Discover France through food
Live at La Vaquerie and discover what food can teach us about a place, its people and the way they live.
Food is woven into everyday life in France, connecting people to the seasons, the land and sea, generations of tradition and one another around the table.
Over seven weeks, explore those connections for yourself. Cook, shop at markets, meet farmers, fishermen, chefs and artisans, follow ingredients back to their source and travel through the landscapes and cities that have shaped how France eats.
You'll become a better cook along the way, but the program is about more than what you make. It's about where food comes from, the choices we make around it, the pleasure of sharing it and the place it has in a life well lived.
Make our farm your home
Live independently with your peers while being part of daily life at La Vaquerie.
You'll share your own house and take responsibility for some of the everyday things that make a household work: planning meals, shopping, cooking, caring for your space, tending the vegetable garden and feeding the chickens.
There is freedom here, but also the expectation that everyone contributes. You'll learn to manage your time, live well with other people and take increasing responsibility for daily life.
There is structure to your week, but not every hour is programmed. There is time to cycle into town, cook something simply because you feel like it, work in the garden, take a walk, read by the fire or sit around the table long after dinner is finished.
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Find your rhythm
Settle in, become part of the place and let everyday life in France become part of the experience.
Time to become a regular at the market. To know your way around the kitchen. To have a favourite boulangerie. To discover what is growing in September that wasn't there in August. To cook the same thing twice and make it better the second time.
There is time for independence too. Not every experience needs to be organised for you. As the program progresses, you'll have more confidence to make plans, pursue your own interests and take greater responsibility for how you spend your time.
The aim isn't to fill the weeks with activities. It's to give you enough structure to keep discovering, and enough space to make some of the experience your own.
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In the kitchen
Cooking is part of everyday life here.
You'll spend time in the kitchen with Chris, Andrea, guest chefs and local experts, becoming a more capable and intuitive cook through the simple act of cooking regularly.
Build your skills in knife work, seasoning, timing, stocks, sauces, bread, pastry, meat, seafood and vegetables. Learn classic French dishes while also learning how to improvise, cook seasonally, plan a meal and make good use of what you have.
Some days you'll learn a new technique. Other days you'll be cooking dinner for the house, recreating something discovered on an excursion or deciding what to make with what looked good at the market.
You don't need to arrive knowing how to cook. We'll establish the foundations at the beginning, then give you increasing independence as the weeks go on.
Dates and Details
Cohort Size
6 - 8 students
Program Length
7 weeks
Dates
Autumn 2027: September 5 – Oct 24, 2027
Cost
€9,500
Included: local transport, accommodation, instruction, excursions, equipment, meals in residence and group meals out.
Not included: Airfare, train ticket to and from our location. Meals on trips where students are free to make their own choices.
Scholarships are available for this program.
Travel Information
Staff will assist students in getting the train from Paris to our location on arrival day and getting from our location to Paris on departure day.
Eligibility
This program is open to all, from confident cooks to complete beginners.
Language Requirements
None. The program is taught entirely in English.
Follow ingredients to the source
Discover what changes when you know where your food comes from.
Normandy gives us an extraordinary place to explore the journey from source to table.
Shop at village markets and specialty food shops. Visit oyster beds and fishing communities, walk through cider orchards, make bread at a working windmill, meet a butcher and discover the farms and dairies behind Normandy's butter and cheese.
You'll see how ingredients are grown, caught, raised and made, but also begin to understand why food tastes and looks the way it does here.
Then we bring those ingredients and ideas home and cook with them.
Meet the people behind the food
Food tells the story of a place through the people who grow it, catch it, make it, and cook it.
Spend time with a Michelin-starred chef, a third-generation fishing family, or a farmer protecting a rare heritage breed, hearing first-hand about the lives, choices, and traditions behind the food on our table.
Together, we'll explore bigger questions about tradition, identity, community, stewardship, and adapting for a more sustainable future in the face of climate change.
Using photography, writing, film, podcasts, recipes, and other creative forms, we'll capture and share what we discover.
Gather around the table
Learning about food also means eating it.
Meals are a big part of life at La Vaquerie. Sometimes we'll cook something ambitious together. Sometimes dinner will be made from leftovers. Sometimes we'll invite people over, and sometimes we'll spend a long evening around the table with nowhere else we need to be.
You'll also eat beyond the farm, from seafood beside the harbour and traditional French bistros to meals that show what happens when exceptional ingredients meet exceptional cooking.
Over time, you'll become comfortable not only cooking for yourself, but feeding other people, planning a meal and creating the kind of table people want to stay around.
Explore Normandy & beyond
Let food lead you through France.
Travel through Normandy and beyond, exploring the places, landscapes and traditions that have shaped the way people live and eat.
Hike the cliffs of Nez du Jobourg, cross to Tatihou Island, visit Mont-Saint-Michel, explore Bayeux and the D-Day beaches, and experience the markets, villages and coastal communities of Normandy.
Longer trips take us to Rouen, Giverny and Paris, where food opens the door to art, history, neighbourhoods, markets, cafés and the many cultures that have shaped France.
Because not everything has to be about food. You're living in France, and part of the experience is simply getting out and discovering it.
Food and the Art of Living
Come home a better cook, but take home more than recipes.
Living at La Vaquerie gives you the chance to experience food as part of everyday life rather than simply something on a plate. You'll cook it, shop for it, grow some of it, meet the people who produce it, travel through the landscapes that shape it and share a great deal of it around the table.
We hope that somewhere in those seven weeks, France changes the way you think about food a little too.