This Little Wild Piggy Went to Market

You know by now that we never pass up an opportunity to check out market day in small town Europe.

We got lucky and hit white asparagus season at its peak. Called asperge in France and spargel in Germany this pale delicacy grown under mounded sand is a wonderful treat. 

Many restaurants have entire spargel menus this time of year. We ordered it every chance we got.

The classic preparation is with ham slices, boiled egg and hollandaise sauce. We also had it with smoked duck, and in warm and cold salads. 

We had it at a fancy restaurant and at a highway rest stop cafeteria in the same day. Oddly, at the cafeteria  it was crisper and more palatable (despite being reheated in a microwave and the sauce squirted out of  a bottle), than at the restaurant where we were served an unpleasantly mushy plateful.

Sausage vendors are typically at every market day. This item caught our eye. Wild boar ham. We were offered a taste. A taste was enough.

We cleansed our palate with the only available option - more cured meat.

The choices? Starting at the bottom: Duck, nut, munster cheese, goat, garlic, deer, basil, myrtle, fig, 

roe deer, pheasant, porcini mushroom, smoked, country, olive, pepper, and...

donkey and bull.

We'll now try to cleanse your visual palate by ending with another shot of the picturesque flower van 

(and its suspicious owners).

You don't have to know French or German to recognize the universal skunk eye we were receiving as we took the photo. A little wave and a mouthed "merci" as we walked away seemed to unfurrow their brows a bit. Usually we try to ask permission in advance and even make small purchases from vendors in exchange for being pesky with the camera, but some products definitely pack better than others. 

Sadly, this was not one of them.