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Fest’Oie – Eating your Goose in Style:
The celebrations in Sarlat for Fest’Oie embrace the entire community. Apart from the ‘educational’ experiences, visiting farms and Foie Gras production centres, the event is essentially an extended party. A weekend of food, wine music and dance. As my friends observed…everyone was there, from tiny children through to the elderly…and even the teenagers were happily dancing by the end of the evening.
I’d originally assumed that the Festival was a long running event, but in fact it is something created recently as a celebration of the heritage of Foie Gras d’Oie production in the Perigord Noir and of the associated traditions of the region. Held over a weekend in February the Fest’Oie comprises a whole series of fun events focussing around Saturday evening’s Bodég’oie – an open air party with food and drink, a street fair in the town centre on Sunday morning and a massive sit down lunch.
Sunday’s street fair was already busy by 10am. There were traditional games
A lot of geese
Even the chance to get up close and personal with some of them
Some of the smallest geese in town
Vegetarian options (at this stage looking quite appealing – cute goslings have a strange way of engendering a guilt complex for me)
The grand finale, a lunch with 16 courses of regional specialities, most involving one or other part of the Goose, the ‘Fest’Oie’ was held in a packed hall. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but this was actually a ‘beak to tail’ experience, where we sampled a whole variety of dishes that were made from goose.
It was a huge, slightly chaotic but for all that very splendid lunch party where it seemed as if every person from Sarlat and the surrounding area was there in force.
Apart from a lot of food, there was more live music
Line dancing
More food
More line dancing
And more music
We actually left a little early to catch a flight back to the UK, but the party was in full swing still – and looked as if it would be going on into the night. It’s actually quite hard to convey the dynamic of the event in words and photos, but my friends from the Implausible Blog were there and created this wonderful video diary of the whole event. Take a look and you should find the party atmosphere becomes immediately apparent.
I feel privileged to have been invited to take part in what is at the moment essentially a local event, with very few people from outside the region. Despite the wintery weather it was a vibrant experience and a real celebration of local tradition.
For more information on Sarlat and the annual Fest’Oie held in February:
Email Katia Veyret: k.veyret@sarlat-tourisme.com
Sarlat Tourist Office
City Jet flies to Brive in the Dordogne from London City Airport:
The Brive Dordogne Valley Airport
19600 Nespouls
France
We stayed at Hotel le Renoir, a few minutes from the Town Centre
This looks fascinating! I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much foie gras in my life as I did when I shopped in a French supermarket one Christmas Eve. I do love the stuff, even though I sometimes hate myself for doing so!
hmmm, if seeing the live geese put you off (hopefully it did) if you google how Foie Gras is produced, you’d be sickened 🙁
What a fantastic looking event this looked like.. Although I am not familiar with the event it does not mean that I should not perhaps try and go to the next one… It’s great to learn new things.. New cultures.. New taste’s. 🙂
William
this looks like an amazing event. I have never heard of this before. It sounds like a goose gone wild event.. except the geese were cooked
Looks like a very fun festival! I’d love an omelette with those wild mushroom.
what a fabulous celebration and so good to see the involvement of the local community with great gusto! I love the photographs but nothing can make me go sit in a pen with LIVE GEESE ! No sir! Those veggie options look delicious and am up for Line dancing any day!
Love the video by Implausible espp the part where the geese waddle around town hahahaha!
I love how the French throw themselves into entire festival mode to celebrate one particular food… I remember reading Peter Mayle rattling off a whole list of them in one of his Provence books. Although we’ve got a huge improvement in UK food events, we’ve not much mastered ones this focussed. Sounds like an awesome trip, I’d love to go back and stroke the brass geese in Sarlat market place which is probably much safer than getting too close to the real thing!
Actually that’s reminded me my university campus at Cat Hill in Cockfosters used to have some resident geese. They used to terrify me and I had to walk through them to get into the campus building with them hissing and chasing me!!
This looks like a wonderful event, you’re all having a great time. Love the look of the wild mushrooms too. GG
Would never have guessed that a goose festival could be so much fun!
I love this – I think I would have been a pro at the nut cracking and would have downed a couple of those 14 Euro omelettes.
Fabulous article Fiona – I had no clue about this festival, will definitely look it up now. It looks like such fun 🙂
FABULOUS write up Fiona, and my own piece is still in the pipeline! When I post it, I will link to your posts here! 🙂 GREAT photos too!
looks like you really had fun!! Those goslings are so cute!
They were! for me a little counter-intuitive at a celebration of foie gras though
Looks like you had a great time! Certainly lots of food, line dancing and music.
hahaha, yes, a LOT of line dancing…