Post Cards from La Bourboule – Daily Delicatessen Orgies, courtesy of Au Regal Auvergnat



As soon as I have settled in a little I go shopping for food.  I usually have my main meal at the Galapagos, but also need to take care of breakfast and supper.  The first stop is always Au Regal Auvergnat.  It is located in a side street a little off the main thoroughfare of the town, 21, rue des Freres Rozier, and has most convenient opening hours.  So if one feels the overwhelming urge at seven in the evening to stock up on cheese and sausages it is never a problem, Pascal is there at one’s service. 

This, by the way, is not just a figure of speech; Au Regal Auvergnat delivers a customised service I have not encountered anywhere else.  Pascal once decoded a decidedly obscure e-mail sent by me, composed a brilliant gift basket, bought bread in another store to add to it, and delivered it after work as a surprise gift for a dear friend, at no extra charge and for a complete stranger (we met in person only afterwards).  Now that’s what I call service!

The shop is a veritable treasure trove of sausages and hams, cheeses, wines and spirits, jams and honeys, chocolates and bonbons, and many homemade salads.  I like to think of the shop (such a prosaic word for this gourmet’s paradise!) as a sort of Essence of Harrods Food Halls – all the best bits Harrods has to offer without any of the make-weight space-fillers one encounters there.  Pascal does not stock the honest but boring staples of one’s daily fare like bread and butter or fruit and vegetables.  These needs are catered for by any number of decent solid shops in the vicinity, but Pascal has no truck with them – he seeks to please the top end of our taste buds.

Any normal human being, possessed of sensible priorities, first buys all the staples and then, having counted the remaining money, regretfully concludes that sausage & liqueur will have to wait until the lottery has finally been won.  Being subnormal, or should I say abnormal, or even supra-normal, anyway definitely not normal, I shop the other way round.  Long experience has taught me that the boring solid foodstuffs bought in such quantities by all and sundry often end up uneaten and in the waste bin.  Or they are eaten in excess and add inches to one’s waistline.  Either way is undesirable.  Delicatessen foods, on the other hand, are never wasted, since necessarily bought in small quantities and unfailingly toothsome.  Being concerned about both waste and waist, I always shop at the Regal Auvergnat first.  After I have bought my fill of sausage, headcheese, salad, ham, cheese, honey, and wine I usually conclude that I have no money left for buying bread, butter, potatoes, beans and other fattening foods and resolve to subsist entirely on my delicatessen, with a few tomatoes and grapes thrown in.

Luckily the Galapagos pile my plate high each lunch time with the healthy provender my doctor insists I take as nourishment, so my daily delicatessen orgies have not undermined my health in any noticeable way.  And they have kept me relatively slim.

For those unable to visit his shop in person, and indeed for people like me who try to combat frequent bouts of homesickness for La Bourboule by consuming large quantities of cheese and sausages when not in the Auvergne, Pascal set up a flourishing Internet business on Ebay.  I usually order sausages and cheese, but draw the line at spirits and honey, since their weight makes them expensive to ship.  However, should you have fallen victim to the bitter charms of Salers, a liqueur made of gentian and reputedly extremely healthy, which I failed to locate anywhere in London, then Pascal is your man – he carries three different types in various size bottles.

http://stores.ebay.fr/Au-Regal-Auvergnat?_trksid=p4340.l2563