Is this most delicious sorbet I've ever made?
The joys of peach and fig leaf sorbet (that you can easily make without an ice ream machine) and a magical few hours at a hammam.
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I slept like I’d swallowed a sleeping pill: a solid, undisturbed treat of a slumber, the likes of which eludes me most nights. Daylight poured through the shutters at 5.30am, jabbing my eyes open briefly. But my lids were dead weights and dropped shut again until 7.30. I have La Sultane hammam to thank for this rare good night’s sleep.
There’s a large muslim community in Avignon, where I’m staying throughout June. I’d noticed several halal restaurants and butcher shops, and also mosques, scattered around the town, so I knew there would be a hammam - the public bath houses associated with the Islamic world. As it happened, La Sultane was only a 15 minute walk from where I’m staying, just outside the walls of the old town.
I’ve been to hammams before. Istanbul’s 500-year-old Cemberlitas hammam is extraordinary and I’ve also visited a simpler neighbourhood one in Fez. (I wrote about that trip to Morocco in the Guardian many moons ago, but the bit about the hammam was cut from my piece. If you read it you will understand why I relished time out in a women-only space).
Like the others, La Sultane is gorgeously decorated, with tiles, some exquisitely ornate, lining the walls and floors of the steam rooms and wet areas. Carved basins are set into the wall at ground level, where you can sit and sluice yourself with cool water to revitalise after a steam.
I love that these are places where women gather to wash and scrub and chat. The night I visited, several groups of women were there. Sitting in nothing but their knickers, they applied the black hammam soap (enriched with olive oil) to each other’s bodies and then scrubbing each other with a kese (abrasive mitt). The place echoed with splashing, chattering, laughter and trickling water.
My French is limited and no-one spoke English, but I worked out the rhythm of the hammam by watching what the other women did. I spent a delicious 45 minutes drifting back and forth between the steam room and the water basins, the heat and black soap opening my pores as I sweated. Being on my own, I paid an extra few euros for a gommage by a bathhouse attendant. She ushered me to a marble plinth where I lay down as she scrubbed me from head to toe with the kese, smiling and asking if her pressure was OK. At first it felt like being scoured like a dirty pan, but a few moments in and it was strangely soothing.
Afterwards, showered and soft-skinned, I drank mint tea in an ante-room where women lolled about on couches, chatting intently. And I ate dinner there: a superb vegetable and chicken couscous.
It’s hot here in Avignon and at 9pm the air was still heavy and warm when I got home. For a while I sat in the garden throwing a ball to my dog, sipping rosé and eating a scoop or two of Peach and Fig Leaf sorbet I prepared the day before - probably the loveliest I’ve ever made, using peaches from the market and fig leaves stolen from the neighbour’s garden. Can you think of lovelier way to spend a few hours? My recipe for the sorbet is below.
