I joke that he is what we call in English a total rock star. He’s carrying a printout of a speech, written in Occitan, that he must deliver. The former radio and TV host resembles a silver-haired Paul McCartney-kind face, puppy eyes, and lyrical voice-and we can’t walk three feet without someone shaking his hand or kiss-kissing his cheeks, which he doesn’t mind at all. Though Bonnefon was born in Bergerac and grew up in Sarlat, his parents were from St.-Cyprien. In 2019 the town of Périgueux will organize the hundredth edition. St.-Cyprien, about 80 miles east of Bordeaux, played host in 2018. Marked by events that include the mayor’s handing over of the keys to the organizing association, a Mass, a parade, and a familial sit-down feast called la taulada, La Félibrée is a collective remembrance and a renaissance of a long backstory. La Félibrée (pronounced Fay-lee-bray) first unfurled in 1903 in the village of Mareuil, and 98 times since, this convivial ode to the Occitan language and heritage has moved its pomp and flourish to a different village of Périgord on the first Sunday in July (it ceased for six years during WWII). “This is a day that celebrates the Occitan roots of our people and is a good way for those who are new to the region to understand our culture,” he says. Now Bonnefon, a member of the festival organizing committee in the village of St.-Cyprien, is showing me what I’ve been missing all this time. Over the years, I’d heard about La Félibrée, seen the floral remnants of this annual fete dangling over villages, but never attended. “In Périgord, we are very attached to our country and our differences, but at the same time we are a true land of welcome,” says Jean Bonnefon, a dedicated Occitanist. The heat is relentless, and the sun beats on white bonnets and crimson bandanna-like scarves, emblazoned with a yellow heraldic cross and one word: “Périgord.” A group of women in long skirts, lace-collared blouses, and bonnets hook arms and circle, square-dance style, with men dressed head to toe in black, including hats that could be distant cousins of the Stetson. Beneath a sapphire sky and rows of hanging paper-flower garlands, schoolchildren fidget before the cameras of their doting parents. “It is necessary to go in order to realize how lucky we are to live in this paradise,” he tells me. His sons have moved to larger cities for work since I last saw him, but he’s confident that they will return. Although it sounds very cosmopolitan, Manouvrier calls himself an old dinosaur of the Périgord (I remind him we are the same age), whose roots run as deep in the fertile soil as those of the oak trees that produce its treasured black truffles. He includes them in some of his ice cream but mostly ships them to pastry chefs and restaurants around the world. His latest obsession is crystallized roses, violets, jasmine, and other flowers, which he preserves via a patented process that maintains their organoleptic and aesthetic properties. I find him in his factory on the outskirts of the already outskirty village of St.-Geniès, where he makes his unusual flavors of ice cream with local ingredients (goat cheese, foie gras, chestnut). He’s corrected my French so many times that I call him mon prof, my teacher. My go-to guy for Périgord and language questions is Roland Manouvrier, an artisanal ice-cream maker, whom I first met in 2006. Like many affairs, mine began with words.
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