More Vauban and a quartet of hippies

Panorama from Collioure to The Square Fort, taken by The Other Half

Saturday: change-over day. Yesterday afternoon, we bade farewell to fellow holidaymakers with whom we have exchanged pleasantries on the beach over the last fortnight.

It was the chance to learn a new phrase: ‘à l’année prochaine’: ‘until next year’. It’s lovely to feel so accepted.

Blackberries – with some just ready for picking and eating

And with the departures came rain and storms to briefly take their place.

A cursory look at the sky this morning told its own story – the sun was out, but dark clouds were not far away, and it was even more the case when taken in tandem with the actual forecast.

So we decided against the beach and pottered for a while, taking coffee – far stronger stuff than we can make with the machine in the house – at Le Saint-Elme and then wandering into the centre of the village.

So, what to do with the rest of the day?

‘How about a walk before the rain comes?’ said The Other Half in fine jovial manner.

Into the hills

‘What a jolly good idea,’ I responded, in likewise mode.

After all, I’d felt invigorated by yesterday’s first paddle around the bay in a kayak (three times, no lifejacket – they were all for children – and not even a hint of panic) and then an actual swim later, so a spot more exercise would be welcome.

So off we set for the Mouré, the ‘posh’ bit of the old village.

The artists used to live there and, even now, on almost painfully picturesque streets that wind steeply and narrowly away from the centre, there are plenty of galleries and studios to be found.

The Square Fort

We climbed and wound our way around until we were below Fort Miradoux, the base for French commandos doing the watery bit of their training – and then headed further up beyond it; uncharted terrain for us.

The aim was two more of the fortifications that dot the region: ‘The Round Fort’ and ‘The Square Fort’, which makes it sound like something that Brian Cant would have said on Play School.

This, as unlikely as it sounds, recalled to mind Leeds. Back in the spring of 2011, when we spent a long weekend up there, I had been offered a choice of activities for the Friday afternoon when we arrived.

There was shopping – surely the girly activity of choice – or the Royal Armouries, which is as museum of … well, you can work it out.

Being me, I opted for the latter. Go on – hands up: how many birds do you know who would have done the same?

Centaurea cyanus

Anyway, more Roussillon fortifications held plenty of interest for me.

It was certainly exercise, and in the humid atmosphere, I had difficulty keeping my glasses on for most of the way up. It may look bad, but I’m going to get one of those bands that hold specs in place to avoid such problems in the future.

The track was clear and led through a veritable cornucopia of plant life: blue thistle-like flowers of centaurea cyanus dotted the dry landscape.

Vast amounts of ripening blackberries were another, and we were not the only walkers who picked and tasted: gorgeous.

Cicadas were audible, making their almost impossibly loud song. It’s made by the male insects’ tymbal muscles being contracted and relaxed, and is amplified by their mostly-hollow abdomens.

The sound can reach an extraordinary 120db – which to put it into context, would mean that, were one to sing right next to a human ear, it could cause permanent hearing loss.

The Round Fort

All of which makes them sound really rather dangerous. But I love the sound – it’s a sound of the Mediterranean, and although I possibly first heard it in South Africa, I first remember hearing it, years ago, in 2006, in bushes outside a hotel in Perpignan on our first visit to the region.

Anyway, first up was The Square Fort. It was, err, square, with a dry moat and a drawbridge, and various characteristic signs of old Vauban – designed in such a way that any defenders would have an easy time picking off any attempted assailants.

It also bore the marks of having been further altered during WWII – and there was a further concrete construction from that conflict; a base for a gun looking out to sea.

Walking further on, we discovered that a trench had been dug, and shored up with bricks, to create a hidden pathway to The Round Fort.

Sea and stone pine

Here again, were obvious signs of Vauban at work – not least the style of brickwork on a wall that had been added to the little building.

It overlooked the road that goes from Collioure to Argéles and on to Perpignan.

The views all around were spectacular: even with the sky growing greyer, we could see for miles, north up the coast and east, up into the hills.

Needless to say (but I’m going to anyway) coming back down hill was a great deal easier than going up.

Once back in the village, the next question was food.

Rather good tuna

At The Other Half’s suggestion, we headed again for Au Casot.

This time, as my delightfully moist and rare tuna arrived, the rain started hammering down on the canvas above us, lightening jagged to the sea behind, and thunder rolled threateningly around.

So much so, that a quartet of aging hippies who were sitting barely under that canvas roof had to move in further, coming right next to us.

I have to confess that tales of an American ashram and the jolly “queen” of an “east Indian” dancer who voraciously grabbed every male visitors’ bollocks for a friendly squeeze is the sort of lunchtime conversation that makes me roll my eyes.

After the storm

At one point, the woman who was, by then right next to me, looked as though she was about to have a panic attack, and the man leaned across the table and started stroking her arm.

The Other Half thought he was about to start chanting. Fortunately, the woman seemed to calm, and no further action was required.

The rain petered out and we made our way back to the house, picking up a few odds and sods for light snacking from one of the small local shops that really are so good.

Frankly, I am now officially knackered – albeit rather pleasantly so. But that really wasn’t bad for a day when the weather was not at its best.

* All pictures can be double-clicked to enlarge.

History and a load more art

Royal Chateau, Collioure

In a change of mood that could almost be seen as a case of morning after the night before, Saturday morning brought a spell of sustained and heavy rain to follow the fireworks and festivities.

Having taken the opportunity for a lie in, as the rain petered out, we decided then to amble around to Boramar for … well, pretty much anything that took our fancy.

By the time we sat down at one of the cafés overlooking the village’s central beach, the weather had not simply improved – it had turned into a glorious day.

A refreshing Coke later, we took the opportunity to make our way up to the chateau.

Vauban's work at Villefranche-de-Conflent

Part palace, part fort, the latter was begun in the first years of the 13^th century by the Knights Templar and integrated into the royal castle in 1345.

Added to and changed over the following centuries, after the French finally annexed Roussillon in 1659, Vauban – his age’s number one artist when it came to military engineering – took it in hand.

Marshall of France to Louis XIV, he added substantially to its structure as well as upgrading Fort Saint-Elme, which watches over Collioure and Port Vendre from a nearby hill, while Fort Miradou, which stands at the back of the village’s Mouré quarter, also bears his hallmarks.

As I’ve said before, this part of the world is peppered with fortifications – a sign of its importance over centuries of tiffs between France and Spain as they fought to gain control of Catalan country.

You can pick out Vauban’s work quite easily: the chateau had thick walls added that also make it into a star fort – a form that made it harder for canon fire to do serious damage, while also allowing defenders to lay down overlapping fields of fire.

View across Port d'Avall

And then there are the classic Vauban sentry boxes, which I swear I’d recognise anywhere, having seen them not only in Collioure, but at Villefranche-de-Conflent too.

There, Vauban not only fortified the tiny town itself, but also built Fort Libéria on the hill above it to defend this crucial area in the Pyrénées, with the rivers Têt and Cady nearby and the plain not far away.

Anyway, back to Collioure.

We’ve been around the chateau before – and even attended a concert there – but it’s well worth a ramble around in it’s own right, plus there is usually an exhibition being staged. Or in this case, two exhibitions. So all that for €4 – you simply cannot go wrong.

One was made up of photographs of Dalí, who was born not far away, over the border, at Figueres.

Sculpture, Félix Valdelièvre

Now I don’t mind a spot of Surrealism, and some of his earlier work (The Persistence of Memory, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening etc) I actively like, while it also makes me wonder how much of an influence he was on the likes of Chris Foss and other sci-fi and fantasy artists.

This exhibition provides no revelations, but it does remind you – should it be needed – that Dalí’s main work was himself, and that his was an ego that could make Picasso seem like Uriah Heap.

And this without mentioning that Dalí’s politics were, to put it mildly, highly dubious, given his admiration for Franco.

‘Stark staring bonkers,” we kept muttering. But very, very clever too.

There was one actual Dalí work there – a piece that, frankly, looked like a Rorschach test, with title and signature daubed in the corner.

We all, to a greater or lesser degree do what Dalí did: we make decisions about how to present ourselves to the world. If we choose, for instance, to follow fashion, we are making one statement. But if we choose not to follow fashion, then it’s every bit as much a statement; a deliberate attempt to convey something; to say something to the world about who we are.

Dalí took that and commoditised it – more than any other artist, his own face is iconic.

If the ability to paint the wildest imaginings influenced some artists, how much did the artist as a work of art influence others, such as Tracey Emin, who has subsequently commoditised herself and others in her own career?

Sculpture, Félix Valdelièvre

After musing over the photos, we made our way further up through the chateau, past the bakery – a tiny little room with a double ‘oven’ that is, in effect, outside the main part of the building – and to the highest points of the chateau.

From there can be enjoyed magnificent vistas. And if you want a single reason for our continuing love affair with Collioure (and there are many) look at the sea at Port d’Avall.

Photographed on an iPhone and with no adjustments to the colour, that really is what it’s like.

Having wandered around Vauban’s walls, we made our way down to the chapel, to see the other exhibition.

This was a very different affair.

Félix Valdelièvre is a sculptor from the south of France, whose first exhibition was in 1999.

The works on show here were from his Volumes selection. And the more you look at them, the more intriguing they become.

Not only are the shapes themselves interesting – and many of them appear to defy gravity – but the manner in which he achieves and uses different textures is too.

Anchovies, Au Casot style

They seem to be primarily created from pieces of stone that are then sliced and polished or roughed up, to provide some of the contrasts, with contrasting stones and metals used sparingly to offer further contrasts.

In art speak, his website explains that he “puts the asymmetry in symmetry, the elevation in the straights, while recognising a taste for contradiction”.

Well, I found myself ‘seeing’ insect cocoons, torpedoes, sci-fi creations and strange armour. As I said, very interesting.

These were firmly non-figurative, but Valdelièvre’s work also includes more figurative pieces.

You can find out more here.

Suffice it to say that art can be found in many things. And later, when were headed to my beloved Au Casot for our first evening meal out of the holiday – and our first return visit to this restaurant – there was art on a plate too.

Squid, delightfully presented – superbly cooked

After enjoying an exquisite starter of two varieties of anchovy, with hard-boiled egg, roasted red peppers and black olives (pretty much a Collioure salad), it was on to baby squid with a persillade dressing.

Now go on – tell me that doesn’t look like art? It tasted like it too, because the chef at Au Casot keeps food simple, but knows how to top-quality, regional ingredients to absolute perfection.

Oh – and the coffee ice cream and apricot sorbet (my own special combo) that I had to finish was the highest quality too.

There’s no end to the art that’s available to enjoy here in Collioure.

Le petit trainspotting

The view from St Vincent plage.

With the weather in a downward spiral (at least until we leave, according to Meteo France) and hints of the Tramontane forecast, there’s a sense of relief that we managed at least two days on St Vincent beach.

It’s just gone nine in the morning. There’s thunder overhead and rain is making runs past in little surges. Everything else is blissfully peaceful.

Sitting at the dining room table, with a steady flow of coffee, the long, narrow window lets in the light and the cool air and the sound of the weather.

The view beyond the tiny, wrought iron balcony encompasses a deep apricot painted gable end with blue shuttered windows and terracotta-tiled roof. Beyond, there’s a glimpse of the lower foothills of the Pyrenees as they slope down to the sea.

Stand on the balcony and there is the moulin and Fort Elme to the left; to the right, as the hills rise away over the rooftops, the fortifications built to bombard the Elme are visible, and then the Tour de la Madeloc.

Erected in 1285 by James II of Majorca, to guard his Roussillon territories against attacks from the north by the French and from the south by the Aragonese, it was tarted up by Vauban in the 17^th century.

At 656m, it can seem to follow you around. A very good place in which to build such a tower, in other words – although it must have been a nightmare getting the men and materials up there.

But before the weather cooled, we spent two days on St Vincent plage, staring at just that view, but from across the bay.

It has almost become one of our habits when sitting there to see if either of us can spot Le Petit Train on its slow progress up the hills, through the vineyards and up to Fort Elme, before it disappears from view for the descent to Port Vendres.

Made up of three yellow ‘carriages’, pulled by an ‘engine’, you see such tourist vehicles all over the place. But this is the one we’ve been on – and this is the one we sit and try to spot and we catch the rays.

And there is also, of course, Au Casot at the back of the beach. A ‘casot’, I now know, is a small, stone hut in the vineyards.

Day one, and I ate gambas: big, meaty things, perfect with aioli on the side.

Day two, and it was a hulking slab of tuna, cooked ‘bleu’, just as I had asked. Divinely moist and tasty, with a drizzle of syrupy Banyuls vinegar as a perfect compliment: a real treat.

Their ice cream is always perfection too. There is nothing complicated about what you eat  at Au Casot, but the cooking is perfection and it never disappoints.

And this year, they have a new little poster on one piece of wall, making it plain that they simply do NOT do mussels.

In between times, I bathed. More to the point, I stuck the goggles on and the snorkel in, and popped my head below the water to look at an utterly different world.

Fish swam around my legs. Now usually, they swim away when you’re near them. But by using a foot to rummage around in the pebbles and sand on the bottom, I could keep their attention – obviously they were wondering if there was any food in the offing.

It was fascinating. The water is so clear you can see them in such detail: the astonishing construction of their almost clear fins (and how they use them) and the colours of their lithe bodies shimmering as the sunlight pierces the water.

There were elongated fish with a single go-faster stripe; others, the shape of gurnards (that’s not what they were), nosing into rocks and disturbing the sea bed to find food; and baby versions of these too.

Shoals of something that looked like small bass, shoals of small fish with delicate yellow mouths; and others that looked like small dorade – or not so small, in some cases, and the more the size of your dinner plate.

It was charming and delightful – and not without a certain awe.

I really must learn to swim better, so that I can do more of this.

And then I’d sit again, drying in the sun, and watching to see if I could spot Le Petit Train once more, and casting an eye over the pebbled beach that holds such fascinating wonders itself – like this dead dragonfly; just look at the delicacy of the wings.

Fortifications and fabulous food

Everybody knows the name Nobel, but Alfred Bernhard didn’t just give his name to some international prizes, he was also a prodigious inventor, with his achievements including dynamite and, later, gelignite.

Each of these in turn made safe processes such as mining – although obviously both also had applications within armaments.

A contrary man, Nobel himself was a pacifist, but had set up more than 90 armaments factories by the time of his death.

At Paulilles, which lies on the Mediterranean coast between Port Vendres and Banyuls-sur-Mer, one of his associates, Paul François Barbe, built the French Nobel Dynamite Factory in 1870.

The factory only finally stopped working in 1984 and, in 1998, the site was sold to the Conservatoire du littoral (a sort of French National Trust) to stop major development.

In 2005, the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales started the renovation of nine buildings and the destruction of 70 more, together with the landscaping of 17 hectares to turn the area into a free ‘ecological recreational park’.

The dynamite factory workers – some of whom died in the process of this dangerous work – are commemorated in two murals, while some of the old machinery and a couple of signs are on display.

Part of the park includes a very small wood, which itself includes the fenced-off remains of some of the WWII German fortifications that after that the German army took control of the factory.

A sea wall erected at the same runs across the back of the beaches in the area.

But none of this was really new.

The area’s coastline and the hills just inland have been fortified – and then fortified some more – over the centuries. It’s a region that has seen an extraordinary amount of military action.

Fort Saint-Elme, which watches over Collioure, was last taken by the Spanish in the 1790s, in the War of the First Coalition.

The French decided they weren’t having any such nonsense and built new fortifications at just the right distance so that, once complete, they could lob cannon balls at Saint-Elme.

Once the walls were breached, the Spanish decided to call it a day and fled down hill and away, via the sea.

Vauban sentry box with Catalan flag.

Earlier, during the reign of Louis XIV, the royal castle – together other buildings in the area – had been strengthened by Marshall Vauban, who was the foremost military engineer of the day.

His work is visible in many other places throughout the region, including at Villefranche de Conflent (see picture: Vauban's Fort Liberia is in the background, on the mountain side).

But back to Paulilles.

There are three beaches in the area, all with excellent, clear waters. Indeed, the preservation includes the sea areas nearby, where underwater meadows provide a nursing home of huge importance to the region’s aquatic health.

The bus ride from Collioure (€1 and air-conditioned) took around 20 minutes. We spent a couple of hours wandering; first around the gardens and the small ‘prairie’ at the site, looked in the buildings that were open to the open to the public – one of the large halls was holding a small exhibition on the sun and sun worship, which was interesting.

There was a repair and building yard too for the traditional Catalan barques.

One of the pleasures of this was seeing some rather more inland Mediterranean scenery. Grasses and flowers and trees; a variety of pines and a number of oaks – and even a plane or two (though clearly not London ones).

And then we wandered toward the main beach. Which was rammed. In which case, after a short break, sitting under pines behind the sea wall, we decided to head for the second beach, in the next cove, and reached by a path through the wood mentioned above.

I do wish that, if people are going to make stairs in hillsides, they’d remember that some of us only have little legs.

But I made it up – and down again.

And I’m glad I did, for a variety of reasons.

The photography was right up my street.

That the remains of old buildings (more of the fortifications?), now sporting modern street art, are fenced off was a source of frustration: with a camera in hand, I always become ever more inquisitive, and see interest – perhaps even beauty? – in less than obvious places.

Rusted old machinery is a favourite for this reason; similarly, a dead flower and the snapped end of a thick branch.

We had been close to a little wobble too, with the discovery that, while there was a small café on the main site, it only served drinks. Little wonder that French visitors were arriving with cool boxes.

So we headed up the hill and into the wood, musing that while we haven’t exactly been eating big lunches, this trip might need to be shorter than intended if no lunch were available.

But as the next beach hoved into view, so too did a small, unassuming café/snack bar at the back of it; low and with a terracotta tiled roof.

We headed straight over the sand for it – only to find that it was far more than a humble snack shack, but a proper restaurant. With reservations.

Since we had no reservation, and since it was full, we made one for an hour later, when they said they could fit us in.

And so we sat on the beach while we waited – hardly purgatory – and watched the world go by.

Sole Mio – I have no idea why it has an Italian name – has been there for around 30 years and it becomes clear very quickly why you’re likely to need to book.

Sitting outside, under a canopies, at extremely comfortable chairs and with the sea in sight and within smell, we ordered from a menu that is, in many ways, like a slightly more haute version of Au Casot, the beachside restaurant in Collioure that I adore.

It’s an essentially simple menu, with seafood dominant. You don’t choose separate side dishes, but these come as a set (and simple) part of the dish.

The Other Half started with pan tomato – the classic Catalan bread, rubbed with garlic and ripe tomato. I started with carpaccio of St Jacques – raw scallops.

It arrived as beautiful mosaic of thin, ivory flesh, drizzled with oil and lime juice, a hint of paprika and black pepper, and chopped fresh herbs (two parsleys, coriander, chives), with a garnish of diced tomato.

The scallops were sweet and smooth and so soft they almost melted in the mouth.

There was exactly enough lime juice to cut through that sweetness without leaving a tart impression, and the herbs lent a delicate fragrance to the dish (I don’t usually like coriander except in green thai curry, but here it was used sparingly and well). The peppers left a pleasing hint of heat.

It was, quite simply, an outstanding dish.

When your starter is so, so good, the main will always struggle to match up to it.

While The Other Half tucked into a sizable portion of magrat de canard, I had squid with persillade, aïoli and a single medium baked potato, with a garnish of two clams.

The garnish was too risky. The squid was excellently cooked, although the aïoli wasn’t as garlicky as I like. But this is being picky.

There was a tempting dessert menu, but what was most tempting was the list of ice creams.

And on the grounds that we haven’t actually been eating out much, I pigged and had three scoops – rum and raisin (with real rum and with soft, sweet raisins), coffee (with frozen beans) and salted caramel with fleur de sel.

A demi of rosé helped to wash it all down.

And then we slumped beneath the German sea wall for a further hour or so, before wandering back through the scorching heat, past vineyards, to catch the bus back to Collioure – from a bus stop that is part of a carpark which, I should point out, has a little wooden cabin that acts as a wine bar, also selling Banyuls wine vinegar.

For ourselves, we waited for further liquid refreshment until we were back in Collioure.

Just enough time to look back

It’s the time of the year when, according to tradition, a look back over the preceding 12 months is in order.

And who am I to buck such a trend?

Sometimes this is a general review, but it can be specific to a subject too.

So here – but in no particular order – are a few of my favourite food-based memories from the last 360-odd days.

Meal of the year

It has to be that charity dinner in the spring at The Zetter, with Raymond Blanc and Bruno Loubet cooking, for pretty much obvious reasons.

Memorable it most certainly was – perhaps particularly because we could spot, easily, who was behind which course. And because it was clear that Blanc had brought with him produce from his kitchens at Le Manoir – the baby vegetables that somehow managed to be jam-packed with flavour and the air-dried duck that he’d been demonstrating on the television only a week earlier.

Single course of the year

The marrowbone at 7e Vin in Paris. Utter fabulousness.

I called it food for the soul then – I’m sticking with that now. My first experience of marrowbone in Carcassonne in July was good: this managed to be even better.

Restaurant of the year

Bistrot Bruno Loubet. No longer a discovery for us, but now a firm favourite – consistently wonderful food.

But also a mention for Au Casot in Collioure – not least because it’s wonderful to eat such simple but fresh and first-rate seafood right next to a beach, overlooking such an incredible scene.

Restaurant discovery of the year

Three really.

L'Amphitryon in Collioure. Finally, a genuinely memorable ‘posh’ eatery in our favourite place.

The cod with aïoli (pictured left) was quite superb, while the cassis sorbet re-introduced me to blackcurrants – I could happily have eaten it by the bucket.

Never mind Ribena: this was something very grown up.

Then there was Two Fat Ladies at the Buttery in Glasgow, which came up a really excellent – and stunningly good value – Sunday lunch, and Michael Caines @Abode in Manchester, where I enjoyed an excellent tasting menu.

Best fast food of the year

Fish and chips, done properly, in dripping and with proper mushy peas, in a small cafe on the dock side at Scarborough. It took 10 minutes to cook from the start – so that's 'fast' in my book.

And it was gorgeous.

Book of the year (recipes)

This might be about to be Michel Roux’s Desserts, but otherwise, Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets.

Book of the year

Raymond Blanc’s A Taste of My Life, for the reasons explained here.

But special mentions also for Matthew Fort’s Eating Up Italy, Nigel Slater’s Toast and the very, very important Shopped: The shocking power of Britain’s supermarkets by Joanna Blythman, which also made me take stock and adjust my life.

Personal achievement of the year

Christmas Day – lunch and dinner, not least for the presentation, but also for managing to plan it effectively enough to stop it being a trial.

And realising that I can now cook a few dishes without constant recourse to a recipe. That felt like a sort of culinary coming of age.

Gadget of the year

The mandolin and the mincer attachment for my mixer are good, but it has to be my potato ricer, which is just fabulous because it makes really fabulous potato purée.

Investment of the year

After umming and erring about it for some time, I finally shelled out for some Le Creuset – and realised instantly why it was worth it.

And after mentioning it here, a number of readers told me that they wouldn’t be without it.

Quality pays off.

Ingredient discovery of the year

Lard. Simple as. After Oliver Thring’s article on the subject in the Guardian early this year, I started exploring the issue – not just of lard, but of natural fats.

And I started cooking with them too, with great results. Lard and dripping are cheaper than the over-promoted artificial, so-called ‘healthy’ fats too. Any connection, one wonders?

But honorable mentions also go to the Bath Soft Cheese Co for Bath Soft and Wyfe of Bath, plus pigeon breasts, which are an all-year pleasure, and frogs’ legs, which were a very pleasant surprise.

And I can't forget blackcurrants – but that was less a discovery and more a re-discovery, as mentioned above.

Favourite ingredient of the year

Rhubarb still rates highly. One of these days I'll manage to create something really special with it, but in the meantime, I edged closer with a number of experiments – some more successful than others – in the early part of the year

Non-eating culinary moment of the year

Meeting Raymond Blanc. Charming and passionate. I’m afraid I was close to being rendered speechless.

Not quite – but it was a close-run thing.

Food TV of the year

Masterchef: The Professionals and Service, both of which saw Michel Roux Jnr soaring in my estimation.

Thank goodness we’ve left the era of chefs having to be shouty bullies. He treated people with respect and understood the difference between objective and subjective criticism.

Both programmes were not just competitions, but were also about giving people real opportunities to develop. And his demonstrations of classic dishes on the former programme were just an education.

The former too was about real people with real talent and skill – something sadly lacking in so much so-called 'reality TV' these days.

But let’s not forget Kitchen Secrets with Raymond Blanc – educational and enormously entertaining.

Cultural surprise of the year

It came late in the year – Christmas Day – but the Disney/Pixar animated feature Ratatouille is a delight – and a big surprise, not least because it champions food as pleasure over food as fuel, and it also links memory and food.

And it’s funny and gloriously animated. The kitchen scenes are extraordinary, full stop. But the realisation of food in an animation is nothing short of astonishing.

I've been fond of animation since I was child – this brilliantly brought this together with food. A wonderful combination!

The ancient simplicity of fish, bread and wine

Week two of a stay in Collioure means a move across the bay to St Vincent Plage, a stonier, but somehow more 'grown-up' beach.

I always feel slightly embarrassed, because Cyril at Bora Bora is brilliant and I feel a tad guilty at taking my custom elsewhere, given that he has been so welcoming over recent years. But even the sun is better - or at least you get it for longer - and there's much better snorkelling.

Since the previous few days had seen pretty high winds - although nothing approaching the famed local tramontane - the local beach club owners had not been putting parasols out. More than one, not planted firmly enough in the sand, had flown past us in a flurry of vivid colour.

This forced us to be more grown up than usual about our St Vincent experience - use sun tan lotion liberally and often, but actually get more sun instead of hiding in shade as much.

The other advantage of this beach move is lunch: specifically, the wonderful Au Casot, which is my favourite Collioure eatery. I like the wait - the anticipation.

It's right at the back of the beach - almost a large beach hut with a canopy-shaded terrace from which you can step right onto the pebbles - and no matter how genteel you might expect the clientele to sometimes make it feel, there is something faintly anarchic at it's heart.

But the food is the real draw - it could be haute cuisine for beach bums and surf dudes.

On our first day, it was so busy that we stood and queued for almost half an hour, without a single grumble, to get a table. I ate baby squid, perfectly caramelised on the outside, tender to the bite, and the tentacles served just crisped.

It tickled our waiter when I commented, with relish, as it arrived, that I'd been waiting a year for it.

Traditional aïoli came on the side, with a jacket potato in foil (never having seen the inside of a microwave) and garnished with cream, plus half of a big tomato, grilled, and a very neat persillade.

The tomato says it all, really: not simply a bit of easy garnish, but something scrumptious in its own right.

To follow, my beloved combination of coffee ice cream and apricot sorbet, learned here a few years since, and combining sweet, cleansing freshness with a pleasing bitterness.

The next day, I perched on the edge of my transat as lunch approached to see when they started unstacking the chairs ready for service. I had no intention of waiting again. And the combination of reading a book about food and the smells that were drifting my way had already set the saliva glands going.

This time around, gambas, perfectly cooked again, with a delicate dressing of pastis - a regional aniseedy spirit, usually consumed as a long drink, diluted with lots of ice cold water - and lemon.

To accompany, a small portion of sliced potato, onion and herb - a sort of light boulangerie - and that obligatory tomato. And the word 'pastis' in thick vinegar on the back of my plate; an unexpected surf riff on posher establishments.

Dessert was a repeat.

Day three, and it was the scallops - a rare menu item in Collioure - tender and creamy, wrapped in Serrano ham and skewered to cook over a gently flame.

Day four, the special: squid stuffed with pork and served in a ragu. The are essentially only two ways to cook squid - either as a fleetingly as the kiss of a breeze on a hot day or for ages. The latter works perfectly for such a dish and again, it had been executed superbly by the female chef, who beavers away, bandana-crowned and laughing, for hours in the tiny kitchen.

It is very simple food and a very short menu that is almost unchanging with each passing year. But more than any other restaurant, I dream of it between visits.

Not that its situation does it any harm: there's the pleasure of sitting in welcome shade after a morning's sun worship has burnished the skin, with a super view from pretty much any angle.

But if the food at Au Casot is gloriously simple - and simply glorious - then it's not quite as simple as food can get in this part of the world.

On our final market day in Collioure, I had been shopping early and, after realising that I was in danger of letting the holiday pass without cooking any fish, picked up two medium-sized dorade (sea bream) for that evening.

Beautiful and shiny, with not even the barest hint of an aroma, they were packaged up carefully and went straight into the fridge when I returned to the house.

Some hours later, I filleted one - The Other Half isn't keen on having a full fish on his plate - and then popped the unfilleted one on a greased tray, around 10cm below a hot grill. Turning it on around seven minutes - I'd timed for five minutes initially, but it needed more until the skin was starting to crisp properly - I added the fillets and turned them around half way through the second cooking period.

Much as I love fish, I'm not particularly good at cooking it - I lack confidence as well as serious knowledge and practice. So this was sort of guesswork, by and large, with a bit of experience lurking in the background.

To serve, there was a slice of good lemon, the smell of which is ecstasy when you cut into it, bread from the boulangerie's afternoon bake, Roussillon sea salt and a bottle of rosè.

Well, however much it was a case of guesstronomy, it worked. The flesh was perfectly cooked and so, so sweet to taste. Not hindered, I imagine, by being immaculately fresh, for which I can claim not an ounce of credit.

Bread, fish and wine: more biblical than ever. Timeless food, in an area where they have fished the seas and grown grapes since before a carpenter reputedly turned water into wine, bade others become 'fishers of men' and fed a mass of people with a few loaves and fish.

In other words, these are foodstuffs that have a deep symbolism and meaning within Western culture. But whether you believe those stories or not, tasting such things in such a way has something of the religious about it - not least when you realise the incomparable glories of things so basic and simple and timeless.