The Chasse Feast

At the end of our trip during “The Beast From The East” we stopped for the last couple of days at our friends in Cheronnac which is south of Limoges. As part of our stay there, we went to the local chasse ( hunt ) feast which can best be described as non-stop eating & drinking. It started at 1pm and finished at 7pm.

Community

I have quickly discovered that family & community is important to the French and the chasse feast really encapsulates this. The village hall was made up of a good mix of French and also members of the Expat community who used it as a great way of coming together.

More Wine

The courses kept on coming as did the wine & throughout the day, you could really sense everyone was enjoying themselves & it was one of the main events of the year.

Time To Be Obelix

One of things I was really looking forward to was trying wild boar ( Sanglier ) , time to eat like Obelix ! As you would expect, it tasted similar to pork but a lot more gamey, I would certainly have it again.

Stuffed!

I enjoy my food but by the end, I could not eat anymore. I had eaten from the extremes of vegetable soup to venison & the beauty of the meal was it was not just a procession of food but it was well coordinated from a menu point of view. We had sorbet with a cider based drink to clean our palates & fish to break up the constant supply of meat.

Coming Together

Apart from the wonderful food, my memory of it was how everyone came together and at the end of the meal, a number of the villagers went back to their homes and brought back different alcoholic drinks that they had being brewing / fermenting to share with everyone.

It was certainly a community event where everyone came together and if you end up moving to France, I certainly recommend you look to see if there is a chasse feast going on in your community.