A stroll through Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne’s lively market hall and antique town is a free ticket to understanding the role food has played in an historically poor French region, and a reminder that medieval culture is alive and well today says Carla Rocavert.
As I peered at the mind-boggling array of saucisson sizes and flavours – somewhere between the giant côtelée tomatoes and a sea of ivory cheeses – a hearty young butcher at the Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne farmers’ market kindly ventured: “bull, boar, or pork?”
I hesitated. An icy breeze raced through the medieval hall as I considered mental images of the various beasts. I went for the pure pork.
Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne is an easy destination to miss for most international travellers. Even in Lyon, people squint and raise an eyebrow when I mention the town. Only 60km to the north of the gastronomic capital, the Lyonnais tend to say “Ça me dit quelque chose” (It rings a bell).
Châtillon – a rather secret part of France
Châtillon is not well known even to the French. The cradle of an historically poor region called the Dombes, little do many know that Châtillon quietly enjoys the longest market in France – a weekly festival of old-fashioned cheer and colour. In 2021 the market was voted “third-best” in the nation.
The butcher dared me to reconsider, emphasizing the aromatic robustness of his family’s special bull mix. My bags already full of his neighbour’s freshly picked pot-roast vegetables, camembert from the nearby Ferme de Collonge, and a stunning bouquet of dried winter flowers, he eventually gave in. “La prochaine fois” (next time), we agreed.
As an Australian resident of this obscure little pocket of France, I have passed several unofficial levels in rural French culinary culture. I have learned to speak at length about the texture of a baguette, and debate the merits of winter cheese dishes: fondue, raclette, tartiflette. I’ve even made my own version of my “belle famille’s” (in-laws’) mustard and vinegar salad dressing. But there are other local specialities – including black pudding made with pig’s blood and frogs drowning in an intense Dombiste recipe of garlic, parsley and butter – that I’ve so far not been hungry enough to try.
Châtillon is saucisson country. While the ancient tradition of “slicing up magnificent acorn-fed pigs” from Gaul (western Europe encompassing France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Germany) can be traced back to Roman meat seasoners and pork butchers, for several centuries the production of cured sausage has been centralised in the Rhône Alpes.
History of Châtillon
As a testament to the town’s importance during the Middle Ages, the remains of an 11th century chateau can be found on the hillside above the market in Châtillon (the name means “little castle”). The fiefdom was constructed on the ancient Roman castrum of Pagus Dumbensis, and today provides a pleasant walking trail with great views.
In the romantic town centre, half-timbered buildings surround the central market site, with the military archway Gate of Villars (containing traces of the old drawbridge), church of Saint André, and Saint Vincent de Paul House all intact from the medieval period. National-prize-winning flower displays coat the town in colour, lining the Chalaronne river, little stone bridges, and various central streets. This has earned Châtillon the coveted label “ville fleurie.”
Even before 1440, the year of the market’s construction by Piro Girard, a “maison du marché” had been in its place from 1273, the space also serving as a religious site, a playground, a warehouse, and a barn.
Eighty meters in length and 20 meters wide, Châtillon market hosts 60-plus local vegetable, cheese, wine, bread and other merchants. Its spectacular rectangular structure is bolstered by an oak frame extending ten meters above ground, composed of 89 pillars on brick bases and a “clever assembly of beams, supporting its gable roof.”
Adjacent to the market, as was common in the Middle Ages, sits the church in theatrical gothic style. “Austere at first glance,” as local tourism officials admit, the red brick church (which is missing a bell tower) is remarkably tall for churches in the region. Inside is an elaborate apse of gold, green and burgundy frescos, complemented by 19th century stained glass windows lighting the nave and the choir. Many of these depict episodes from the life of Châtillon’s best-known former inhabitant, Saint Vincent de Paul who served as pastor there for five months in 1617.
Walking tours of the former charity hospital and apothecary are on offer, treating visitors to an impressive collection of 120 earthenware pots, an herbal tearoom, and a triptych dating to 1527. Herbologists still tend to ancient and medicinal plants on display in the hospice courtyard.
Despite the proud spirit of charity, remedies for the ailing from de Paul’s time onward were often unpleasant. As the town’s heritage chief revealed, patients would first be brought to the chapel to confess so that their souls could be saved, before sometimes being made to drink water with rusty nails, swallow bleach to treat ulcers, or have facial markings removed with chloric acid. “The sisters would baste various pills and treatments in liquorice or chocolate for the poor to make them more palatable. They coated them in gold powder for the rich,” Van Thuguyen explains. “Unfortunately many came to the hospices to die rather than to be saved; with up to three people to a bed, germs spread quickly.”
A nearby museum displays selected memorabilia illustrating the wares and daily practices of local rural life, animated by wax figures dressed in peasants’ clothes. Peasant hardship (including famine and startling mortality rates) was closely linked to ponds dotting the surrounding landscape. Constructed by Catholic monks from the thirteenth century, the ponds served to cultivate fish to sell at Lyon’s illustrious European trade fairs, created in 1420 under the future King Charles VII. Today, however, Dombes is a leading freshwater fish-producing region, an unspoiled paradise for birds, flora and fauna.
Rillettes, smoked fillet pond fish and waterfowl are a staple across Châtillon’s many traditional restaurants, which poke out from various sides of the market and line the Chalaronne River edge. Chefs eagerly await patrons overflowing from the bustling stands and cheerful banter of the market, where time in the medieval hall seems to stand still. On any given Saturday the butcher and baker still clink chardonnay glasses at 10am, and the rabbit and guinea pig merchants let children cuddle their fluffy live toys. Their fellow vendors proudly serve seasonal legumes, luscious fruit, pigs ears and feet, homecooked Sauerkraut, and chicken roasts swimming in sizzling marinade – careful, like those before them, not to let any produce from the farms or wild fields go to waste.
Dombes Tourism: www.dombes-tourisme.com
Carla Rocavert is a lecturer at the American University of Paris and her work is published in various academic jounrals.
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