Published by Troubador Publishing, 2020, 256 pages

There are people who travel so they can tick places off their lists, and there are those who immerse themselves in their surroundings. Di Murrell belongs to the latter, having spent most of the last two decades on a barge in Europe and the UK.

She and her husband decide to travel from Cambrai to Paris, a couple of hours by car but a week on a barge.

“We see places that no normal holidaymaker will ever visit and view them from an entirely different perspective. … Best of all when we do stop and tie up, local people do not view us with that suspicion reserved for unknown callers in out-of-way places. We are accepted as people who are passing through.”

In A Foodie Afloat, you travel with Murrell along France’s waterways, taking in natural beauty and meeting interesting people: a truffle hunter, a crayfish catcher, and the unpretentious German man they shared a table with, who turned out to be a two-star Michelin chef!

But as the title of the book makes clear, the focus is on the food. Murrell clearly enjoys eating and cooking and seems to be able to produce fantastic meals from the barge’s small kitchen. Each chapter ends with mouth-watering recipes, so the reader can join the feast.

Murrell avoids supermarkets, focusing instead on local producers and farmers’ markets, on foraging along riverbanks (wild garlic and mushrooms and a variety of fruit), and on occasional anonymous gifts of fresh food from locals.

Barges, because they go along the waterways, provide a completely different perspective of cities and towns. In Paris, they go under the Bastille on the canal St. Martin in the middle of the city. It’s a magical scene: “The spotlights in the tunnel create shimmers of rainbow colors that sweep across the roof, illuminating the darkness. At regular intervals, there are brick air vents through which the sunshine and water filter down. Circles of light shine through the swathes of trailing plants that grow down through the vents. These vertical gardens are reflected in the water in front of the boat and the creepers hang down far enough to brush our wheelhouse roof as we pass beneath.”

The chapters follow the course of a year, going from spring to winter, and the recipes follow the same rhythm. Because Murrell believes in not wasting anything, a recipe for chicken breasts is followed by one for “the rest of the chicken”. I enjoyed both the recipes (I have tried out a couple) and the trip. Murrell’s writing reflects the leisurely pace of the barge: the time to take in the landscape and, in a way, to become part of it.  

This review first appeared on Women on the Road.