Taste.

Tastes! I have experienced so many new tastes in the last four days; in the Dordogne region at my supervisors country house in Cherval I tried the local specialties. Walnuts of noix, I bought a half kilo from an old little French man selling the walnuts from his backyard walnut tree at the friday marche. Back at Francoise I offered to cook that night for her cousin and niece that were coming for dinner. I cracked the walnuts and made an amazing walnut gateau! I am so proud of myself, it tasted so good and the density was perfect for the walnuts and not too sweet. I am especially proud since I made it from a French cookbook and I understood all of the instructions and ingredients in French. I also made a citron pasta with crème fraiche from the marche, olive oil, and sundried tomatoes. It was a success! French people liked my cooking, that must count for something, foodwise.
I also tried little prawns from the marche that you can either shell with your fingers (they come cooked) or you can just pop the whole thing in your mouth, shell, eggs, everything. They tasted really good despite the scary exterior. I also had local fois gras which we bought at a duck farm just over the hill from Francoise, the first time I ate duck and it was delicious and so fatty! I tried a selection of local cheeses from the marche and local sausages with herbes de provence, as well as locally made walnut mustard, chestnut spread, and baked fish from the marche. It was such an experience in French food, aside from Parisian restaurants it was the true cooking, shopping, and prep of local/regional French cooks. As a foodie I was fascinated to see what was bought, how it was prepared, what was served. Even so simple a dish as a salad was interesting to see, the subtleties and different culture of food in France. Francoise niece also loves to cook so I now have some new recipes from watching, my own noix gateau recipe adapted from a French book, and a recipe swap buddy...as well as red wine salt from the coast, a tin of fois gras, and walnut mustard.
These are my favourite memories and experiences to bring back, new taste palettes. Cooking is very much like languages in this way, you kind of pick up the food dialect of a place and then you can cook within those flavour patterns once you have a feel for the matching system, very much like playing an instrument or learning a new language.