Amazon.com.