The heat is relentless, and the sun beats on white bonnets and crimson bandanna-like scarves, emblazoned with a yellow heraldic cross and one word: “Périgord.” A group of women in long skirts, lace-collared blouses, and bonnets hook arms and circle, square-dance style, with men dressed head to toe in black, including hats that could be distant cousins of the Stetson. Beneath a sapphire sky and rows of hanging paper-flower garlands, schoolchildren fidget before the cameras of their doting parents. “It is necessary to go in order to realize how lucky we are to live in this paradise,” he tells me. His sons have moved to larger cities for work since I last saw him, but he’s confident that they will return. Although it sounds very cosmopolitan, Manouvrier calls himself an old dinosaur of the Périgord (I remind him we are the same age), whose roots run as deep in the fertile soil as those of the oak trees that produce its treasured black truffles. He includes them in some of his ice cream but mostly ships them to pastry chefs and restaurants around the world. His latest obsession is crystallized roses, violets, jasmine, and other flowers, which he preserves via a patented process that maintains their organoleptic and aesthetic properties. I find him in his factory on the outskirts of the already outskirty village of St.-Geniès, where he makes his unusual flavors of ice cream with local ingredients (goat cheese, foie gras, chestnut). He’s corrected my French so many times that I call him mon prof, my teacher. My go-to guy for Périgord and language questions is Roland Manouvrier, an artisanal ice-cream maker, whom I first met in 2006. Like many affairs, mine began with words.
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