Leg of Lamb and Transhumance, the ancient festival in Provence of the running of the sheep

When we were in Provence, lamb or l’agneau du Pays seemed to be the plat du jour at almost every bistro at least once a week. If your family isn’t lamb friendly, please don’t click away because I don’t want you to miss a festival in Provence that you’ve probably never seen – the ancient custom of running of the sheep. There are pictures and a link to a video, so just jump to paragraph four and I’ll join you later.

One of the places we enjoyed the local lamb happened to be one of Patricia Well’s favorite bistros, Le Bistrot du Paradou, a short fifteen minute drive from Saint-Remy. While we were waiting for our lunch to arrive, we watched the man at the next table return his lamb to the waiter and request that it be rose, or medium-rare. Meakin caught the waiter’s eye and ask that ours be rose as well. We enjoy leg of lamb and will sometimes serve it at dinner parties. I say “sometimes” because we like our lamb medium rare to rare and not everyone does. So if we’re having guests who like it well done or even medium well, we forget the lamb, just as we would forget a fillet of beef, and serve something else. 

This picture is from one of those dinner parties. I served it with one of my favorite salads, asparagus with hearts of palm, grape tomatoes, and red onion slivers, which you would not find in Provence. If the picture looks familiar, that’s because you’ve seen the asparagus salad in a post last August. The recipe for the leg of lamb is below, but first I want to tell you about a festival held in Provence in late spring that celebrates the migrating of the sheep to the hills to escape the summer heat.

Sheep are raised all through Provence and the migration is an ancient tradition in the area. In order to get them to the mountains, the sheep are herded through the winding streets of the villages. It’s celebrated with a festival known as the Fete de Transhumance, or the running of the sheep. In Saint-Remy Transhumance draws huge crowds of tourists on busses, jet-setters and locals, as you can see in this video from Monty and Marsha. They did a great job of videoing the festival, so be sure to click over and watch. You’ll feel like you’re right there, standing on the edge of the sidewalk, as hundreds of sheep run through the streets. 

Our stay ended two weeks before Transhumance in Saint-Remy, but fortunately we were able to find one being held earlier in Senas.  We hopped in our car and headed east out of Saint-Remy on the D99, a lovely plane tree lined highway in search of Senas.

Senas is a very small farming community, not the tourist town Saint-Remy is and you are unlikely to find it in travel guides. There won’t be any tour busses at this Transhumance and there won’t be any English spoken here. We will be experiencing the festival in rural France with the locals. We arrived early and strolled around the village waiting for the festival to begin and watched children riding horses in the streets, and a farrier making horse shoes. A few people came out of the boulangerie carrying baguettes, but there wasn’t a lot of activity for a Saturday morning. Around eleven we stopped at small café and Meakin ordered une petite biere, a small beer, for both of us. When the waitress replied, “Pression?” we shrugged our shoulders, not knowing what she meant. This is where charades comes in handy. She took her hand and pulled down and repeated pression. Ah, she meant draft beer. “Oui Madame, je voudrais pression,” Meakin said.

The mayor gave a speech before the festival. We caught only a few words that we recognized now and then, but we politely smiled and applauded when others around us did. Afterwards we stood with the other onlookers on the edge of the sidewalk of the narrow winding street waiting and anticipating the arrival of the sheep. Finally someone in the crowd yelled, “Something, something, something les moutons,” in rapid French that we assumed was “here come the sheep.” Seemingly out of nowhere, a large herd of sheep and a few brown long horn goats began racing through the streets. These pictures are from our trip a couple of years ago.

Notice below that only one shepherd and his dog control the entire flock. A young curious lamb stopped briefly near us and tried to eat a flower from an urn, but he was quickly corralled by the dog and rejoined the pack. No misbehaving allowed here.

We never knew who the people in the carriages were. To experience watching this ancient tradition with the locals in a tiny village in Provence was a fantastic experience and one we certainly won’t forget. 

Now, back to the leg of lamb. My favorite recipe for leg of lamb is from Patricia Well’s Bistro Cooking. The lamb is roasted on an oven rack set above thinly sliced potatoes, onions and tomatoes. The lamb’s juices drip on the vegetables, flavoring them while they cook.

Patricia Wells uses a bone-in leg, but we used a boneless one. The butcher will do all of the boning work for you if you ask. I added rosemary because it goes so well with lamb and I also have it growing in my herb garden. Instead of chopping the garlic as the recipe calls for, I sliced it into very thin slivers. I’ve noticed that Mario Batali thinly slices his garlic and I’ve found it works well. 

If you like your lamb as rare as we do, I suggest that you slice the potatoes as thinly as possible or they tend to not be done when the lamb is. This has happened to me, so now I slice the potatoes with my mandoline, but a sharp knife will do the trick. If your oven has a built-in thermometer, be sure to use it so you don’t have to constantly check the lamb for doneness.  

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Rosemary

Adapted from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells – serves 8 to 10

1 boneless leg of lamb, about 6 to 7 pounds

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced into very thin slivers

2 pounds of baking potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced

5 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced

2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 T chopped fresh thyme

2/3 cup dry white wine

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400F. Arrange the vegetables as follows: first a layer of the potatoes, then the onions, followed by the tomatoes. Season each layer with one third of the garlic and thyme plus some salt and pepper. Pour the wine over the vegetables, followed by the olive oil.

Trim the leg of lamb if it’s fatty. Season liberally with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the fresh chopped rosemary. Place a rack over the vegetables to hold the lamb. Roast, uncovered, for about an hour and fifteen minutes, turning the lamb every 15 minutes and basting it with some of the liquid underneath.  For rare to medium rare, remove the lamb from the oven when it reaches 125 degrees for rare and 130 for medium rare. Tent the lamb with foil and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes to rest. Slice and serve alongside the vegetables.

Printable recipe

This post is linked to Oh the Places I've Been hosted by the Tablescaper. Have a nice weekend everyone.