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| August 1, 2008 | ||
| August 15, 2008 |
The village of Lautrec (81 Tarn, Midi-Pyrenees) is proud of its local pink garlic (l’ail rose) and celebrates this every year in August with a Festival, market, competitions and music.
According to Chocolate & Zucchini. one of the best food websites:-
Apart from its undeniable attractiveness, l’Ail Rose de Lautrec is also distinguished for its aromatic and subtle taste, sweeter and milder than its white cousin. It also keeps for much longer, six months to a year. It can be used anywhere you would normally use garlic — raw or cooked, sliced, chopped, crushed or unpeeled (”en chemise”, which means “shirt on”) — but also in a variety of recipes created especially for it : a pink garlic soup, a walnut and pink garlic tart, a lime and garlic sorbet, and even a pink garlic chocolate cake!
For more on Lautrec’s Pink Garlic and the Festival see www.ailrosedelautrec.com
Lautrec also holds an annual Bread and Windmills Festival (Fete des Pains et Saveurs) 15 August 2008, celebrating the making of bread from milling the wheat in a traditional windmill through to the finished product!
An interesting little video on the Guardian Online site about the struggle to protect the genuine Camembert cheese from Normandy. I had not realised that the name Camembert is not protected in the same way as Champagne wine or Pont l’Eveque cheese, so almost anyone can make a soft cows milk cheese and call it Camembert. The only product which is protected is the raw-milk (lait cru) Camembert de Normandie AOC, which is strictly controlled and limited to only 5 producers in Normandy.
I must admit I have just checked the Camembert I had for lunch yesterday (very nice and in that perfect state of gloopiness before the ammonia kicks in) - but it is not an AOC, despite being made by a reputable (but big) French producer in Normandy!
For genuine Camembert de Normandie AOC in the UK try Turnbull’s Deli in Shaftesbury, Dorset.
For our customised map of the Orne département CLICK HERE
For much more on Camembert Read more on this…
It looks exactly like the Café du Port on the quai Deschamps; it’s uncanny, as if they’ve brought the tiles and the brass fitments over piece by piece. You look out of the window expecting to see the Garonne, and instead you’re on Park Lane
The Telegraph (11 April 08) recommends some places to eat authentic French cuisine in the UK - the above description is about a new eatery in London’s Park Lane called Bord’eaux (which translates as “waterside”)
A meal at a decent French restaurant in the UK might just provide a cheaper alternative to a trip to France this year, bearing in mind the disastrous Euro exchange rate (currently £1=€1.20 at the Post Office).
The Cafe du Port in Bordeaux is on the right bank of the river and overlooks the port area with impressive views of the sweeping curve of the Garonne and Napoleon’s stone bridge (Pont de Pierre). Fish is their speciality.
Another option in Bordeaux is la Tupina “authentic southwest” in rue porte de la Monnaie (see map) which was recommended by Rick Stein in his Rick Stein’s French Odyssey series
See our customised Google Map of Bordeaux
Other recommendations from the Telegraph article for eating French in the UK:-
The Great House, Market Place, Lavenham in Suffolk - an attractive small medieval village in the middlle of East Anglia- “A striking medieval English building houses a romantic room serving classic Gallic cuisine. Try the hearty pavé of beef in a rich red-wine sauce with beef marrow”
French Living in Nottingham, which also featured in our article on where to eat Cassoulet. This endearing rustic bistro is decked out with checked tablecloths and serves onglet à l’échalote, using a typically French cut of beef with a sauce of shallots and veal stock, sautéed potatoes and seasoned vegetables
Restaurant Bosquet in Kenilworth,Warwickshire which focuses on the gastronomy of SW France The chef Bernard Lignier’s south-western French roots add character to this little restaurant in a terrace. Much of the menu has modern touches, but the starter of quail with Puy lentils and foie gras could not be more classically French. Their wine list features a good selection of the wines of Southwest France - Madiran, Cahors and Jurancon.
The Independent (5 April 08) has another article based on research (this time from the French National Statistics Institute) which shows that your chances of getting to a healthy old age are better in France than in the UK, and that this is probably due to both diet and red wine!
Despite the French passion for cream, eggs and foie gras, le digestif after a meal, and an addiction to Gitanes cigarettes, they have half our obesity levels, less than half our death rate from heart disease and lower rates of cancer in women (but not men). They play boules and cycle, even in their dotage, which keeps them active enough to enjoy lunch. And lunch they take very seriously – a proper, sit-down, three- or four-course meal from an early age…. there are regional differences. Expectation of life is higher in the south of France than in the north, and especially high in the south-west. If you truly wish to live to be 100, you could try the red wine, olive oil, poultry, fish and haricots of the typical French south-western diet.. Then there is the wine. There have been rapid increases in wine sales in the UK in the past decade, yet British consumption at 27 litres a head per year still has a long way to go to match the French at 64 litres. Despite drinking in greater quantities, the French drink more moderately, with meals, as opposed to binge drinking in Britain.
This tends to reinforce the value of tannic red wines such as Madiran with its high levels of procyanadin which is thought to have beneficial effects on the heart.
I suspect that is also has something to do with the pace of life, as outside of Paris things do appear less frenetic than in the UK - people do stop for lunch and generally seem less hassled - athough not necessarily better humoured! The availability of fresh, locally sourced seasonal food is also clearly better in the many small local markets - and shopping at the market itself can be less stressful than going to the supermarket.
The Red Wine Diet
Another of those books that leaves you yearning for the gentle pleasures of southern France, this one combines the story of setting up a classy B&B in the Tarn département and 100 recipes based on the food of the area. This is the land of Gaillac wines, Albi and the Tarn Valley on the border between the Languedoc and the SouthWest.
While walking in South-west France, cook and journalist Orlando Murrin dreamed up the adventure of a lifetime: why not wave goodbye to the rat race and come to live in this rural paradise, where the only traffic is the boulangerie van delivering baguettes? His book tells the story of how he set up a boutique b&b and includes 100 amazing recipes. …. they set about transforming the dignified old manor house into a phenomenally successful boutique b&b with its own magnificent kitchen garden. A Table in the Tarn charts the discovery, acquisition and renovation of the property. Along the way, we learn about the local food scene, with its astonishingly rich heritage of ingredients and dishes, about working in France and coping with the famous French bureaucracy, and about the unforeseen delight of working with the locals.Four years on, with countless plaudits and a coveted entry in the classy Mr and Mrs Smith directory, the business attracts visitors from around the world and continues to be a gastronomic destination for anyone seeking peace, tranquillity and above all fantastic food.
As former editor of the BBC Good Food Magazine and Olive Magazine, the owners know something about food and the recipes sound very enticing - Roast Pigeon breasts in Armagnac!
So now you can read the book, try the recipes and stay in the Manoir! The Manoir des Raynaudes is near Carmaux (81 Tarn, Midi-Pyrenees) - see our map of the Tarn and its attractions
A Table in the Tarn: Living, Eating and Cooking in South-west France
Le Manoir de Raynaudes, 81640 Monestiès T: 0033 563 36 91 90 F:0033 563 36 92 09
www.raynaudes.com
In the vicinity you’ll find the delights of the cathedral city of Albi (home of the Albigensian crusades against the Cathar “heretics”, a Toulouse-Lautrec museum - and you could pop in and taste the wines of one of the best Gaillac AC wine producers (red, white, sparkling and rosé) at Domaine de Labarthe at Castanet.
The Telegraph(28 Mar 08) has been running a series on eating locally in the UK, both to be environmentally friendly and to discover quality food beyond the supermarket shelves. It’s not too much to extend the focus another 22 miles across the English Channel to Calais( 59 Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais) - train and ferry are both environmentally relatively benign, and into the bargain you benefit from the French obsession with quality produce.
There is a grand marché every Saturday morning in the Place Crève Coeur, where farmers bring freshly dug produce from their smallholdings. Look out for the lush, locally grown broad-leaved watercress and extra-long leeks.
Inside the covered market, buy ripe-flavoured, air-dried sausages - I loved the dark meat of the wild boar (sanglier), the pork with walnuts and the rich, buttery tarts filled with prunes and custard or savoury cheese, smoked pork belly and onion.
This is also the place to buy an athletically built poulet fermier (farmyard chicken), mussels, live langoustines and little fresh goat’s cheeses made 10km from Calais. If you want to avoid dull hotel breakfasts, note that the market cafés serve only coffee.
Instead, nip around the corner to the Café l’Impérial in Rue Lafayette for croissants and petit pains, but expect to share it with the café’s honoured canine guests.
But even in France, and especially in the larger towns, these traditions are being threatened by edge-of-town super/hypermarkets which inevitably threaten small producers and retailers. Calais has more than its fair share, especially with the Cité Europe Mall near the Channel Tunnel terminal. Tesco and Sainsburys are key players attracting many Brits who prefer the familiarity of known brands rather than the more risky adventure into foreign environments, French people who do not (or will not) speak English, and produce which is not uniform in shape or colour or nicely wrapped in plastic.
The escape route from the ferry terminal whisks you away onto the autoroute system via a chemical works and the usual untidy landscape of warehouses and freight yards, but it is worth exploring the town of Calais itself, which does retain the character of a fairly typical French town, with its impressive Town Hall (Hotel de Ville), markets and small shops.
And despite the disatrous exchange rate with the Euro there are still bargains to be had (especially on wine and spirits after the budget), ferry crossings are still cheap and the gallic atmosphere is free!
Fuel prices in France, now much the same as in the UK (except that Diesel remains cheaper) reflect the double impact of increasing oil costs and the poorer exchange rate:
Exchange rate £1.00 = € 1.2254 (as at 27 March 08)
Unleaded (sans plomb 95) € 1.345 = £1.10 per litre
Super unleaded (sans plomb 98) € 1.369 = £1.12 per litre
Diesel (gazole) € 1.2390 = £1.01 per litre.
The organic vineyard of Chateau Haut Garrigue in the village of Saussignac (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) near Bergerac has it all - a wonderful situation overlooking the Dordogne valley; a self-contained gite “The Grape Escape”, friendly English-speaking (well, Irish) hosts and a real opportunity to see and learn more about wine and wine-making (if that’s what you want!).
Allez Vins! used to import wines from this domaine when it was run by its previous owners, but now it is being run organically under the title “Wild Earth Vineyards” by the enthusiastic and innovative new owners, Sean and Caroline Feely.
The Grape Escape, our well-equipped 4-person gite (self-catering holiday house) is surrounded by organic vineyards and offers fabulous views across the Dordogne valley. It is semi-detached from the main farmhouse facing onto the courtyard on one side and onto the vines on the two sides built out over the vineyard.
As our guests, you are very welcome to spend time with us to learn about our wine and winemaking, taste our wines and perhaps even take part in vineyard or winery activity depending on the time of year and your energy!
No chance for me to taste their wine yet - they produce red, rosé and white Bergerac AC wines and semi-sweet and botytised dessert Saussignac AC wines. (If you want to try them they will be showing their wines at the Real Food Festival at Earls Court, London from 24-27 April 2008).
For more info on the gite, wines and other offerings contact Chateau Haut Garrigue
For those of us missing the essence of deepest France, the answer may be to indulge in some good wholesome French Food - particularly from the SouthWest of France, the source of goose, duck and foie gras. But for wholesome winter evenings nothing can beat the classic Cassoulet, originally from Castelnaudry (11 Aude, Languedoc). And in the heart of Nottingham there is a full-on French experience awaiting visitors to French Living (27 King Street, Nottingham, tel: 0115 958 5885) - a shop/cafe/restaurant also selling products of the South West - it all looks very French!
French Living was created in 1994 by Corsican/English partnership, Sephane and Louise Luiggi. The partnership also produced a book: Come to the Table: A Passion for Eating and French Living
Come to the Table is Louise Luiggi’s autobiography with recipes – it’s a story of two passions; love and food.
This is a deliciously romantic love story. Stéphane Luiggi, a brooding and darkly handsome Corsican meets fragile, blonde English girl, Louise, in the pink-bricked city of Toulouse – La Ville Rose. The couple discovers not only a passion for each other but they also begin to nurture a passion for food as Stéphane patiently tutors Louise in France’s culinary secrets. Food becomes the unusual yet evocative means of expressing the emotions that run through their story, as Louise and Stéphane’s life-experiences mirror the way it is depicted.
The Independent (9 March 08) recommends a number of other good French eateries in the UK which specialise in the dish, notably the Le Cassoulet Restaurant in SouthWest London (Croydon):
Malcolm John, chef/patron of the newly opened Le Cassoulet, hopes that Croydon is also waiting for its chance to dress up, drink Minervois and eat foie gras, escargot and 28-day-aged Chateaubriand… I find it physically and mentally impossible to see cassoulet on a menu and not order it….. It comes to the table in its own little lidded pot, complete with regulation crusty top, and a good mix of tender white beans, smoky sausage, shreddy, fall-apart duck, wibbly-wobbly pork confit and even bits of confit duck gizzard for good measure…… In the spirit of symbiosis, I choose a wine from the special list from south-west France and get a 2004 Domaine Berthomieu Madiran (£29) that is chunky, tannic, hard-working.
Le Cassoulet 18 Selsdon Road South Croydon CR2 6PA Tel 020 8633 1818
Other Cassouleteries include Comptoir Gascon in London’s Smithfield ( 63 Charterhouse Street,LondonEC1M 6HJ Tel: 020-7608 0851) and La Garrigue in Edinburgh (31 Jeffrey Street, Edinburgh EH1 1DH T: 0131 557 3032)
In the heart of Paris’ Left Bank, a British-owned and run Restaurant is one of only 5 new recipients of this prestigious award. “Le Restaurant” is part of “L’Hotel” which was voted Best City Hotel in the World by Harper’s Bazaar. Admittedly Le Restaurant does have a French Chef
Star chef Philippe Bélissent is the rising star of French cuisine. Formerly sous-chef at the three-star Michelin restaurant, Ledoyen in Paris, the precociously talented Bélissent quickly made Le Restaurant the hottest table in town confirmed by rapturous reviews in the French press.
The Michelin Red guide to France is published in French and English on 6 March 2008 and not only features those top restautants with Michelin stars but also offers 510 listings for restaurants where you can eat well for a more reasonable price i.e €28 or less in the provinces and €35 in Paris. I’ve always found the red Guide invaluable for finding my way around towns (lot of town maps) and for finding somewhere good to eat - and so often in France you cannot always tell the quality of a place by its location or external appearance. There are 435 one-star restaurants in France, 68 with two-star and 26 with three stars.
BBC2’s final of MasterChef 2008 (Thursday 28 Feb 2008) takes the finalists to work in some of France’s best restaurants.
The other challenges for the 3 finalists have included cooking at the London Hilton for a group of Professional Chefs with 17 Michelin stars between them, and cooking for the Army in the heat and humidity of Belize with very basic army equipment. Working in a French Michelin-starred restaurant will be the final challenge!
The restaurants and chefs chosen are recognised as amongst the best in the world, with exacting standards and extraordinary quality food:-
Interesting that 2 of these top restaurants are not in Paris but deep in the French countryside - very provincial and some distance from major centres of population - the French will travel long distances for a good meal!
If you are interested in French cuisine, have a read of Michael Booth’s entertaining book Sacre Cordon Bleu
Booth shares with us the secrets of his training at Le Cordon Bleu and of French cooking itself, explaining how to make the perfect sauce; the secret of great stocks; how to win a fight with a lobster; and how to avoid maiming yourself while cleaning your knives. He explores how France rose to culinary pre-eminence and asks if Paris still deserves its reputation as the culinary capital of the world. Following both traumas and unexpected triumphs at school, Booth embarks on the ultimate chef’s challenge, he goes to work at the Michelin-starred Paris restaurant of the most famous chef in France, Joel Robuchon.
You’ll learn a lot about the French and their approach to food.
