All over France there are small towns and villages that have carved out a niche for themselves with a particular product or local speciality. Once a year the product takes centre stage with a market in its honour - Lautrec has its garlic, Sarlat its foie gras, Nyons is into olives, and almost anywhere has its very own sausage festival. 

St Bonnet-le-Froid, a tiny village set on a plateau over 1000 metres above the Rhone valley, is tops for mushrooms. Surrounded by beech and pine forests, chestnut groves, grazing pastures and mossy banks it’s a fungi-forager’s paradise. Every year on the weekend following All Saints Day [Nov. 5th and 6th 2005], the whole village gives itself over to a single-minded mushroom feast.

The origins of the Foire aux Champignons are lost somewhere back in the mists of the 19th century. As the autumn weather gave way to the first frosts and the mushroom harvest drew to a close, this was the occasion for people to stock up their store cupboards as whole teams of local collectors brought in heaped baskets and crates of fungi to be sold on the Place des Champignons. In 1995 the Foire took a great leap forward when Regis Marcon, chef-patron of the celebrated Auberge des Cimes in St Bonnet, fixed it with his steady gaze and took it under his wing. 

Thanks to the combined efforts of Marcon and his fellow chefs in the village André Chatelard and Thierry Guyot, the Foire has become an essential fixture on the French foodie calendar. The size and scope has broadened since the early days and the main street of St Bonnet, closed to traffic for the weekend, is lined with stalls and stands. 

On sale are sacks of walnuts and chestnuts, stacks of cheeses from neighbouring Auvergne, oysters from the Atlantic, braids of garlic and strings of sausages, as well as wine, wooden spinning tops, wicker baskets, fleece waistcoats and great, thick socks in hunting green – the last two just the ticket for the aptly named St Bonnet-le-Froid in November. 

But the chief function of the market is still the sale of fresh and dried fungi. It gets underway at 6.30 on the Saturday morning when trucks large and small take up position on the square by the church and the mushroom-sellers set out their wares. Given a good mushroom year, it’s an astonishing sight: great piles of stout ceps with fat stumpy stems and burnished brown caps; egg-yolk yellow chanterelles, their upturned gills resembling gothic fan vaulting; weird and wonderful yellow mushrooms called canaris and lurid blue ones that look distinctly dangerous; black and sinister trompettes de la mort (horns of plenty) and the infinitely desirable morels which look like tiny brown sponges. With your provisions assured for the next meal (or the winter ahead), you can wrap your chilled hands round a steaming bowl of soupe aux champignons, a rich broth stiff with ceps and fragrant with home-made stock. 

In one marquee, the assembled chefs treat fungi-festlers to a lively demonstration of mushroom dishes which may range from a traditional velouté de champignons to a more adventurous monkfish creation wrapped in local cured ham with ceps, rounded off with a distinctly racy concoction of saffron milk caps with apples. Green-robed members of the Confrérie of lentil-lovers gravely exhort selected members of the public to swear undying loyalty to the noble Puy lentil, which was recently dignified with its own Appellation Contrôlée. 

In the nextdoor tent a competition gets underway for the best tarte aux champignons. On a rather different scale there’s a Guiness Book of Records bid for the biggest mushroom tart in the world. Last year it measured a magnificent 4.5 metres across and its ingredients included 316 kilos of assorted fresh and dried wild mushrooms, tons of tomatoes, onions, garlic and thyme, some 6 litres of hazelnut oil and 80 fat little goats’ cheeses. 

The last time we were there we sat down to our menu champignons at midday - the composition varies from year to year, but mushrooms are de rigueur. Between 600 and 700 lunches are served in three shifts between 11.30 and 2 p.m., prepared by the three chefs of the village. We were treated to a terrine of foie gras layered with potatoes and ceps with a handful of tiny autumn salad leaves, guinea fowl with a mushroom stuffing and spelt risotto, selected cheeses from the region and an unctuous ice cream made of goats’ milk served with a steamed chestnut sponge and a trickle of honey.

Talking to our table neighbours, we found that most were faithful pilgrims who visit the Foire every year from various parts of France, some from close by in the Haute Loire, others from the Rhone valley, Lot, Perigord, and Quercy. What distinguishes St Bonnet’s foire is that in spite of a growing reputation, and the endorsement of star chef Marcon, it remains a simple country fair, dedicated – in true French style – to fine products, good food and lots of fresh air and fun. 

Eat, sleep: 
Le Fort du Pré, St Bonnet le Froid, Tel.+33 471 59 91 83, info@le-fort-du-pre.fr 

Restaurant André Chatelard, Place aux Champignons, St Bonnet le Froid, 
Tel. +33 471 59 96 09, restaurant-chatelard@wanadoo.fr 

Auberge et Clos des Cimes, St Bonnet le Froid, 
Tel. +33 471 59 93 72, contact@regismarcon.fr

Hostellerie Placide, 1 rte. D’Annonay, Tence, 
Tel. +33 471 65 44 46, placide@hostellerie-placide.fr 

Mushroom hunting
Ask at any of the hotels for mushroom hunts with mycologist Gilles Liège (alias Bouchon)