OP: Bons Vieux Plats du Tricastin, Les

Tricastin, a small region in southwestern France, about 80 miles northwest of Marseilles in the northwest of the department of Vaucluse, is one of the more rarified food areas of the country—known for its wines and particularly for some varieties of truffles that have been long highly regarded for their pungency and their character. 

Historically venerable, it was the ancient home of the Tricastini, a tribal entity well known to the Romans and written about by Pliny. Because it is small and somewhat isolated, the region’s agricultural production is limited and has not received national recognition comparable to that enjoyed by other areas of Provence. 

However, energetically promoting its local style, “Les Amis du Tricastin” published in 1930 a now extremely rare booklet of 30 local recipes. Now encountered only in a 1982 facsimile, the collection includes specialties rich with the flavors of the South—anchovies, black olives, capers, smoked herring, cardoons, and more. There are Mediterranean seafood soups and deeply flavored fillets of pork, making this slender volume a unique treat.

What had been a booklet is transformed in this 1982 version to an attractive book bound in gold cloth with a delicate little leather label at the spine.The condition is Fine in all respects.