From the Markets of the Creuse to La Maison de la Grange
September is a particularly good month to eat in the Creuse. The abundance of summer has not quite disappeared, but the countryside is beginning to turn toward autumn. Apples, plums and blackberries arrive alongside potatoes, courgettes, squash and other garden vegetables; hazelnuts and walnuts begin appearing; and, when rainfall and temperatures cooperate, the forests start producing cèpes and girolles. Rather than designing our Table d’Hôtes menus around ingredients brought in from somewhere else, September gives us an opportunity to cook much closer to home.
At La Maison de la Grange, that means our menus may change from week to week. We look first to the markets, producers and seasonal foods of the Creuse, then decide what belongs on the table. It is a rather more sensible arrangement than deciding in January that a guest absolutely must have a particular tomato in September and then making several countries participate in the problem.
Where we shop: the markets of the Creuse
One of the pleasures of living in the Creuse is that there is a market somewhere almost every day of the week. The department’s established market calendar includes Ahun and Chambon-sur-Voueize on Wednesday, Boussac and Guéret on Thursday, Felletin on Friday, and Aubusson, Guéret and La Souterraine on Saturday, among many others.
For us, several are particularly useful.
Friday: Marché de Felletin
The Friday morning market at Felletin until 12 noon, is one of the most interesting food markets in our part of the Creuse. During the busier season, more than 130 producers and traders can gather there, with farm cheeses, honey, poultry, berries, jams and other products from the Plateau de Millevaches among the foods highlighted by the local tourism office.
This is exactly the sort of market that can determine what appears on our Table d’Hôtes menu that evening. A good goat cheese might become the cheese course; beautiful vegetables may accompany dinner; berries or plums can become a tart or compote; and local honey can find its way into breakfast the following morning.
Saturday: Aubusson
The Aubusson market at La Passerelle is held every Saturday morning throughout the year. Its regional food stalls include poultry, local and goat cheeses, conventional and organic market gardeners, fruit and vegetables, bread, wood-fired bread and cakes.
Aubusson therefore gives us another excellent opportunity to buy for the weekend table. It also makes a wonderful Saturday outing for our guests: visit the tapestry capital in the morning, wander through the market, have lunch in town and return to Saint-Martial-le-Mont for an evening Table d’Hôtes.
Sunday: Jarnages
Jarnages holds its weekly market on Sunday, while other Sunday markets in the department include Bétête on the first Sunday of the month and Mortoux on the second.
These smaller markets are part of what makes rural life here interesting. Not every ingredient needs to come from a grand gastronomic hall. Sometimes dinner begins with a conversation with the person who grew, raised or made what eventually reaches the plate.
A special September stop: apples at La Cellette
September 2026 has a particularly appropriate event for our autumn kitchen. On Saturday, 12 September, La Cellette hosts the Marché du Panier de Poucet, a local producers’ market with an apple theme. The announced stalls include meat, charcuterie, vegetables, fruit, bread, cheese, honey and wine, accompanied by apple-themed activities, tastings and a competition.
That is almost an instruction manual for a September Table d’Hôtes menu.
Apples purchased locally might appear in an apple and goat-cheese salad, alongside pork, incorporated into a sauce, baked into a rustic tart or simply cooked slowly with butter and served warm. Apples and toasted hazelnuts are also a natural pairing for an early-autumn dessert.
September 12–13: a large producers’ market
Also on 12 and 13 September 2026, the Parc Animalier des Clautres at Bord-Saint-Georges is holding Les Marchés de l’Amour. Despite the rather theatrical name, food is a significant part of the weekend: around 30 former participants from the French television programme L’amour est dans le pré are expected, together with a large producers’ market where visitors can discover and purchase their products. The event runs from 10:00 to 19:00 on both days.
For our kitchen, it provides another opportunity to discover cheeses, charcuterie, preserves, meat and other farm products and, perhaps more importantly, meet the people producing them.
What those September ingredients become
The resulting menu will not be identical every evening. Our Table d’Hôtes is intended to reflect what is available, so a September dinner might begin with a velouté of potimarron with crème fraîche and toasted hazelnuts, or a warm goat-cheese salad using cheese found at Felletin or Aubusson.
A more traditional evening might feature pâté aux pommes de terre, one of the emblematic dishes of the Limousin and Creuse: potatoes enclosed in pastry and enriched with cream. Served with a crisp green salad and mustard vinaigrette, it is wonderfully suited to the first cooler September evenings.
Another unmistakably Creusois possibility is fondu creusois, the regional preparation of melted cow’s-milk cheese traditionally accompanied by potatoes and often served with salad, omelette or charcuterie. It is robust rural food, rather than a dainty little arrangement involving three peas and an edible flower.
For a main course, Limousin beef is an obvious regional choice. In September we may serve it with potatoes, seasonal vegetables and, when nature has been cooperative, locally gathered cèpes or girolles sautéed simply with butter, garlic and parsley.
From the forest
The forests surrounding Saint-Martial-le-Mont are part of the autumn food story too.
Creuse tourism specifically identifies mushrooms among the department’s characteristic foods, including cèpes and girolles. September can mark the beginning of good mushroom conditions, although their appearance depends on rainfall and temperature rather than our publishing schedule.
Consequently, mushrooms will be a seasonal special rather than a guaranteed menu item. When excellent local mushrooms are available, we would rather put them on the menu immediately than pretend they exist every Thursday because a website says so.
They might accompany Limousin beef, appear in an omelette, be sautéed as a side dish or become part of a creamy mushroom starter.
And something sweet: the gâteau Creusois
There is one flavour we particularly want guests to associate with their stay here: hazelnut.
The gâteau Creusois is the department’s signature cake, traditionally based around hazelnuts, butter, sugar, flour and egg whites. September is an especially fitting time to serve desserts inspired by those flavours as the new season’s nuts and fruits begin arriving.
Our dessert table may therefore include gâteau Creusois, apple and hazelnut tart, plum tart, blackberry desserts, baked apples or seasonal fruit compotes, depending on what we have found at market.
And the market shopping doesn’t end at dinner. Local honey, jams, fruit and breads can also migrate quite happily onto the breakfast table the following morning.
What we’ll pair with September dishes
Creuse itself is much better known for cattle, cheese and potatoes than vineyards, so we will pair its food with complementary French wines.
Creamy potato dishes, goat cheeses and lighter starters work particularly well with a crisp dry French white. Mushroom dishes can take either an aromatic white or a lighter red, while Limousin beef calls for a more structured red.
For fondu creusois, we favour a dry white with enough acidity to balance the richness of the cheese. With apple and hazelnut desserts, coffee or tea is often all that is required, although guests may also choose an after-dinner drink.
September is also a wonderful month to explore the markets yourself
Guests staying with us don’t have to experience the Creuse entirely from the dining table.
The weekly calendar makes it remarkably easy to build a market into a day exploring the region: Ahun on Wednesday, Guéret or Boussac on Thursday, Felletin on Friday, Aubusson on Saturday and Jarnages on Sunday.
That creates a lovely rhythm for a September stay. Visit a market in the morning, explore a village, château, museum or tapestry workshop during the day, then return to La Maison de la Grange in the evening.
September weather in Saint-Martial-le-Mont
September is also particularly well suited to this style of travel. In the Creuse, early September can still bring pleasantly warm afternoons, while mornings and evenings become noticeably cooler as the month progresses. Conditions around nearby Guéret typically move from daytime highs of roughly 22°C at the beginning of September toward about 18°C by month’s end, with nights becoming progressively cooler.
That means September visitors should pack for both versions of France: a light shirt for a sunny afternoon and a sweater or jacket for dinner later. Rain is possible too, which is hardly disastrous. It feeds the gardens, helps the mushrooms along and provides an entirely respectable excuse to spend longer at the table.
From our Creuse to your plate
Our September Table d’Hôtes menus at La Maison de la Grange will therefore begin not with a fixed restaurant menu but with a basket: what is growing, what our local producers have made, what is appearing at the markets and what the season gives us.
One week that may mean Limousin beef, cèpes and potatoes. Another may bring goat cheese, squash and walnuts. After a visit to the apple market, apples may suddenly appear at dinner and breakfast in several guises. And throughout the month, the hazelnut flavours of the Creuse are unlikely to be very far away.
For us, that is what a Table d’Hôtes in rural France should be: a meal connected to its place, its season and the people who produce the food.
Table d’Hôtes meals at La Maison de la Grange are available exclusively to our chambres d’hôtes guests and should be reserved in advance. Menus vary according to market and seasonal availability. Please advise us of allergies or dietary requirements when reserving.
