French food has been the subject of many a book, article,
movie, conversation. When we think of haute cuisine, we think of French
cooking—cream, fresh vegetables, fresh fish, farm-raised veal, rabbit, cassoulet, escargots, cuisse de grenouille
(frog’s legs), innards of all kinds, fragrant and crunchy bread, fine wine,
delicate herbs and spices, an unimaginable array of cheeses, and desserts that
send the common man into fits of ecstasy and doctors of the common man into
just plain fits. Cooking schools even use French words for much of their
instruction, including cuts of vegetables and meat, tools, cooking methods; and
even the word “chef” is French. Imagine our anticipation before arriving in
France knowing what we would find in the way of nourishment.
France does not disappoint.
We’ve had some memorable meals while here. Several occurred in the southeast
France. In Nîmes, located in
Languedoc-Roussillon, our entrée
(first course) was a velouté de courgette (squash)—a thick and
creamy soup made of winter squash, which was in season and very popular in the
markets and on sale in the countryside, and cream, of course. The rest of the meal was good, but the velouté was, as I
said, memorable. In Les Baux, in Provençe,
we had another velouté, this time velouté
des champignons
(mushrooms)—always, it seems, in season.
Also in Les Baux, we were seated outside on the terrace with a view
overlooking the valley below Les Baux, which sits atop a mountain of bauxite. (Bauxite takes its name from the town.) That made everything just a little more delectable.
In the Provençal town of Cereste, we had a wonderful lunch above street
level in a restaurant called La Pastoral. We sat at a table next to a window, the sill
upon which slept a sweet cat we couldn’t resist petting. Our entrées
were lovely to look at and delicious on the palate. One was chèvre
(goat cheese) wrapped in paper thin strips of zucchini with the same paper
thin strips threaded through the cheese.
Another was salade de caille (quail)
with an always-lovely and creamy vinaigrette.
It was here that we first had physalis,
a member of the deadly nightshade family, and sometimes called cape
gooseberries or groundcherries. It adds
a lovely citrus-y flavor to both sweet and savory food and a certain stylish
presentation with its beautiful orange-yellow color. It’s the same size and shape as a cherry
tomato and always comes accompanied by its leafy wrapping—much like a tomatillo
husk.
We stopped for lunch in Ascain, a Basque village between St.
Jean de Luz (on the Atlantic coast) and La Rhune (the mountain that can be seen
from as far away as Hossegor and that has a tram in the warmer months that
takes you to the top sitting right on the border with Spain. La
Terrace was just that—a terrace. The
only part of the restaurant that was behind solid walls was the kitchen (a
large galley kitchen) and the bathroom.
It was cold and windy outside, so we were grateful for the serious
plastic covering that hung down on all sides and zipped up at the entrance along
with the propane heater. La formule
(special menu for the day) offered two things:
l’agneau (lamb) and le merlu (barricuda). Though I’m not much of a red meat eater, and
don’t much like lamb anyway, when in France, I eat food that the French enjoy
as I figure there’s a reason they eat it.
The entrée for this meal was salade
de chevre and it did not disappoint.
This is a green salad, lightly dressed with vinaigrette topped with thin
slices of toasted baguette topped with melted goat cheese. An auspicious beginning, it was
delicious. The salad was followed by the
lamb, which was cooked to perfection; and while I won’t make a habit of it, I’m
glad I had it.
In Cogolin, a small town between St. Tropez and the hilltop
town of Grimaud, we stopped to look for a restaurant that had been recommended
in one of the guide books only to find that the prices were far beyond our expectations. We went in search of another and stumbled
across a crowded restaurant facing the central plaza where the weekly market
was being dismantled. As we entered the restaurant,
I had a hankering for pizza. While
waiting to order, we watched the wait staff pass by our table with plates of paella, which were difficult to
ignore. So when the waitress asked us
what we wanted, it was a chorus of paella. As it turned out, the paella was stupendous.
Lovely fat moules (mussels),
huge crevettes (shrimp), perfectly
cooked chicken and saffron-flavored rice with just the right consistency. Lip smacking.
In the last few weeks, menus have offered brochettes de canard (duck kebabs),
which include duck heart and liver and sometimes a piece of duck breast. Another item I wouldn’t usually order, I
applied the same rule as described above (If it’s offered, there must be
something to it.). And once again, in the
Landes town of Capbreton, I was glad I did. My only regret is that the farm raising geese
and ducks that we pass daily has had a markedly dwindling supply of live
critters and I hope one of them wasn’t threaded onto my skewer.
And finally, on the savory side, I’ve enjoyed moules frites (mussels with fries) in at
least three corners of France. Mussels are
standard on most menus for a reason—they’re wonderful—cooked in white wine with
shallots and parsley. I still remember
my first moules frites in Arromanche
on the Normandy coast many years ago. I
highly recommend it.
Un Paris-Brest |
As to desserts, I can’t do them justice as there are so many
and they are so varied according to the whims of each patissier (pastry chef). My
personal favorites are the humble tartalette
aux framboises (raspberry tart), le tarte
au citron (lemon tart) and le Paris-Brest
named for the bicycle race whose route goes from Paris to Brest and
return. The raspberry tart needs little
explanation but to say that the raspberries are always full of flavor
and sitting atop a lovely crème patissière (pastry cream) and nestled in a
round of delicious and simple pastry. In
France they are ubiquitous and I’m grateful for that. I am of the opinion that anything made of
lemon is tops, and le tarte au citron is
right up there. The Paris-Brest
is a circle of pâte à
choux (puff pastry) in the shape of a bicycle wheel cut in half and filled
with crème mousseline pralinée that is garnished with almonds.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you. Now go eat your spinach.
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