Ina Garten on Trying Coq Au Vin for the First Time

04.10.2024 - 13:15 / cntraveler.com / Matt Ortile

A Traveler’s Tale: Author and cook Ina Garten on France—

“In 1971 my husband, Jeffrey, and I spent four months camping in Europe, a lot of it in France. It was the last time in our lives when we had no responsibilities—Jeffrey was about to start grad school in Washington, DC, and I was joining the Federal Power Commission—but we also had no money. We spent only $5 a day, which we could do 50 years ago, but it meant going without things like a camping heater. We saw one at a store that cost $35. Had we bought it, we would've had to go home a week early, so on cold nights Jeffrey and I just snuggled more closely in our neon orange tent. The first time we set it up, the whole thing came crashing down on top of us at two o'clock in the morning, and we slept in our rental car the rest of the night. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how many times we ended up doing that. Obviously, we had never camped before, but we had a blast. Every day we'd get in our little Renault and ask each other, ‘Where do you want to go today?’ We used a guidebook that rated all the local campsites, and to stick to our budget, we stayed at a lot of two-star places. One was near Mont Saint-Michel, where we met the campsite's owner. She had just made some coq au vin for her husband, and she offered some to me and Jeffrey for dinner. I had no idea what coq au vin was, but I took it back to our tent and heated it up on my little camping stove. I couldn't believe how delicious it was. I remember saying to myself, I need to know how to make this. The wine, the onions, that smell: It had a depth of flavor that I had never experienced before. A friend once told me, here in America, we're always searching for flavor. That's probably why we eat more. But in France you just want to savor each bite because it's so delicious and so special—the food is alive. For that reason, I think, I've always felt this deep connection to France. Whenever I travel, that's where I end up. I wasn't a camper before that trip in 1971, and I certainly wasn't after it. But that's when it all began for me. To this day that's the kind of cooking I like: French food, not fancy, really country and hearty. Food by a woman who made dinner for herself and her husband and has enough to share.” —Ina Garten, as told to Matt Ortile

Ina Garten, best known as the Barefoot Contessa, is the author of 13 cookbooks. Her first memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, is now on sale.

This article appeared in the November 2024 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.