Mystery market

About a week and a half ago, when we first got to Toulouse to look for an apartment there were some mysterious stirrings at the Place du Capitole.  The Capitole is located in the very centre of Toulouse and boasts a large open space for exhibition, markets and impressing girls on your scooters and motor bikes, popping wheelies.  Large restaurants line the perimeter of the Place and the small curvey streets that make up the centre of Toulouse all radiate from…or lead to the Capitole.

The mystery consisted of some temporary fencing and what looked like small, neat wooden cabins stacked together in a solid square, a cabin condo on one floor.  There would be new development each day, the cabins would be moved from one end to another and there was always work going on in the fenced area, but with little clue as to what was actually being done.  Then a small sheet of ice was put down in one corner, the cabins spaced apart forming small rows…then some lights, and then they were open!  Well, duh.  Of course.  CHRISTMAS MARKET!!!  Most open-air markets that we’ve experienced so far are set up and torn down on a daily basis, so what may be a bustling market scene on Sunday morning, will be completely cleared out and restored back into the parking lot of a church or a little square by 2 in the afternoon.  The Christmas market is on every day until 8 in the evening from now until Christmas Eve.  What do you think I like best about the market?  Oh, could it be the aligot and truffade?  How about the mugs of hot spiced wine…no, maybe a slice of some spice cake sold by weight?  We walked by rows of specialty cabins selling hot chocolate, fried ham/bacon sandwiches with fried onions, and giant slices of country levain bread under some creamy substance and grated cheese broiled open-faced, advertised as a “slice of tradition”.  Don’t even get me started on the baked potatoes topped with your choice of gizzard confit, fried duck skin, or ham/cheese/tomato & crème fraiche.

P and I solemnly declared to try every Christmas market street food item between now and Christmas eve, and whether you like it or not – I’m going to tell you about it. We went where the line-up was longest, so first up: aligot.  Basic components: mashed potatoes whipped with cheese (in the style of cantal, laguiole or salers – you can get it at Les Amis du Fromage in Vancouver).  Remember titrations in chemistry class?  Yes.  The maximum amount of cheese that any given mass of mash potatoes would molecularly tolerate.  You wait in a long line until you come up to the counter, where a large “wok” of aligot sits steaming and stringy.  Mr. Aligot has to plop and pull the ladle high to free the cheesy mass into a small rectangular container. 2 plastic forks and 4 euro later we are pulling the stuff into our mouth like the locals do.  What struck me most was how potato-ey it tasted despite how simultaneously cheesy it was.  The texture: cheese stringy, but not chewy, soft and smooth like good mashed potatoes. But let’s call it what it really is – aligot.  *note, truffade was sold at the same place. From what I could tell, it was aligot with bacon and pieces of potatoes.    

The day before the market started - you have to imagine these things all laid out next to each other in a solid block.  You can see the framing for the ice rink just to the right of the photo.

Salade de chevre chaud...chez nous.