Garlic gourmet

Travellers flying over to France this August with a taste for fine cuisine should make a stop in the town of Lautrec, near Toulouse for the annual pink garlic fair.

Held on August 4th, the festival is a day-long celebration of the historic herb with traditional garlic braiding and artistic arrangement, a garlic market, free tasting of the famous Lautrec garlic soup and a culinary competition with cooks competing to make the best pink garlic tart.

Created in the 1970s, the fair was originally marked the beginning of the pink garlic marketing period where farmers would sort and sell their famous pink crop.

The garlic itself is said to have arrived in the Lautrec region in the middle ages when a traveller paid for his stay with a bulb of pink garlic, which the local inn keeper then planted and began what was to become an historic process.

Visitors to the modern market can not only taste the garlic but other local produce as well as enjoying arts and crafts exhibitions and entertainment throughout the day, which culminates with a dinner dance in the evening where guests can taste fabounade, a giant cassoulet, and listen to the music of the Didier Laurent band.

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