Provence A-Z: A Francophile's Essential Handbook by Peter Mayle - 2008-12-02

The ultimate dictionary for lovers of Provence: this is the authors personal selection of the foods, customs, and words he fins most fascinating, curious, delicious or just plain fun. Though organized alphabetically, this is hardly a conventional work of reference. In more than 170 entries, the author writes about subjects as wide-ranging as architecture and zingue-zingue-zoun [ in the local patois, a word meant to describe the sound of a violin]. And he writes about food and drink: vin rosé, truffles, olives, melons, bouillabaisse, the cheese that killed a Ramon emperor, even a cure for indigestion.