Original subtitles

There is one special place where I worked as a young chef

that has remained close to my heart...

I didn't think I'd come to France and find the Barnsley chop.

..and one region in particular that is full of passionate producers

and incredible ingredients.

This is Provence!

We are going to be discovering the secrets of the very best

and simplest French cooking.

That is a discovery.

SHE LAUGHS

Nice and easy, simple dinner for one.

I'll be sharing tips, tricks and techniques...

We've got flavours of Provence.

That's sunshine for you.

..and enjoying a bit of friendly rivalry along the way.

That was close! I'm a little nervous.

I knew I wouldn't be able to fool them.

Yes.

THEY LAUGH

All in the name of bringing you a simple taste of Provence.

In Provence you don't have to walk too far or turn too many corners

before you find yourself surrounded by locally grown produce.

It's what the region is all about.

But there's one particular fruit, and it is a fruit,

that people here are utterly obsessed with.

In fact, there's a very small village called Mouries

that has not one, or two, but three shops dedicated to it.

The olive!

They've been grown here for over 3,500 years

and I want to understand Provence's passion

for these tiny briny delights.

First off, I'm going to discover the secrets

of their most famous by-product - olive oil,

and find out if the more expensive ones are really worth it.

So I'm meeting local expert Thomas in one of those three shops,

Moulin Saint-Michel.

Right, Thomas, start me off with the basics,

and this is something I actually can't believe I don't already know.

What's the difference between olive oil and extra virgin olive oil?

If we do one press it will be extra virgin,

if we do other press it will be virgin.

Extra virgin oil will have less than 1% of oleic acid,

and virgin is between one and two.

It's the difference between 1% and 2%? Yes. And that's the difference

between extra virgin olive oil and olive oil? Yes.

I never knew there was so little in it,

but that crucial first or second press

is what makes the difference to the flavour.

Thomas starts me off with a blend of extra virgin olive oils

made locally in the Vallee des Baux.

This one is very mild and very nice,

and it's actually slowly warming your throat.

Exactly.

But it's, it's not, it's not like "argh". I love it.

Well, that's a good sign!

What else do we have?

Mono-varietale. Erm, Picho. One? Yes. Ah, OK.

It's stronger.

I like it.

I'm starting to think he says that about all the olive oils!

This one is also extra virgin, but unblended.

Mm. Yeah, that's good.

Whoo! Mm.

It stays very long on the... On the palate.

Yes, on the palate.

Yeah, it's like fine wine.

Mm. Exactly. Mm.

Much like fine wine, we're always told

we shouldn't really cook with extra virgin olive oil.

But is that true?

What do you think of cooking, frying with olive oil?

Erm, you can fry, but it will lose too much flavour.

The flavour of oil is best when it's cold. Yes.

So when it comes to cooking,

you might as well use less expensive regular olive oil

and save your tastier extra virgin for salads,

where a little goes a long way.

If you were making a vinaigrette, would you put mustard?

When I do salad, I put olive oil and salt.

So that's it? Yes.

No vinegar? No.

My wife put vinegar.

Yes. You're not happy about that? No!

She's the chief of house, so...

Exactly!

But Thomas is the chief of olive oil facts.

He's told me that the bottles are traditionally green

because the dark colour of the glass blocks out light

which can damage the flavour of the oil.

Who knew?

Do you celebrate olive making?

We always celebrate olive in Mouries

and there is a competition olive.

Ah, OK.

It's the only competition in the world of breaking olives.

Breaking olives? I'm intrigued.

I might... I might just come along. You will do the competition?

I don't know, I might. I'm quite competitive.

And maybe you win.

If I'm invited, I'm going to give it a go.

Utterly baffled about the competition

I seem to have signed up for

and armed with one of Thomas' more salad-friendly olive oils,

I want to show you the simplest and most cost-effective way

of bringing a taste of Provence into your kitchen.

French vinaigrette, or as they call it in France,

well, it's just "vinaigrette".

And another corker from the Thomas fact machine.

Just keep it away from the heat in the kitchen

because it just damages it.

And what I love about quality ingredients like this

is that you only really need to use it sparingly,

cos it just packs so much flavour, so much punch.

It's great.

Right. Vinaigrette.

The classic is pretty straightforward.

A good olive oil, a lovely white wine vinegar,

little bit of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper,

and it's as simple as that.

So just get yourself a jar.

The ratios are three to one.

So three parts olive oil, one part white wine vinegar.

I use a white wine vinegar because I think it's a cleaner vinegar.

It's just nice and clean and crisp and sharp.

But too much vinegar and it can kill your salads

when you're making the dressing,

so you have to be very careful about the ratios.

So three to one is the perfect ratio.

And I'm just going to add some salt into it.

And I remember my teacher holding it up in the classroom,

rather than making it in a bowl, whisking it,

and just putting the salt in and just watching it drop.

It was almost like being in a bit of a science lesson,

rather than a cooking lesson.

I just think that's just beautiful.

Good twist of pepper.

There's one more ingredient that I'm going to put into here

that's going to bring this vinaigrette to life,

and that's a good spoon...

..of a smooth Dijon mustard.

Now, it doesn't look much of a vinaigrette, does it?

Lid goes on, and I suppose you could say this is where the magic begins.

It's very simple, just shake it.

How cool it that?! Look at that!

I guarantee you, if you do that in front of your children

they'll think you're a magician.

There we have vinaigrette.

Simple and delicious.

Stick it in the fridge, use it when you want.

What does it taste like?

Oh. Got it right first time.

70% of all olive oil in France is produced in Provence,

with 90,000 trees in Mouries alone!

I told you these guys were obsessed!

And it's getting close to harvest time,

which means the annual olive oil making season

is just around the corner.

I've been invited to Emilie's olive farm in the Vallee des Baux

to find out how olive oil producers prepare

for the busiest time of the year.

What makes good olive oil?

We have four specific varieties.

You have Salonenque... OK. ..Grossane, Verdale and Aglondau.

And then you'll start to make a blend?

Of course, yeah. That's the way we make...

And how many different blends?

Here at Castelas we have about six different blends of just olive oils,

and then we have some that we will crush plants with the olives,

so we have about 20 different olive oils.

Why? Like wine. Different cuvees. OK.

You know, in your kitchen when you're cooking,

sometimes you need your olive oil to be very strong, very bitter,

very peppery, and sometimes you need it to be more discrete.

It's flavour, it's complexity. So it's like grapes, it's like wine.

It's exactly like grapes. Yeah.

A big job at this time of the year

is testing the maturity of the different olive varieties

to see if they're ready to be harvested and made into oil.

That's why Emilie's colleague, Laurie,

is picking a sample batch of Grossane olives from this tree.

Bonjour. Hi, Laurie. Hello.

It's fantastic to be picking olives fresh from the tree.

I wonder if it's OK for me to try one?

Actually, there's no oil. See?

Oh, that's bitter.

Oh!

It's a beautiful fruit, but you can't pick it

from the tree and eat it. You have to prepare it.

It's incredibly bitter. It is.

Probably from the... Incredibly bitter.

The birds don't eat them from the tree. Do the birds eat them?

Nope. No, they don't eat them? No.

That's... It's too bitter. That's incredible.

OK, Wareing, do something useful and get picking.

So, I can see that some olives are green,

that tree I can see that they're black.

An olive always starts green and it will eventually,

at one point, end up black.

All of them? All of them. No matter whatever the variety?

No matter what.

So when I go to the shop and I see a green olive in a bottle

and I see a black olive... It could be the same.

It could be the same.

But one is ripened until it's gone black and the other...

Yeah. ..is like this? Yeah.

You know what, I think we're good to go and extract now. OK.

We'll go extract this olive oil.

And when it comes to making oil, well, it gets quite technical.

This mini mill is used to test the olives

so the farmers can taste if they're ready to harvest.

The small sample I've just helped to pick are first ground to a paste,

and then warmed to the optimum temperature for oil extraction.

And finally the mix goes into the centrifuge

to draw out all of the oil into a tube below.

It's the same process as the big mills, except it's miniature.

Oh, it's a beautiful colour.

Bright green. Yeah.

It's ticking the good looks and nice smell boxes,

but only by tasting the oil will we know

if the Grossane olives are ripe enough to be harvested.

I love the quantity that you've poured.

It's like a shot. I've not poured enough.

You look at... Look at the difference!

You obviously like your olive oil.

I feel like a... I feel left out of the party.

So, we're going to taste it like wine.

So, first you smell it,

and you really have those grassy flavours,

like you just mowed the lawn, something very, very fresh.

Yeah. That's very true. And then you can...

And take some air so that it doesn't lie.

You get all the...

That's weird. That's really odd, doing that with olive oil.

Oh, it... Wow. You see that pepperiness?

Wow. That is totally normal.

THEY COUGH

So I'm glad that got you!

That is because it's not ready yet.

Yeah.

Emilie thinks it's too early to harvest.

What about expert Laurie?

C'est pas pret. Pas du tout.

Not ready. Confirmed!

You know what, I have to say, that's a fascinating discovery.

This is one of the things I came to Provence for -

to understand olive oil.

So, cheers to you. Sante. Thank you for coming here.

Delicious. Love it.

I've found out lots of surprising things about olives,

but this next adventure might just be a step too far.

I'm meeting a local chef who does something

I've never, ever considered.

Mina Kande is so passionate about olives,

she even uses olive jam and oil in her desserts.

Hi! Bonjour. Mina? Nice to meet you. Bonjour.

Yep, we're talking sweet, sweet olives.

I don't know about this one.

You're ready to do something. Yes.

I'm making a mille-feuille, but not like the classic mille-feuille.

Oh, I'm intrigued to where the olive oil and the olive comes into it,

the black olive, so that's very exciting.

That's very different, that's a little twist. Why?

I grew up in Provence. OK.

And in Provence I think at a young age

you learn what type of olive oil you like.

OK, OK.

For me it was really the black, matured, olive oil.

Ah. So it reminds me of something sweet.

So a mille-feuille, but with olives.

I'm yet to be convinced.

But at least Mina's using pastry,

brushed with a mixture of honey and salted butter.

I know you know that the mille-feuille is made

from puff pastry... Definitely. ..which is a thousand layers.

You're using filo.

The only thing I want is the crunchiness.

Aha! A cheat.

I like this - simple filo instead of complex puff pastry.

So that goes into the oven for how long? Eight minutes.

Eight minutes at temperature? Yes. 180.

180 for about 10 minutes. Perfect.

Good. Let's go.

And while those cook, I'm on fig duty.

And Mina is cheating again,

making an alternative to the classic creme pat

with mascarpone, cream and cream cheese.

Here we go.

So the black olive and the olive oil don't go into the cream,

they're just literally on the dish? Yes.

Mina adds a highly acidic juice called verjus to the figs,

along with some almond syrup.

We'll add some olive oil and some pepper.

You've almost made a vinaigrette, look. Mm.

So, fig salad is done. Yes.

I think you need to go and check on the pastry. Yes. Let's go.

I love the curtain.

It's like a little salon prive.

Have you noticed how she closes it behind herself? She just...

I don't think she wants me to go in there.

Little peek.

C'est bon? Non!

Non. Pas encore. Not ready.

I like it when someone keeps me out of the kitchen.

A few short minutes later...

Ah, there we are. Voila.

The magic curtain. The magic curtain. And she appears.

Oh, lovely.

And it's time to assemble the mysterious mille feuille.

First filo, then a dollop of cream.

The olive. Olive. Black olive. Bit like a jam.

So that's the olive jam.

A sentence I never thought I'd say.

Then there's the fig salad, and Mina repeats the layers.

And the olive oil.

Wow. That is a lot of olive oil. Yes.

And pepper. And pepper. Oh, I like the pepper.

But just to be clear, this dessert has olives,

olive oil, a salad and pepper.

It's a mille-feuille, but not as I know it.

C'est fini? C'est fini, on peut manger. Oui.

Try to get a little bit of everything.

The olive.

Here.

Interesting.

But delicious.

The olive oil changes it completely.

It's quite, quite unusual, quite unique flavour... Thank you.

..for a mille-feuille, but definitely worth trying.

As good as that was,

I think I'll leave the experimental olive-based desserts to Mina.

But I am keen to cook with some olives myself.

I have a simple savoury dish in mind,

so I'm popping into a local deli to pick some up.

Let's see how far my French gets me.

Je peux vous aider, peut-etre?

Ze olive.

Sorry. Les olives? My French. Can you help? Do you speak English?

I can speak English if you wish, yes.

My goodness me, you sound like an English person. Yes, I am English.

Are you? Where from? Born and bred in Yorkshire. No way!

I cannot quite believe I've walked into a shop here in Provence

and there's a Yorkshire woman in charge.

Yes. I feel very much at home now.

Well, that certainly makes things easier.

I need some help.

I'm cooking a dish and I want to incorporate some olives into it.

I'm not sure the variety of, you know, what I want to use yet,

but I've noticed you've got little tasters of everything.

So, let's have a little taste.

This is the whole one. The whole Grossane olive.

Of course it's got the pit in it.

This is the olive I ate off the tree at Emilie's place!

They're just put in brine, and then leave to cure.

Mm, that's nice.

Needless to say, they taste much better now they've been brined.

That's the pitted green.

You'll probably find it a little less salty, but...

..good for just about anything, you know?

They're delicious. It is, yeah.

And then which ones are these? That's a straight pitted black.

What we call a "facon grece".

I'm really loving those.

I spy an opportunity here to get some insider tips

for the olive breaking competition.

Surely a fellow Brit will help me out?

What is it exactly, and what advice have you got?

Have you done it? No, but my husband was there every year, doing it.

Was he? Yeah, yeah. Champion? No, I'm afraid not,

He was there more for the merrymaking afterwards, you know?

But the olives that they're going to ask you to split are these ones.

They don't grow anywhere else in the world, these olives.

I don't understand. Are we cracking it just for a bit of fun

or are we cracking... No, no, there is a... There's a reason.

Il y a une raison.

It's so that when we put them in the curing solution...

Can I grab one? ..we just leave it in for a very short time,

and with them being split,

the bitterness comes out much, much quicker.

And then when we put them in the brine with the fennel,

the fennel goes in much, much quicker.

Now they have machines with little hammers that squash them.

Before, everybody used to have an olive tree in the garden. Right.

And everybody used to do their own olives cassees.

In the evening, round the table, a basket of olives,

one of those glasses or a little hammer,

and one after the other... Just one at a time? Yeah.

Yeah, that's how it used to be done before.

And that is... They're sort of recreating the same...

The same thing. The same idea, yeah. So, a tradition.

Who is the best olive "breaker"?

Ooh, I like a competition. You're going to have fun.

I like a competition.

And it's probably a very old lady who wins.

Not this year, Valerie!

Cracking a few olives with a glass, surely I've got this one in the bag?

I'm feeling all gee'd up after my confidence boost

and having finally found out what's actually involved,

it's time to prepare for the competition

with my cod and spicy olive sauce.

So I'm going to be cooking cod en papillote.

As I've got the fire lit up I'm going to put mine on there,

so it just gets nice and delicious inside a bit of tinfoil.

So, first I'm going to chop up my pepper.

Got a little bit of chilli.

En papillote was one of those first dishes I remember

when I was at cookery school.

I never really understood what it was all about and why we needed it,

but then when you actually get into doing it, it's quite incredible,

because you're cooking a piece of fish

inside a bag of greaseproof paper,

but it just basically just holds

all of the flavour inside.

It's absolutely fabulous.

It's a very easy thing to do.

I quite like a bit of spice in my tomato sauce,

and I think just a chilli

sitting in the background

really sort of brings

the tomato sauce to life.

I've chopped up my pepper,

I've got my chilli.

A little bit of oil, and my pan just warming up.

Any olive oil will do.

In goes my pepper.

In goes the chilli.

Pinch of salt.

Little twist of pepper.

I'm going to bring the temperature up slowly

cos I just want to sweat these down.

I'm going put in a few little capers.

They're a favourite of my wife's.

Jane loves capers.

I'm not a big fan of them,

but I think in a sauce like this, I think they work a treat.

Because I've got the salty olives on the dish and just that little bit of

acidity coming through in the capers, absolutely brilliant.

I love cooking this type of food.

Some herbes de Provence in there.

By putting the herbes de Provence in there now,

before I put the tinned tomatoes in,

the herbes de Provence will just open up...

..and start to release all those flavours.

And as soon as you put the herbes de Provence in, you can smell,

you can just smell the flavour.

The flavour of here. The flavour of that.

Look at that. Beautiful.

Tinned tomatoes.

Tins are a more cost-effective way to buy tomatoes...

..and just as delicious as fresh in a sauce like this.

As soon as you've got the flavour you're looking for, you're done.

HE COUGHS

A little bit more chilli than I thought, actually.

That's taken two, three minutes.

Right, now, I've got a lovely bit of cod from the marketplace.

Put that there.

I'm using foil and paper to wrap this cod as my grill is very hot,

but if you're doing this in the oven, baking paper will do the job.

Little glug of oil.

Salt.

Pepper.

Just a little slice of lemon.

Put that there.

En papillote sounds fancy, but it's just fish in a bag.

And all you're doing is just making a little parcel.

So fold that over, bring the foil over the top.

Seal off the ends.

Cod en papillote.

With tinfoil, cos it's going on here.

Now, if you're doing this at home, 180 degrees C in the oven.

15 minutes. 12 or 15 minutes,

depending on the thickness of the cod.

This also works well with other white fish like coley and hake.

Just as delicious and usually cheaper, too.

I love a bit of lemon with my fish,

so it's always nice, if you've got the grill on,

to get a bit of charring on top of that lemon,

and that'll just make the lemon juice taste that little bit better.

So I might just chop up a few...

..of these beautiful green olives to put in my sauce.

Time to check my fish.

Look at that.

Beautiful.

And see how the paper's burnt?

That's fine, that's just also adding just a little bit of flavour.

Beautiful cod.

Look at that.

Put the lemon on there. Bit of oil.

I'll put the olives on, and this is certainly getting me in the zone.

In fact, that is it.

And if course, it wouldn't be dinner without a bit of bread.

Just a bit!

Simple dinner for one, done in no time.

Exactly what I need before battle commences.

This is great.

With that little bit of chilli in the background,

that's got me really fired up for this olive cracking competition.

I need to finish this first.

This is my fuel.

Simple cookery, great ingredients.

I'm up for the challenge.

Bring it on!

I'm definitely starting to see what all the fuss is about

when it comes to olives and olive oil in Provence.

But there are a group of people who take their passion

more seriously than I could ever imagine.

Meet the olive breakers.

It's time for the 51st annual Mouries olive breaking competition.

But before it all kicks off,

I want to find out who I'm going to be pitted against

and get some last minute tips for success.

This looks pretty serious.

What have I got myself into?!

Why do we need an apron?

You need this because the olive juice is very dirty. OK.

How long is the competition? How long does it last for?

During three minutes you have to crack the most quantity of olives.

Ah, bonjour. Bonjour.

Bonjour, bonjour.

I'm getting a quick demo of what is

and isn't acceptable olive breaking behaviour.

That's it? Voila, la c'est gagne.

Ah, that's good. That's good. Perfect.

Ca, c'est casse.

Non. No, you don't need to crush it, you just need to make a slight...

A crack. Crack. Ah, yes. Can I practise just one? Ouais. Yes.

Perfect.

Yes. Yes. Ah, it's good, it's good! OK.

OK. Are you ready?

Smashed it! Literally!

Trois, deux, un, partez!

So you have to crack the olive and pull out the pit.

As the only Brit competing,

the hopes of a nation are on my shoulders.

Don't worry, guys - I've got this.

Ah! Oh, yes.

Or have I?

There's definitely a technique to this.

You got it, Marcus. This is good fun. Yeah.

I'm finally getting my rhythm.

I think I'm doing all right. I'm all right.

I reckon I could be in with a chance.

Tougher than other years because...

How long have we got left? Combien de temps?

10, 9, 8...

Oh!

One last push for a chance at victory.

..5, 4, 3, 2, 1, stop!

Ooh. Yeah, yeah.

You might just... You might just have it there.

She will win. Look, look, look, look, look.

LAUGHTER

Oh, no!

It all comes down to the judges' count, and they are strict.

Quality.

I've got a tough judge. He's looking at this with fine detail.

Yeah, there's a few rejects, there's a few.

In fact, there's quite a few.

I can't believe it. At the moment I'm in second place!

It's all down to one last count.

I think the odds are stacked against me at this moment.

It turns out the last count is for the reigning world champ.

97.

98.

Look at that smile.

She knows she's the winner.

99.

Ooh. Wow.

Bravo, bravo.

I came close, just not good enough.

Congratulations.

Felicitations. Merci.

This is what I came for,

to sit right in the heart of the community

and do something of an age-old tradition.

Je lui offre mon prix.

She's offering it... You...

Your prize? Oh, merci!

It's just absolutely fantastic.

Ah, merci beaucoup.

A victory of sorts.

I don't know if my passion for olives

could ever match these guys' obsession,

but with a bit of practice, I reckon this Brit

could come back fighting next year and claim that gold medal.