Food and Wine in the region.

Like the neighbouring Périgord, the Quercy region is renowned for its foie gras and other duck dishes, such as magrets de canard (duck breast) or confit de canard (duck simmered and then preserved in its own fat).

The Quercy is renowned for its lamb - L'agneau fermier de Quercy, while a seasonal speciality of the Lot is the white asparagus, which flourishes in May and June. For dessert, buy a pastis: not the liquorice-tasting drink of the same name, but a kind of patisserie made from ultra-fine layers of flaky pastry surrounding baked apple mixed with plum brandy. The best pastis are on sale from the lady with a stall directly in front of the cathedral at the Saturday market in Cahors. Plums from Agen, together with chestnuts and walnuts from all over the region, complete the line-up of the region's specialities, about which you can read more on the Lot Tourism and Quercy-Net websites.

Click on any of the images of a typical Quercynois meal laid out to the left to see the corresponding recipe; go to the Restaurants page to see where you can eat out locally.

Wine

Cahors is one of the oldest wine-growing areas in France. In its heydey in the middle ages, the region produced far more wine - and of a higher quality - than the neighbouring Bordeaux, exporting more than three times its current annual production to England alone. And then came the phylloxera, at the end of the nineteeenth century, which completely wiped out most local wine-growers. Luckily, new vines were imported, and since the 1970s, Cahors has once more become established as a fine, quality wine. And it is generally much less expensive than its better-known Bordeaux neighbour.

Some of our favourites - and an indicative price per bottle you would pay for a reasonable year - are as follows:

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