Better to drink red than to brood

What a privilege, what a stroke of luck to have known Benoist Rey, a generous and benevolent giant lost in the Pyrenees.

We must go back to the early 1990s in Montfa, a small village in Ariège, where Benoist had restored a farmhouse with some friends and turned it into an inn, cooking traditional rustic dishes. A place of encounters and exchanges that set me on the path to authenticity, good eating and good drinking. Starting with the aperitif: a series of homemade kirs, a Burgundian speciality of white wine and blackcurrant or other fruit liqueurs, generously served in Jeroboam bottles, as much as you liked. The wine was "from a friend" in the neighbouring Aude, powerful and tannic. We did not yet speak of natural wine, but it was very much alive, like Benoist's dishes. Endless lunches and evenings in good company and with music, rituals and love, the surrounding fields being the ideal place to make love during summer evenings.

I remember a show by the poet and musician Michel Vivoux during which I laughed so hard that, firstly, I ruined a colleague's professional recording, and secondly, the artist stopped to complain, with great humour. A school of life, good taste and pleasure in a more carefree time. It was called the Auberge des Traouques, and we will never forget it.

Mieux vaut boire du rouge que broyer du noir (Better to drink red than to brood), by Benoist Rey, published by Éditions Libertaires, is a cookbook and memoir overflowing with excesses and without any moderation. Cover by Siné, showing Benoist cooking a policeman and a priest, no gods no masters! You see the Chef wearing only a kitchen apron, and in summer he wore no trousers either, which was quite something when he went back to the kitchen.