Spanish, Italian & French: O’Marseillais in Mazamet
We decided to try the little Italian place in the town centre today because I liked the look of it from the online pictures. We walked in and were greeted with an absolutely charming smile by the owner, Olga.
Thursday happens to be their travel the world day. Every week they do a lunchtime menu from a different place. Today was Portugal. A very attractive rice dish with large prawns and mussels.
A few moments after sitting down, the owner who was sitting at the next table turned to me and said there was something about the way I pronounced some words in French that was unusual- Turns out her parents were from the South of Spain. Lunch turned into Andalucia-fest.
Soon afterwards the owner’s mother, who is from Granada, was sitting with us and telling us how her brother-in-law was a political refugee during the civil war, and that’s how she ended up in Mazamet. We were the last to leave, and meeting the Sanchez family was an absolute delight. We had a wonderful time.
The place has a nice relaxed atmosphere and the food is straightforward, no-nonsense and very good quality. A pizzeria with a bistro feel and an international twist. The welcome is thoroughly, warmly and ebulliently Andalusian. The house red is light and pleasant. You feel wanted and at ease the moment you step through the door. On the weekends they do live music on the terrace. This weekend we’re busy, but we’re definitely going next weekend.
My Mazamet 
You’re both speaking only French when out? I’m impressed.
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No! We speak our own dialect, which is mostly English with French and Spanish words thrown in. Basically, the first language in which we remember a word, is the one it comes out in 🙂
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Now, that I can relate to! Creative Esperanto, works a charm when a little drunk 🙂
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It’s little things like this that give you that warm, ‘I’m home’ glow. And the creative Esperanto is how my parents and I used to speak Hungarian at home. It worked. 🙂
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There are words that we just end up using in their best form 🙂 If there’s a rolled r or a sharp s, I tend to use the Spanish version. If I say Louis, it’s the French version. And so esperanto it is!
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lol – for us it was sheer laziness. Hungarian makes it very easy to create Hunglish, so we did. 😀
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Glad that the mother’s parent survived the French internment camps for Spanish Republican refugees…
Amazing how people can tell your background – or some of it – by your pronunciation of a foreign – to – you language.
The French could always tell that I was a Scot….the Costa Ricans are convinced I am French and the Spanish think that I am a very rum sort of Costa Rican…
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