Where to eat Petit pâté de Pézenas in Montpellier: 2 editor picks

A spool-shaped pastry the size of a cork, filled with minced lamb, lemon zest, suet and brown sugar. The sweet and savoury combination startles on first bite, and it is served warm as a starter.

The recipe is credited to the Indian cook travelling with Lord Clive, the Governor of Bengal, who wintered at the Château de Larzac near Pézenas in 1766. Whatever the truth of that story, the pastry sits somewhere between a keema filling and a British mince pie, and the sweet-savoury lamb has no parallel anywhere else in French charcuterie. Pézenas now produces around 250,000 of them a year and the exact proportions remain a closely held trade secret among the town's makers. Montpellier stocks them at market charcutiers and delicatessens, but the town forty minutes west is where they are made.