Actually, every day could be market day because every place has a market on a different day. In order of both size and proximity, we have: Les Cabannes on Wednesdays, Cordes-sur-Ciel on Saturdays, Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val on Sundays (most of the shops are closed on Mondays). I always take visitors to the market in Saint-Antonin because it’s huge and has everything, but for me it is too big and too full of non-food items to be useful for the weekly shop. While I buy what looks good, I like to know which stalls sell the kind of produce I will buy (organic, humane, local) and I like to zip from stall to stall, especially in summer when it’s really busy. I learned to do this when I shopped at the market in Norwich, UK, although that one had real barkers behind the stalls calling out their wares and having a laugh (and I still miss the tea I got there).
Les Cabannes
For years when I just came in the summer and the houses were full of people, we would always run out of fruit and veg in time to make the Wednesday market necessary; now I mostly skip it. The local gourmet “supermarket,” Prim Frais, has fresh vegetables, meats, and cheeses and most other things we might need. That said, I like the pain aux raisin the baker who sets up in Les Cabannes sells (her nut tarts are amazing, too). The Wednesday fish guy is essential if you want fresh fish and don’t want to drive to Gaillac or Albi (but you have to get up early for moules).
The veggie stall in the far corner often has the potatoes I love for soup (Bintje) [see 19/10/25], and for many years I never saw them anywhere else. That’s it. You used to be able to get oysters there but not Cordes (giving rise to one of my fave pictures of Andrée making her very careful selection), but now it is the other way around. There are a couple of organic (Bio) stalls, several meat trucks, and sometimes a small cheese truck (no longer the Saturday one). Fresh flowers, wine, and, in summer, clothing stalls.
Several times a year there’s a mattress sale. A big truck pulls up outside the Friperie and sells mattresses (matelas) and frames from the truck. Signs go up a few weeks before to announce this visit, and before Ikea and Amazon this must have been a life-saver. I saw a sign today saying he’ll be there next Wednesday. There’s a bus that will pick people up from Mouzieys and other villages on request (you have to call), and in the Mairie (municipal building) they serve coffee and cookies to the over 60’s so they can socialize after the market — and learn about any services they might need. The helpers notice if regulars are missing and follow up. I went a few times with Andrée when I was here 2017-18 (and almost old enough). It’s the kind of thing I love about being here.
Place de la Bouteillerie, Cordes-sur-Ciel
But the main market is in the market place/car park outside the municipal building in the Place de la Bouteillerie at the bottom of Cordes on Saturday mornings. Markets are social spaces with much greeting and gossiping; I remember taking Andrée when most of the time we were there was her stopping to talk (like her appearance at the Mayoral reception [see 1/11/26]). The last time I took her was a year ago and I don’t think she has been — or wanted to go — since, but people still ask after her if they recognise me (although some confuse me with my sister-in-law). I generally see people from the village there, along with Andrée’s helpers, and a few ex-pats and after a while I started to recognise regulars who I also see in other places around town. When the weather is good, people sit outside the café on the edge of the square greeting friends and neighbours as they arrive and leave. The market is well underway by 8am and done by 12:30pm, at which time a man stands in the middle and gives a signal and everyone starts packing up. On cold, damp, days the stall-holders are like kids being let out of school once they get that signal and there is a mad scramble to pack up, but in the summer and on warmer days there is more flexibility and I’ve seen clothes and non-food stalls there until 1:30 if there are customers.
Seasonal
In winter, I tend to get there around 11:00, but in summer I, like other people from the area, aim to be done and home by 10:00 before the tourist-traffic hits peak and there is no parking. If you arrive after 10:00 in the summer you might have a long walk from the car, and once I simply failed to find parking at all — even the illegal places were taken.
In winter, the market is smaller but there always is a market. The usuals are there — the woman from Martinique who sells chayotte and the best maché, in addition to fruit and veggies she grows herself and spices and peppers she imports; the man from the organic farm that does not use gas-powered machines (and I think he doesn’t use animals either, but I could be wrong). I try to buy as much as I can from these two, and this year I will buy organic plants from them as well once I get the garden underway. There is also another stall selling dozens of varieties of olives, pickled garlic, and every variety of dried fruit you can imagine, with and without sulphur. Perfect for aperatif.
At the very back of the marketplace is a truck with what I think is the very best cheese in the area. All the cheese is labeled and you can try as many as you like (which creates quite a line, but very satisfied customers). There’s a small organic veggie stand near the entrance; another stall selling goat cheese, milk, and yogurt; and finally a woman selling fresh flowers and plants. Some weeks there’s a knife grinder, often there’s someone selling eggs, and a man selling sushi that he makes on the spot, another selling middle Eastern food, and/or a pizza truck.
The market also extends up a road parallel to the square, which houses a long series of tables the length of the market selling vegetables and fruit, some organic but mostly not. Local and in season where possible, and imported where not. In early summer they have the most wonderful strawberries, but only in summer, followed by berries, plums, peaches, apricots as they become ripe. Fruit is always seasonal, with the exception of apples, citrus, and bananas which are always available. Similarly, you won’t find the many varieties of winter squash or winter (green) cauliflower in summer. On the other side of the road is a stall with bread and cakes, several with meat (preserved and fresh), another van with sheep and goat products, and a few other trucks and stands..
In addition to the seasonal produce are the seasonal stalls. July through October in garlic season there are several stalls selling only the classic tied bunches of the Tarn’s own garlic, Ail Rose de Lautrec, sometimes other varieties but all local. You can buy garlic all year round on the general vegetable stall and in stores, but this is the gold standard [read more about garlic here]. In winter, the oyster lady who, like the one in Les Cabannes did, will shuck your oysters for you while you shop. You can order Moules from her for next week if you won’t arrive early enough to get them (which is what happened to me today), but she’s only there until the end of April. After that you need to drive to the supermarket if you are brave enough to eat oysters and moules in summer. Before Christmas there is another oyster and mussel seller there, but his mussels have significant beards. For an hour, starting at 10:00, there is a truffle seller in January and February. With all the mystery of truffle selling everywhere he keeps the truffles in a wheeled shopping carrier, and weights them, supervised, on a scale covered in plastic.
In summer, the market doubles in size for the tourists. The middle fills up with a large section of clothes, spilling across the road (you try them on in the back of her truck); sometimes other stalls with African clothing; one or two with baskets, the largest of which sells hammocks, sun hats, and other woven items as well; a plethora of stalls selling soap, lavender everything, and other herbal beauty products and candles; then there are several earring and other jewelry sellers; scarfs, and hats, toys, leather goods, knives, decorative plates, wooden bowels and cheese boards. I can’t even remember everything, but souvenirs and summer clothing can be had. And sometimes there’s a guy with a hurdy-gurdy or street performers. And lots of prepared and enticing-looking food from crepes, falafel, and galettes, to individual cakes and sweets and large blocks of nougat .
In between the all-rounders and the seasonals, are those whose produce doesn’t like the cold and/or wet. The market happens rain, shine, fog, or freeze. But not everyone ventures out. A week of rain or a heavy frost might mean the independent farmers have nothing to sell. And rain is not good for clothing, or baskets. For most of the year the man who sells what I am told is the best foie gras is there. He also sells an amazing fruit chutney and figs in alcohol, along with tins of cassoulet. When he runs out of the figs he shrugs and says come back next year. There are usually some wine sellers there. There used to be a guy who would fill and cork your own bottles with a very pleasant red wine he transported in barrels. I haven’t seen him for a few years.
Today was the first sunny day in weeks. A day when no rain was threatened and the temperature was supposed to get to the 50s. The foie gras guy was back with his long tables stretched a third of the width the square, and the woman with the baskets and hammocks. And a couple of bays of clothes (sweaters and gilets mostly). To my delight, the woman who grows huge oyster mushrooms (pleurote) was there and, much like truffles, I selected bunches of mushrooms I wanted and she weighed them and gave me a price. Suddenly it didn’t matter that I had missed the moules!
