When I stepped out of the plane in Calvi, on the northwest coast of Corsica, the clear, sun-warmed air smelled of fennel. Saw-toothed mountains rose sharply to my left. Beside me, my Parisian friend Marie-Aimée took a deep breath. “We are not in Paris anymore,” she said.
Indeed. During the ten days we spent on the island, I kept a diary. After I returned home I noticed that the first five entries all bore the same date: October 15, 2003.
The lapse seemed somehow fitting: If ever there were a place where time stands still, it would be this rugged, sparse island rising from the Mediterranean midway between France and Italy. Here, medieval towns cling to cliffs and hilltops, French mistrals and African siroccos take turns thrashing the landscape, and every road but the main highway is a narrow, twisting lane more suitable for horse carts than for the daredevil drivers and scrawny free-range cows that populate them today. Anyone in need of refuge can disappear into the wild maquis and survive, protected by the fierce Corsican rule of hospitality, until the coast is clear.
Four of us—two from Paris, two from Southern California—had rented adjoining apartments with modestly equipped kitchens in Belgodère, a 17th-century enclave off the tourist track yet close to beaches and small cities. The kitchens were key, as our goal for this extended stay was to immerse ourselves in the flavors of the land. No sooner had we dropped our bags than the native graciousness kicked in. Our landlords—Martin, a self-described “arty iron worker,” and Magot, a Lacanian psychoanalyst—invited us to lunch at the outdoor café next to the town’s Baroque pink Église St. Thomas.
Our first Corsican meal introduced us to the island’s legendary big flavors: charcuterie plates with saucisson sec; lean, air-dried coppa; squarish, milder lonza—meat in some of its most condensed, seductive forms. As for the cheese plates, well, a friend in Paris had given me fair warning: “Eating Corsican cheese can be like ingesting a bomb.” He was right. Loud blasts of flavor came from a smooth, soft, orange-rinded chèvre, while a watery grayish brebis, I swear, could swiftly make you drunk. It was happily, then, that we discovered fig jam—the eternal companion to Corsican cheese—which, thanks to some curious chemical reaction, softens the cheeses’ bite and allows more nuanced flavors to bloom.
Thus initiated, we settled into our digs and took in the view from the terrace: ancient fortified hill towns, each as beautiful and tightly constructed as a poem, and beside them, like pale shadows, the white-marbled hamlets of the region’s dead. Below us, a broad, sloping lap of pastureland, oaks, and ancient olive trees stretched to the blue, blue sea.
Then we turned our attention to dinner. Our landlady had invited us to help ourselves from her garden, where plump, meaty tomatoes clustered on the vines and sage, basil, and parsley grew with wild abandon, their leaves broader and stronger-tasting than those I grow in California. On the citron tree hung thick-skinned fruit, heavy with juice.
A few hours later, our first home-cooked Corsican meal was on the table. The roasted free-range black-legged chicken stuffed with pricked citrons and rubbed with garlic and sea salt was not so tender, perhaps, but it was bold with flavor. We bruised basil leaves and scattered them on those gorgeous tomatoes, then poured a peppery green olive oil over all: a familiar salad, only with the volume cranked up. We finished with a subtle rosemary-encrusted brebis and a chèvre so ripe and pungent we’d had to banish it to the terrace until the time came for eating.
Situated strategically between Italy and France, Corsica was invaded in antiquity by everyone from the Greeks and the Carthaginians to the Romans. The Pisans seized control in the 11th century, the Genoese in the 13th, and France took over in 1768 (one year before the birth of Napoleon, the island’s most famous native son). Each of the invaders left their culinary mark: At cafés you can choose from panini, wood-fired pizza, haricots soissons (the enormous white beans I knew in Greece as gigantes), and veal with green olives—certainly adapted from the tagines of North Africa. It was the Genoese who insisted, some 300 years ago, that every landowner plant chestnut trees in order to guard against famine. Back then, the flour was used mostly for polentu, a grim, polenta-like mush rarely eaten for pleasure. Now, chestnut pastas, breads, and cakes are far more common.
Today it’s easy for even a casual tourist to find the culinary trademarks of Corsica. Nationalist sentiment and a persistent yen for independence have engendered not only a revival of the Corsican language and customs but a widespread allegiance to locally produced foods, which are always clearly labeled. We found, to our delight, that nonchain grocery stores often stocked a few jars of hand-labeled honey, a housewife’s jams, or some surplus bottles of a neighbor’s olive oil.
We also found ourselves making frequent supply runs into L’Île-Rousse, seven miles down the hill. Built in 1758 by beloved nationalist leader Pascal Paoli, the town was originally designed as an export center for the area’s famed olive oil. By 1900, however, the small farmers, oil producers, and beekeepers of the Balagne region, once the most fertile land on the island, were having trouble competing in the Continent’s increasingly industrialized economy. A century of emigration followed.
These days the lovely seaside town, with its picturesque rose-colored peninsula, flourishes as a tourist destination. But we’d arrived well after the summer rush. Many homes and businesses were shuttered, and the streets were filled with a rich, slanted autumnal light and a palpable feeling of tristesse. It felt as if we’d come after a marvelous, enormous parade. Leaves on the thick-trunked plane trees in the Place Paoli were fading to yellow, and the vast seas of tables outside the cafés were empty but for a few locals. On the other hand, we’d arrived just in time for game, wild mushrooms, and chestnuts, which littered the ground in their spiny orange casings. Arbouses (arbutus) hung ripe on the diminutive trees, the red, orange, and yellow fruits dangling like cheerful little marzipan candies.
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