In composition it’s not all that different from a marshmallow, and in fact it has some attributes in common with the hard edges of a perfectly stale Jet Puff, although it lacks the marshmallow’s slippery, gelatinous quality. Nougat de Montelimar is a dense white candy made of egg whites, sugar and honey, studded with toasted almonds and pistachios. If you’re not familiar with nougat, forget the fluffy center of a Milky Way bar. Nevertheless I had a feeling that this trip was going to make me sick. The region had plenty to offer in the way of dietary balance: soupe au pistou, ratatouille, fruity black olive tapenade, garlicky anchoiade, fresh sheep and goats milk cheeses of every imaginable description, the meaty reds and refreshing white wines of the Cotes du Rhone. I was now on the brink of a sticky five-day nougat binge. I had known nougat for years as a candy you could buy at grocery stores in Paris and regularly beseeched anyone I knew traveling to France, no matter how remote our acquaintance, to bring me back a bag or two. The town is surrounded by vineyards, which in early spring are gnarled little stubs sprouting fresh pale leaves and fields of lavender grown for cosmetics and herbes de Provence, orderly rows of silvery green tufts which by summer turn a blaze of purple. One of the little towns that speckle the triangle formed by Provence, the Rhone Valley and the Languedoc, Montelimar is 650 kilometers southeast of Paris, about three hours by the TGV ( Train a Grande Vitesse ). I had almost expected it to, because Montelimar is the nougat capital of the world. As Parisian families beginning their vacation pressed past me on the platform, I imagined for one simultaneously awful and delightful moment that the entire town reeked with the unmistakable smell of warm egg whites and sugar. Suddenly aware that my stomach was a little unsettled from watching the scenery whiz past the window at 300 kilometers an hour, I caught a whiff of something sweet, sticky and pervasive. I smelled it as soon as I stepped off the train in Montelimar.

Nougat audio bar