The Cité du Vin stands beside the Garonne River in the Bacalan district. The tall building has been described in so many different ways. To some it looks like a sailing vessel; to others a lookout post, or a lighthouse. Or how about the coiled growth of a vine, or wine poured into a decanter?

Whatever you may think of the building, there’s no doubt about its importance. Not only is it an inspiring place to learn more about wine and enjoy tastings, it’s been given one of those designations that the French so delight in (and let’s face it, they do so well). It’s part of Make it Iconic. Choose France campaign, along with the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame-de-Paris and Mont-Saint-Michel.

Cité du Vin was started in 2008 and opened in 2016. Its completion marked the beginning of a huge expansion of the Bacalan area, the formal commercial port. It’s now a vibrant and exciting part of Bordeaux.  

The Permanent Exhibition

Once you’re past the ground floor, with its shop, wine shop, conference space, The Latitude Brasserie and café, terrace, gardens, tickets and restrooms, you go up to the exhibition. It’s beautifully designed with spaces that meld into each other, separated by tall wooden columns that whisper to you of a cathedral, or a wooden wine bottle.

The Story Begins

Huge screens fill the the initial Vineyards of the World space with spectacular images. Landscapes vary from Tahiti to the slopes of Mount Fuji. You learn a lot on the way: in the Moselle Valley vines are planted on very steep slopes to get the most of the sun; in Santorini they train canes of vines into wreaths to protect the grapes from the harsh sandy winds of the island. The vines of Mendoza, at the foot of the Andes in Argentina, capture the water that runs down from the glaciers; Finland is the most northerly country producing wines.

The Winemaker

This section is for those interested in the process. Even I, not so much interested in this, lingered over the terroirs that produce different flavours and the year in the life of a winemaker, which according to the poetic captions…’means living to the rhythm of the plant’s growth…trembling before the vagaries of the weather. Will June rain destroy the flowers? Will it bring disease?…It also means pruning, pulling away the canes, pruning again, attaching, debudding…’ and so on.
You come out feeling nothing but admiration for the winemakers.

Through the Ages

The Gallery of Civilisations is where I lost myself and spent the most time. Wine has been part of humankind’s life since 6,000 B.C. but the story really begins with the ancient Greeks. The gallery covers thousands of years in a few galleries and does it with style and humour.

‘There is no moment more delightful in life than that when guests, sitting around a well-laden table, lend their ears to a minstrel while the cup-bearer, drawing wine from an amphora, fills every cup!’ And there you have it – Homer in 8 B.C.

You’re taken through the taverns of Pompeii (particularly debauched), into the world of the ‘heavenly wines of the Pharoahs’ who took wine into the afterlife, to the first wines mixed with sea water (courtesy of the Greeks), medieval wines ‘as clear as an eye’ to Pasteur whose research into the fermentation of wine and its effects made him the progenitor of modern oenology.

Stories are told in this series of delightful small rooms with pictures and quotes. As Galileo wrote: ‘Wine is the sunlight held together by water’.

The Art of Living

Here you get all sorts of fun things to do, like sniffing different smells and trying to identify them. And listening to what the great and the good, and sometimes the pompous and the mad, have said about wine with more videos and clips from films that feature wine.

‘A real connoisseur does not drink a wine but tastes its secrets.’ Salvador Dali (1904-1989).

I particularly like the quote by Nikoloz Doborjinidze, founder of Georgia’s Space Research Agency in 2019: ‘Our ancestors brought wine to Earth so we can now do the same to Mars’.

You look at maps, and realise that in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and many international vineyards are mainly located along waterways. It’s partly because water tempers the harshest weather but mainly because of navigation. Until railways took over in the 19^th century, rivers and canals offered the best way to get your wine to market.

Guide to Bordeaux Wines

And of course there is a large, fascinating section about the wines of Bordeaux. The section takes you out of the city into the great surrounding wine-growing regions of Médoc, Graves and Sauternes, Blaye and Bourg, Saint-Emilion Pomerol and Fronsac, and Entre-Deux-Mers.

Via Sensoria

The prospect of an immersive wine tour where ‘sensory experiences and tastings meet in the heart of unique dreamlike spaces…’ filled me with dread. In typical French hyperbole, Via Sensoria promises stimulating the senses, a physical and emotional transition. And to get to the pre-booked experience, I had to give up seeing more of the permanent exhibition which I was hugely enjoying.

So I was delighted when the Via Sensoria turned out to be fascinating…and different. Our small group was taken into the space by the sommelier. We sat down, gentle lights came on and images filled the space we had been ushered into. My shoulders relaxed and I felt cautious optimism.

The sommelier takes you through four seasonal pavilions. Each one has a different seating and mood; each is decorated with glass panels depicting the season you are in. At each season, there’s a brief description from the sommelier as we do the tasting.  

Spring gives you ducklings, fresh buds, rising sap, the sun rising and… a lovely yellow Sauvignon Blanc with a whisper of fresh grass. This wine is from the Loire where the lack of water leads to the roots going deep down. There’s a touch of grapefruit in the taste.

Summer brings a wine which is served in black glasses so you have to use your nose not your eyes. It’s a Clairet from Bordeaux, half way between a deep rosé and light red. It’s light and fresh with hints of strawberry and blackcurrant.

Autumn takes you to Georgia where wine is stored in big terracotta barrels. The pavilion evokes the wind blowing, the trees stripped of their leaves, and harvest. The wine, made from the Saperavi grape variety is rich; and we also taste a cassis syrup of blackcurrant berries.

A little autumn wind has come to whisper
languid rustlings in the ear of summer
He came blowing through the trees first
September is here, he can do as he pleases.

French author and AI expert, Nami Moukheiber.

Winter and we enter the fourth and final space with winter images, Northern lights, kids in warm clothes. And we were served a honeyed Hungarian Tokay that took us straight to warm firesides and dark chocolate after a day in the snowy landscape.

It is the shortest day
Counting down
until the twilight
That comes a little too early…
It’s the hemisphere tilting
And shredding its skin…

As you can see, I was thoroughly seduced and taken over by the experience and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Food and drink at the Cité du Vin

Brasserie Latitude20, a wine and snack bar is on the ground floor; it’s ideal for lunch, drink or dinner.  It has a top wine list reasonably priced.
Lunch Mon-Fri: Starters €9-€21; mains €21-€26; desserts ; cheese €12
Wine Bar: Sun-Wed: 3pm to 7pm Thurs-Sat: 3pm-10pm
Boards of different charcuterie, or smoked salmon: €9-€28
2-course lunch €22,50, 3 courses €27.50
Open: The Snack bar: everyday from 10am to 5pm
The Brasserie: everyday from 12pm to 3pm
The Wine bar: Sunday to Wednesday from 3pm to 7pm and Thursday to Saturday from 3pm to 10pm.
Tel: +33 (0) 5 64 31 0550

Le 7 looks out from the 7th floor and offers cooking as spectacular as the view. This is a restaurant for serious dining.
A la carte: Starters from €21 to €25; mains from €31 to €37; desserts from €10 to €16.
Mon-Fri lunch menu starter and main €32; 5 course dinner menu €70; childrens menu 3 courses €16 (free on Wednesday except school holidays).
Open: Every day from 10am to 11am for breakfast (by reservation)
Lunch Mon-Sat 12pm-3pm; Sun 12pm-4pm
Sweet snacks: Mon, Tues, Sun 3pm,-4pm; Wed-Sat 3pm-7pm
Dinner Wed-Sat from 7pm-9.30pm (last orders 9.30pm)
Tel: +33 (0)5 64 31 05 40

The Belvédère. On the 8^th floor of the Cité du Vin, the Belvédère offers a 360 degree view of Bordeaux along with tasting one, or several, of the many wines stocked here. Buy a ticket here.

More Information

Cité du Vin
134 Quai de Bacalan,
33300 Bordeaux
Website
Opening hours and Ticket prices

How to get there

By Tram line B: The nearest tram stop, La Cité du Vin, is a 2-minute walkBordeaux Tourist Office

By Bus: Bus 7, 25, 27 to La Cité du Vin

By Car: There is paid parking nearby.

The Bordeaux Tourist Office can help with all your queries, from hotel bookings to guided tours.
12 cours du XXX juillet
33080 Bordeaux
+33(0) 5 56 00 66 00
Website
Open Monday to Saturday 9am to 6pm; Sunday and public holidays 10am-5pm

Guide to Glorious Bordeaux

Getting to Bordeaux

From Paris by train: The TGV is direct and takes 3 hours from Paris.
From the UK: By plane: BA, Easyjet and AirFrance fly from London and regional cities to Bordeaux.

Take the tram from the airport to city centre

Getting around Bordeaux

The city centre is very walkable with pedestrian areas throughout. The tram system runs throughout Bordeaux, using a unique ground power system so you’re not distracted by overhead wires. It runs from 5am to midnight or 1 a.m. depending on the day. There are regular buses.
Bordeaux Tourism website

More about the Bordeaux Region

The French Atlantic Coast
The Glorious Vendée Department

AND...
Great Rivers of France
Food Festivals of France

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This year Hauts-de-France has won the European Region of Gastronomy Award. It’s awarded by a body called the International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism. The IGCAT (rather long winded but it does cover everything) picks a European country/region each year.

No surprises that it’s been awarded to France. But the region? Not one you might expect…not Provence, nor Normandy, nor Burgundy (Lyons must be gutted), nor the south west but…northern France! The Hauts-de-France win of the European Region of Gastronomy Award for 2023 has surprised everyone…except those who happen to live in the Nord, Pas de Calais and Picardy.

Winning the award is great news for anyone travelling from the UK. It’s on our doorstep.

About the Hauts-de-France European Gastronomy Award

The award highlights regions which promote the art of eating well. But it’s also about sustainability and meeting economic, ecological and social challenges. The Institute is a slow food and bio diversity advocate, formed in 2012 as a non-profit international organisation.

The award is very much about supporting local producers, farmers, cheese makers, winemakers and more. And Hauts-de-France won the European Award for the support, and for its products, traditional regional cooking, specialities and innovation. As the IGCAT put it: “producers and chefs put local, homemade and seasonal produce on the menu, with all the generosity of the ‘people of the North’”. This also reduces food miles, a key concern of the French.

The candidacy was led by Alexandre Gauthier, the 2-Michelin star chef of La Grenouillère in La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil along with a collective of 9 members.

A Delighted Hauts-de-France wins European Gastronomy Award

 The region’s response to the Award:

“Hauts-de-France is more like a hidden jewel, just like one of its most iconic food products, the endive, also called the ‘Pearl of the North’. Our gastronomy is alive, full of taste and authenticity. It is bitter, sweet and smoked; its incomparable flavours reflect nature with our coastline, great plains, fields and orchards, forming a fundamental part of what we offer visitors.”

Food of Hauts-de-France

Gastronomy in Hauts-de-France is full of surprises.

Did you know that the region is the world’s largest producer of endives, and Europe’s largest potato producer?

That Boulogne is France’s biggest fishing port with a fleet of around 100 working fishing boats catching over seventy species of fish a day?

That Saint-Omer is the French capital of summer cauliflowers?

That the region produces the country’s biggest selection of cheeses with more than 200 varieties. Buy them at specialist cheese shops like those owned by Philippe Olivier?

That 10% of France’s champagne is produced here?!

And that’s just for starters.

A Surprisingly Long History

During the Roman era, hams made in Cassel were exported to Italy and sold in Rome.

Beer was first produced around Valenciennes by the Celts who made cervoise. Then the medieval monks, knowing a thing or two about good living, took over. Beer was flavoured with gruyt (aromatic herbs) grown in the monastery gardens before hops were introduced. In the early 1900s there were around 2,000 breweries in Hauts-de-France. Today there may only be around 150 breweries, but they make up more than half of all breweries in France.  

Chantilly cream was invented in Hauts-de-France in 1671.

Top Restaurants in Hauts-de-France

There are 16 Michelin-starred restaurants, 2 of them with 2 Michelin stars and the others with 1 star. Also look out for a wide variety of local restaurants, from estaminets which have Flemish connections, to small bistros, plus a lot of fish and seafood restaurants.

Best Restaurants in Hauts-de-France

Visit the Food Producers

Cheese farms, chocolate makers, endive specialists and more offer visits where you can see and learn how each speciality is produced.

Take a Cookery Lesson

Learn how to cook fish in Boulogne, chicken in Arras and that famous whipped cream in Chantilly.  

All this and more has led to the Hauts-de-France official European Region of Gastronomy Award.

Here’s my article about the Food of Hauts-de-France.

More Information on the Region

How to get to Hauts-de-France

Tourist Offices

Hauts-de-France Tourism
Nord Department Tourism
Pas de Calais Tourism
Picardy Tourism

Regions of France
French Departments

Food in France

The Food of France – An Intriguing Story

The photograph at the top of the article is of Le Cerisier, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Lille.

The post Hauts-de-France wins European Gastronomy Award appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

Winning the European Region of Gastronomy Award for 2023 has put the food of Hauts-de-France on the map. This surprising region produces a real feast of local ingredients as well as beer, and yes, champagne. So what can you look forward to?

Some Surprising Facts

Hauts-de-France is the biggest agricultural region producing cereals and vegetables like soft wheat and sugar beets. It’s the world’s largest producer of endives, and Europe’s largest potato producer. The region is also a heavyweight player in the general agri-food industry.

And in case you aren’t convinced, the region produces 10% of French milk.

A Glorious Countryside of Contrasts

Orchards and market gardens in the Baie de Somme estuary and the marshes of Picardy grow fruit and vegetables. Shop locally for cauliflower from Saint-Omer, carrots from Tilques, leeks from Leblond, chicory from the Nord’s former quarries, beans from Soissons, lentils from Picardy, garlic from Locon, artichokes from Laon and rattes (potatoes) from Le Touquet.

Visit the Producers of the Food of Hauts-de-France

Ask at the local tourist office for producers you can visit.

For endives (chicon) visit La Ferme aux Chiconnettes in Achiet le Petit. Here you can buy confit of endives, jam, and other products you would never associate with the vegetable if like me, you eat it only as a gratin of braised endive wrapped in ham, backed in a bechamel sauce and sprinkled with cheese. They are sometimes closed so telephone first to check. Tel: +44 ())3 21 23 69 14.

Take a boat trip through the Audomarois Marshes in Clairmarais near Saint-Omer where small market gardens sell from the banks of the canals. I bought the best cauliflower I have ever tasted from one such.

Top Markets to Visit in Hauts-de-France

You’ll find the best food of Hauts-de-France in these markets.

Lille, Nord

The Marché de Wazemmes is one of France’s biggest selling every kind of fruit and vegetables, as well as charcuterie, cheeses and olives. Shop in the surrounding streets for Tunisian food.

Check out all the food markets, indoors and outdoors, in Lille.

Amiens, Picardy

On Saturday mornings, Amiens holds a large outdoor market in Place Parmentier where fresh vegetables grown in the market gardens of the nearby hortillonnages marshes are sold. Plus fresh seafood from the Baie de Somme.

Visit Les Halles du Beffroi for regional producers. It’s particularly good for local cheeses.

Boulogne, Pas de Calais

Boulogne is France’s top fishing port so not surprisingly here is where to buy the delights of the sea. The daily fish market on Quai Gambetta sells just-landed fish and seafood, crab, lobster, langoustines, scallops and more.
On Wed and Sat morning Place Dalton has an outdoor local food market.
Boulogne’s Markets

Montreuil-sur-Mer, Pas de Calais

Saturday morning on Place-de-Gaulle square, great organic local food is on sale. As Montreuil is very much a foodie destination, the quality and variety is astonishing.
check here for markets in and around Montreuil-sur-Mer

Dunkirk, Pas de Calais

Place de Gaulle has a seasonal fruit and vegetable market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Check here for markets in and around Dunkirk.

Saint-Omer, Pas de Calais

On Saturday mornings, make for the large market on the Grand Place (Place du Marechal Foch). Much of the local produce comes from the nearby marshes where small market gardeners produce great seasonal variety. Saint-Omer is the French capital of summer cauliflower so buy yours here.
Check here for markets in and around Saint-Omer.

Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Picardy

Make for the market on a Sunday for the freshest local fruit and veg. It’s in the Place des Pilotes.
More about the Somme.

Food of Hauts-de-France: Cheeses

Here’s another surprise: Hauts-de-France has the country’s biggest selection of cheeses with more than 200 varieties. Here are a few to look out for.

Abbaye de Belval is a traditional French cheese, also called Belval or Le Trappiste de Belval. Produced in Pas de Calais at Troisvaux by Trappist sisters, it’s made from raw cow’s milk and matures for 60 days. Once produced in the Belval Abbey, today the Trappist sisters have moved to another abbey though they still continue to produce the cheese. A semi-soft cheese with a subtle flavour washed in brine, there’s also Le Belval Bière Blonde, washed in blonde ale, and Le Belval Bière Brune, washed in brown ale. 

Abbaye du Mont des Cats is produced by monks in their monastery in Godewaersvelde. Made with pasteurized cow’s milk, it matures for at least a month while being washed with brine and dyed with roucou – a natural dye derived from annatto shrub. It’s salty, milky and hay-like.

Boulette d’Avesnes is made from cow’s milk and is conical in shape. Flavoured with tarragon, cloves, parsley, and pepper with its rind traditionally washed with beer it’s a stinky cheese with a strong taste.  

Chaud biloute is a traditional French cow’s milk cheese made in Saint-Aubin in the Nord department and sold in a wooden box. After 4 weeks of maturation in cellars, it’s ready for consumption. It’s a good cheese for a starter – put it in the oven for a few minutes so it’s runny and serve with crusty bread.

Gris de Lille (also known as Puant de Lille, Vieux Lille, and Puant Macere, ie stinking pickle) is another very pungent, semi-soft cheese produced from Nord-Pas de Calais and derived from Maroilles. The cheese is made with cow’s milk, and it is washed in brine for three months. Produced in square blocks, traditionally it was taken down the pits by the northern miners.

Maroilles is a soft cow’s milk cheese with a nutty, mushroom-like flavour – and a pungent smell (it’s affectionally called ‘old stinker’). Maroilles was first produced by monks in Nord-Pas de Calais and Aisne in the 10^th century (those monks knew a thing or two about good living). It’s matured for at least 35 days and is shaped into a square.

Historically it was produced by local farmers on June 24, Saint Jean Baptiste’s day. They then donated the aged cheeses to the Abbey for the monks to distribute to the Champagne grape harvesters. October 1 is still known as Maroilles Day in the region.
Try tarte au maroilles, a tart with shortcrust pastry base and a filling of Maroilles cheese and crème fraîche, butter, eggs, salt, and pepper.

Mimolette is a semi-hard cow’s milk cheese originating around Lille where it’s called a boule de Lille. This orange-coloured cheese is aged from 2 months (when it tastes like Parmesan). When aged for up to 2 years (extra-vieille) it has a hard skin which comes from cheese mites added to the skin for extra flavour.  

Visit a Cheese Producer

Spend 15 minutes at La Fromagerie Sainte Godeline (Les Frères Bernard) watching artisanal cheese makers. Then taste and stock up on their varieties to take home. The fromagerie is very near Calais.

La Finarde Cheese Caves in Arras has tastings in the Arras citadelle of cheeses from France and the Netherlands. They also have a stand in the Arras food market on Wednesday and Saturdays.

La Halte d’Autrefois, owned and run by Valerie Magniez, is a well known goat farm producing organic cheeses and bread made with goat’s milk. Near Montreuil, it makes a good family visit. You can milk the goats while your children can pet the animals then learn how the cheese is made.

Food of Hauts-de-France: Fish and Shellfish

Boulogne-sur-mer, France’s largest fishing port, has a fleet of around 100 working fishing boats catching over seventy species of fish a day. It leads Europe in seafood processing, for instance canning herrings to export to Norway.

If you’re in Boulogne and fancy a treat, book a meal at La Matelote hotel/restaurant where the Lestienne family offer a Lobster Menu using the freshest just-caught fish. If you’re a group of 5 or more people, you can book a cookery lesson here.

In the port area (Capécure), make for Le Châtillon where the fish is flappingly fresh. Originally a restaurant for sailors and dock workers, it’s owned by an ex-fishmonger who handpicks the ingredients, and offers top, very good value dishes.

Hauts-de-France Special Dishes

Like every French region, Hauts-de-France has its own specialities. So try these when you can for some great new tastes.

Flamiche: a traditional pie with chopped leeks, butter and crème fraiche which resembles a quiche. Some cooks add bacon, nutmeg and other vegetables. It dates back to the late 18^th century.

The Welsh (Welsh complet) is north France’s answer to the Welsh rarebit. It’s made with cheese cooked in boiling beer which is then poured over a slice of toast and ham. When it’s golden a fried egg is added on top.

Coquillade de la baie de Somme is a kind of chowder made with scallops, potatoes, onions, carrots, fish or vegetable stock and olive oil. The vegetables are simmered until tender then the scallops are added last.

Ficelle picarde or Picardy string is a savoury pancake filled with ham, cheese and mushrooms.

Carbonade Flamande is one of north France’s most famous, and popular, dishes. Adopted  from Belgium it’s made from beef, onions, beer and soft brown sugar.

Andouillettes are definitely an acquired, and strong, taste. The coarse-grained sausage is made using tripe (pork lower intestines) and wrapped in the pig’s colon (chitterlings). It’s cooked with wine, onions, pepper and seasonings. BUT do not fear: andouillettes from Cambrai can be made with veal.

Waterzoï is well worth trying. Adopted from Flanders, it’s a kind of bouillabaisse fish stew made of various kinds of fish and cooked in a pot. So eel, pike, carp and bass as well as cod and monkfish (in fact any kind of fish that is to hand) can end up in the pot.

Eel is another unusual type of fish used in northern France cooking. It can be roasted or cooked with butter, cream and fresh herbs (anguille au vert à la Flamande). Do try it if you can; it’s sweet and quite delicious.

Salt marsh lamb. Try this delicious lamb raised in the Somme bay in Picardy. The animals are reared on meadows which are regularly flooded by tidal waters between March and December. The sea grasses give the meat its own particular flavour. Salt marsh lamb is on sale between July and January.

Food of Hauts-de-France for those with a Sweet Tooth

Bêtises de Cambrai are French boiled sweets made in Cambrai. Bêtise means a stupid mistake so it’s claimed that they were invented by accident. Originally mint, flavours now include apple, chocolate, cherry, lemon, anis and more. They’re individually wrapped in cellophane and usually packed in boxes. Two confectioners claim to be the original inventors: Afchain and Despinoy.

Gauffre fourrée are waffles filled with butter and sugar, flavoured with vanilla or rum. Buy them at the famous Chez Meert in Lille, a beautiful shop and Art Deco tearoom dating back to 1909.

Palets de dame. Buy these crisp, buttery cookies in any pâtisserie. Traditionally covered with apricot jam and lemon-flavoured icing sugar, some are flavoured with rum, vanilla, or aniseed.

Chantilly Cream. This sweet, whipped cream is found everywhere in almost every restaurant in France. It comes from Chantilly (of course), in the Oise department, probably best known for its château.

It was invented in 1671 when King Louis XIV visited the Château de Chantilly, owned by the great princely general, Louis II de Bourbon-Condé who told his pastry chef, François Vatel, to organise the reception. But Sacré Bleu! He ran out of cream. Being a pastry chef of genius, he decided to whip the cream as hard as he could to give it volume. It was a triumph and Chantilly cream was born. Or so the story goes.

Most of us come across Chantilly cream in artificial form. But it’s a wonderful home-made cream. If you want to learn how to make it, book a lesson at the Atelier de la Chantilly, in Chantilly.  

Macarons Maison Jean Trogneux in Amiens has been making macaroons since 1872. Brought to France from her native Italy by Catherine de’Medici when she arrived in France in 1533 to marry the King, these are crispy outside and tender inside and are made of almond paste, sugar, honey, eggs and vanilla. They are a far cry from the oversweet (to my taste), garishly coloured macarons that have been made famous by Ladurée.

Chocoholics should look out for Beussent Lachelle chocolates, made in their factory in Beussent which you can visit. They  have shops all over northern France and grow their own beans in Ecuador.

What to Drink in Hauts-de-France?

Well beer of course. More than half of France’s breweries are based in Northern France. So if you’re a beer fan, this is the region to make for. Every variety of beer is here. If you’re visiting, ask at the local tourist office for breweries and for brewery tours. Some have excellent restaurants attached.

Some of the best known names are Brasserie Goudale, Brasserie Castelain and Brasserie Saint-Germain.

Look out for Bière de Garde from French Flanders. A traditional farmhouse ale it was brewed during the winter and stored until spring and summer. Beers in this category range in colour and are classified as blonde (gold), to classic amber (ambrée or copper), to brown (brune, dark brown). One of the best is Anostoké from Brasserie du Pays Flamand. Also try Brasserie Duyck’s Jenlain Bière de Garde.

Brewery Treats

Try the Vivat flagship brewery where beer is brewed in an old Benedictine abbey. Sold after the French Revolution, it expanded in 1910 when a new brick brewery was built. It continued producing beer until 1926. In 2000 the factory was restored and beer was brewed once again. You can see the old equipment, then eat and drink in the brasserie.

Book a beer treasure hunt in Lille with L’Echappée Bière every Saturday afternoon. It costs €70 per person but includes the tour, lunch and blind tastings in various different bars.

The Thiriez hop farm and brewery in Esquelbecq offers an hour-long tour with a tasting at the end. They also have 2 chambre d’hotes rooms if you want to stay. €55 and €60 per night for a double room.

Champagne

Another surprise as the region produces around 10% of all French champagne. It’s produced in the Aisne department that sits beside Champagne. The vineyards are in the Marne river valley. Visit some of the best known: Champagne Météyer in Trélou-sur-Marne established in 1860, Champagne Pannier in Château-Thierry and Leveque Dehan in Barzy-sur-Marne.

Wines from the Slag Heaps

Go to the vine-covered Pas de Calais slag heap (terril) in Haillicourt near Bruay-la Buissière. Who would have thought that a slag heap from former mines would be planted with Chardonnay vines? Fittingly, the vigneron has dubbed his crisp white wine not chardonnay but Le Charbonnay – a pun on the French for coal, charbon.

Where to Buy Beer, Wine and Champagne

There are many outlets and supermarkets for buying your particular tipple. I always go to Calais Vins near Calais. They have a huge range, are knowledgeable, speak English, ask what your favourites are, and give wine tastings. And you can now claim VAT back on purchases very easily as the staff take care of the paper work. Check out my article on Calais Vins VAT reclaim.

Cook with the Professionals in Hauts-de-France

If you want to learn how to use the local food of Hauts-de-France, head to the stunning town of Arras for a lesson with chef Gabriel Asseman of L’Oeuf ou La Poule (The Egg or the Chicken). On Wednesdays and Saturdays you start with a visit to the market to buy the ingredients you then cook back at the restaurant. There’s a wine pairing with wines from a local merchant.

Book at the Lille L’Atelier des Chefs, a company with cooking schools in different French cities. They have a wide range of classes, including cooking with families.

Learn French baking secrets from pastry chef Eric Chabot-Smyth who has produced delectable desserts in top restaurants around the world. He’s at Les Myrophorres in Abbeville.

Where to Eat in Hauts-de-France

There are 16 Michelin-starred chefs in Hauts-de-France. But don’t forget the restaurants with a bib gourmand (good value), and the local estaminets which are good bistro-style restaurants often with a Flemish twist.

The two best places for eating well are Lille and Montreuil-sur-Mer. Calais (one of my favourite cities) also has some good and very enjoyable restaurants.

More on where to eat in my article on Best Restaurants in Northern France.

More Information on the Region

How to get to Hauts-de-France

Tourist Offices

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Food in France

The Food of France – An Intriguing Story
The Food of Provence
The Food in Burgundy
The Best Regional French Food
Top Food Festivals in France

The Art of Cuisine of Toulouse-Lautrec great cook and artist who loved to entertain friends to his meals

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Galette des Rois (Cake of Kings) is as much as part of Christmas in France as the freshest seafood, roast turkey or goose and bubbly. This delightful cake, eaten on January 6th, the Feast of Epiphany, has a long history.

Let’s start with Epiphany

Epiphany, also known as Twelfth Night, Three Kings’ Day or the Feast of Epiphany falls on January 6^th.  It’s one of the oldest Christian feasts, dating back to the end of the second century. But like many Christian traditions, its origins are up for discussion.

There are several differences about Epiphany. Orthodox and eastern Christians celebrate it as the day of Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist in the waters of the river Jordan; the catholic church and Western Christians believe it was the day when the three kings (or Magi or wise men) visited the Christ child in Bethlehem.

Various symbols signify the feast: the star that guided the wise men to Christ and their gifts: gold for a king; frankincense for worship, and bitter myrrh used as anointing oil.

More events in January 2021

The French Galette des Rois

The tradition of the galette des rois, or King Cake has existed in France since the 14th century. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries there was plenty of protest against this custom that was deemed to be pagan. Then the French accepted that and from the 17^th century to the second decade of the 1900s, King Cakes became the norm, found in every decent pâtisserie.

In January the bakeries and pâtisseries are filled with Galette des Rois. It’s a universal custom with more than 32 million galettes des rois eaten every year in France.

This being France, of course different regions bake different cake styles. In the north it’s a flat puff pastry cake filled with frangipane; in the south galettes are brioche rings decorated with glace fruit.

What’s inside is the whole point

Tradition dictates that the galette holds a fève, a dried bean though that’s been modified.

Around 1870 different figurines made of porcelain replaced the beans. Today you might find them made of plastic and in all kinds of different shapes from baby Jesus to a favorite figure or even a shoe.

Chic Galettes (This is France)

The humble galette des rois has even become something of a fashion symbol. It started in 1991 when Christian Lacroix designed seven hearts for the famous Parisian patissier Gaston Lenôtre (1920-2009). It set the trend with top designers like Yves St Laurent and Sonia Rykiel bringing their talents to bear on the tiny trinkets.

The top Parisian names make a different one each year; the 2021 Ladurée cake contains hazelnut almond cream and milk chocolate chunks. It will satisfy 6 people and costs a whopping €45 but it will make your reputation as a true French foodie (or a bit of a snob).

The Galette des Rois Ceremony

The ceremony is simple. The youngest child hides under the table and calls out the names of whoever is to get the next piece of cake, making the selection of the winner completely random. Whoever finds the bean(or whatever item is baked into the cake) becomes king or queen for the day, puts on a paper hat and can choose their partner.

Some households follow the tradition that the person getting the bean becomes king or queen for the whole day, which is a far better deal.

Fun Facts about the Galette des Rois

During the French Revolution the name was changed to “Gâteau de l’égalité”. Quite right and proper. The word ‘King’ was forbidden and anyway who would want it? those were the days when kings and queens had their heads chopped off.

The French President has a galette des rois but isn’t allowed to “draw the king” on Epiphany. Entirely inappropriate for a King to be crowned in the President’s Elysée Palace! So an enormous traditional galette with no figurine or paper crows arrives for the President and his guests.

More about Christmas and Food

How the French celebrate Christmas – from Dec 6th, the Feast of St Nicolas to Jan 6th, Epiphany.

French Christmas food – a real grande bouffe!

And if you’re interested in food…

Food Festivals in France

The intriguing story of the Food of France

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French Christmas food has to be seen, and experienced, to be believed. The supremely gourmet nation pushes the boat out over the festive season, providing one lavish meal on Christmas Eve. As much of the meal takes place after midnight, it does extend into Christmas Day.

Most people don’t get this kind of table! It’s at Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Paris, which puts on a splendid show leading up to the festival season.

The Christmas meal is the most important one of the whole French year, and a mighty grande bouffe it is.

If you’re invited to one, here’s what to expect. My first was in the Auvergne with friends who run a spectacular chambre d’hôte. It started at 7.30pm and went on into the small hours as dish after dish appeared on an already groaning table. The impromptu dancing around 1am helped the digestion but not my head the next morning.

Special French Christmas Food

You might not get all of these French Christmas foods, but some of them will certainly be on offer.

Caviar

This is traditional, and there’s a reason it’s called Black Gold. Caviar is expensive and not to everybody’s taste. Paris is, not surprisingly, the capital of French caviar where shops like Petrossian sell it in beautiful tins, making great gifts if you can afford them.

Caviar is the roe, or eggs, from female sturgeons and traditionally comes from a variety of fish native to the Caspian and Black seas. Hence the Russian connection.

Caviar can come from the roe of other species including salmon and trout though the real afficianados look down on that type.

Caviar became the rage in France in the 1920s particularly after the restaurateur, Madame Emile Prunier established caviar centers in the Dordogne and Garonne rivers where a native species of sturgeon, the Sturio, flourished.

In the 1980s the Sturio was overfished and a ban was introduced. But ever resourceful, around 15 companies began farming sturgeon in the south west of France. It happened after the former USSR did a deal with France in which a hardy species of sturgeon found in Siberia, the Baerii, was introduced to France. But it’s still expensive; female sturgeon have to be 10 years old before you can start harvesting the eggs.

Today the best native French sturgeon come from the marshy Sologne in north central France near the Loire Valley.

Expect caviar to be served chilled, using a plastic of mother-of-pearl spoon (metal will effect the taste) on a blini, topped with sour cream. Serve with vodka if you’re eating the Russian variety. Otherwise pour the Champagne and enjoy it.

If that’s all too much, start the evening with smoked salmon on blinis, but stay with the bubbly.

Oysters

The French love oysters. The country is the number one consumer and exporter of oysters. Around 150,000 are produced each year and 90% of those are eaten within France. The French were the first in Europe to produce them on a large scale. In the 1800s Napoleon III introduced oyster farms as wild oysters were being overfished.

You’ll definitely find oysters on everybody’s French Christmas food menu. If you want to buy them there’s always an oyster stall at any of the markets around Christmas.

You can cook them (like many people I prefer them this way). Wash them down with a dry white wine.

Oyster Producing Regions

Normandy’s oysters come from Isigny, Saint-Vaast and even the Normandy D-Day landing beach at Utah.

Many of Brittany’s oysters come from Cancale, Saint-Brieuc, Morlaix and the Bay of Brest. The taste of the famous Brittany ‘Belon’ comes from the south coast of Finistère where salt seawater meets fresh water from rivers and springs. And oysters farmed around Quiberon and in the Gulf of Morbihan with their distinctive flavor from tidal streams are particularly popular.

Along the Atlantic Coast, the islands of Ile de Ré and Noirmoutier produce great oysters. The most extensive oyster farming area in the world is in Charente-Maritime at Marennes-Oléron, where the ancient salt marshes give the oysters a special aroma and colour.

Probably the most famous area is the Arcachon basin in Aquitaine which has produced oysters since Roman times. It’s now vital as a breeding centre providing spats (oyster larvae) to most of the rest of France’s oyster farms.

Lobster

No expense is spared for French Christmas food, hence the appearance of lobster. And at this time of year it’s particularly expensive as the high season for French caught lobster runs from April to August when lobsters cost around €30 per kilo on market stalls and in fishmongers.

Lobsters from Brittany here, sometimes called petit bleu, are considered some of the best. But confusingly, they might be labelled Bretagne and they may well have come from England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland; there are more here than along the west coast of France, and Normandy.

The American lobster is about half the price and comes mainly from Canada. The lobster fishery there is the largest in the world, exporting huge amounts of live and frozen lobsters to Europe.  French who want the proper native version get their lobsters direct from various companies like Les Ligneurs de l’île Vierge in Plouguerneau in Brittany.

Foie Gras

Whatever you may think of foie gras, it’s an integral part of Christmas food in France. As French law states: “Foie gras belongs to the protected cultural and gastronomical heritage of France”.

It was first farmed by the ancient Egyptians around 2,500 BC who found that before the autumn migration from high pastures, their ducks and geese had gorged themselves on maize which had enlarged their livers.

As always, it was the Romans who recognized it as a food in its own right. The food writer Apicius is credited by Pliny the Elder (1^st century AD) with discovering that dried figs enlarged the liver. If the methods were dubious, the end was rather more humane: “when they are fat enough, they are drenched with wine mixed with honey, and immediately killed.”

It passed into Jewish cooking as Judaic culinary law forbids cooking with lard or butter (the latter because it was forbidden to mix meat and dairy). From there foie gras was taken over by the population outside the Jewish communities.

Where is Foie Gras Produced?

Today, the main region for producing foie gras in France is Périgord (Dordogne), Aquitaine in the southwest, and Alsace in the east. You’ll find it in local markets where it’s sold whole, or as a mousse, parfait or pâté.

There’s an annual 3-day Fest’oie festival held in Sarlat in the Dordogne on the first weekend in March. The celebration of the goose takes in cooking demonstrations, stalls groaning with goose products, stalls selling food that fill the streets with the cooking smells, children’s activities and yes, the stars of the show, geese waddling through the town.

More Food Festivals in France.

For a rich dish, try ‘Strasbourg Pie’, a pastry filled with goose liver. It’s had its moments in literature. In Patrick O’Brian’s 1988 sea adventure novel set in the Napoleonic wars, The Letter of Marque, Capt. Aubrey and Dr. Maturin tuck into a ‘Strasbourg pie.

T.S. Eliot included it in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats:
And you might now and then supply
Some caviar or Strasbourg pie.

Escargots

Snails are eaten throughout the year but they have a special place in the grand French Christmas food tradition.

The main snail types are Petit Gris, wild native snails or garden snail, Gros Gris, whose body grows to around 3 inches long, and the Roman snail which has made Burgundy the capital of the snail world. It’s quite right; Burgundy is one of the great food centres of France, competing with Lyon and the surrounding area. While some snails are still gathered in the wild in France, the vast majority come from snail farms.

Snails are cooked in the oven and served with a creamy garlic butter; or cooked and put back into their shells with that garlic creamy butter sauce, or cooked in a meat the white wine broth then put into puff pastry cases.

Coquilles Saint Jacques

Scallops appear at the Reveillon feast as part of the seafood dishes. They’re as fresh as can be as Christmas comes right in the middle of the scallop fishing season which lasts from October 1^st to mid May.

This year (2020) fishermen have pulled in a bumper crop along the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. Scallops have been increasing since 2000 as the French authorities promoted careful fishing, so good news – you might find this delicacy slightly cheaper than normal.

Roast Turkey with Chestnut Stuffing

You might not equate turkey with French Christmas food but they’ve been part of French culinary tradition since the 16th century when the first turkey arrived in France. Eating turkey at Christmas has been a French tradition since the 19^th century. Stuff the Dinde de Noël with chestnuts that you’ll find throughout France.

The most sought after are the relatively rare black turkeys from the Bourbonnais, Bresse, Gers, Normandy and Sologne. The most expensive, considered the best, comes from Bresse in Burgundy, the only bird that carries the prized Appellation Controlèe distinction.

The small and otherwise unknown town of Licques in north France has a particular and peculiar tradition. The Fête de la Dinde (Turkey festival) sees the birds herded through the town by the Confrerie de Licques, the local bigwigs. It takes place each year in December.

Other Birds and Wild Fowl

Rejecting turkey in favour of another bird or wild fowl depends as much on the region as personal preference. You might come across guinea fowl (pintade), quail (caille), pheasant (faisan), or goose (oie) – particularly in the Alsace region of eastern France.

Capon, which is a castrated rooster is the most popular substitute and as you’d expect, the best ones come from Burgundy.

Whatever the main dish, you’ll get one or two vegetables and a sauce or gravy with it.

Cheese

At every meal the French eat cheese before the dessert and le Reveillon is no exception. This will often feature regional varieties although the one traditional Christmas cheese remains the glorious creamy Vacherin Mont d’or.

This AOP cheese from the Jura mountains is only produced in the autumn and winter when the cattle have come down from the high pastures, fat from the rich grass.

So what’s left?

Possibly Thirteen Desserts

Don’t worry, this is only served in Provence. The 13 desserts represent Jesus and the 12 apostles and some of them are more like biscuits than desserts. They’re the sort of delicious items that are left out over the Christmas period and you just take one when peckish.

Bûche de Noël

Outside Provence it’s the Bûche de Noël, a decorative and delicious rich chocolate cake shaped like a Yule log. Towards Christmas the windows of every pâtisserie in every town in France are full of these Christmas delights.

In Paris, of course, chefs create their own signature log making it a status symbol.

And to drink with French Christmas Food?

Champagne is a must at Christmas, and it has to be Champagne or possibly a respectable sparkling French wine. No Prosecco! You start Le Reveillon with the bubbly before going on to wines, then the inevitable digestifs at the end of the meal.

See what the Champagne houses in Reims have to offer.

And a Gift to your Host?

If you’re wondering what on earth you could take to somebody who has invited you to dinner and money is no object, try something different. Perhaps macaroons from Ladurée?  

Or push the boat out with Fouquet’s chocolates. A limited edition box signed by the illustrator Laurent Seroussi is a mere €100. Or perhaps go for the smaller box of marrons glacé at €40 or for a bargain, the smallest truffle box at €32. Seriously, this is the best confectionery in the world.

I wish you all a very Joyeux Noël.

More to enjoy

How the French Celebrate Christmas – from St. Nicholas’s Day to Epiphany, when the famous galette des rois (King’s Cake) brings Christmas to a close. It’s a month long celebration.

Other December Events (yes, there are many!)

The post French Christmas Food appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

The food of France is a major reason to visit a country where good eating and drinking are such a large part of its culture. And it’s official. In 2010, UNESCO made French cuisine, or more specifically, the French multi-course gastronomic meal with its rituals, superb cooking and presentation, a UNESCO ‘world intangible heritage’. So no need to feel guilty about putting the national food of France at the top of your list.

You’ll find top Michelin-starred restaurants all over France and a meal at one of these could be a highlight of your trip. It may cost you a fair bit (they are inevitably expensive), but don’t forget that many of them offer a very good value set-price lunch. Do a bit of research on restaurants in the town or city you’re visiting (or even the deep countryside) and you may discover the meal of a lifetime.

If you don’t fancy all the rather stiff formality of a top meal, seek out the small bistros that every small town or large city has, for a thoroughly satisfying local experience.

Whichever region you are in, try to eat the specialties of that part of France.

History of the Food of France

The Gauls started it all

France has always been an important agricultural country with a wonderful climate and rich soil. The history of French food goes right back to the ancient Gauls who baked bread using millet, oats, barley and wheat and hunted wild pigs and game in the forests. They were some of the first Europeans to preserve meat by salting and smoking.

The Romans get serious

It was the Romans who first introduced a more sophisticated cuisine, using the recipes of Apicius. Marcus Gavius Apicius was a well known Roman high liver, particularly fond of good food, wine and luxury. He lived sometime in the 1^st century AD, but the recipes attributed to him weren’t written down until the 4^th or 5^th century AD. His book was then published again and again through the centuries.

More importantly, the Italians introduced a wine culture, planting vines in the Bordeaux region, the Rhône Valley, Burgundy and Moselle.

The Middle Ages – A long journey from the 5^th to 15^th Centuries

During the Middle Ages, there was a huge gulf between rich and poor. The nobles dined off game, pies, sweetmeats and more.

The poor who consumed most of the national food of France supped on bread and oatmeal gruels.

The huge gap between very rich and very poor was largely bridged by the monasteries. The monks became specialists at digging fish ponds and breeding pike, eels and carp (influenced by the church’s insistence on no meat allowed on certain days of the year). They kept bees and made honey and most importantly made cheese, a tradition which is still going strong today.

The monks planted vineyards and produced wines…which they also drank.

The fairs and markets that we love today owe their origin to the more settled society of the 8^th and 9^th centuries. Towns and cities developed, as did an artisan class who moved away from the countryside. Farmers living outside the towns produced the food, bringing it in on a weekly basis to sell.

The Food of France gets New Ingredients – The excitement!

The 16th and 17 centuries was the time when exotic ingredients began to appear in Europe. It’s difficult to imagine the excitement today when we think nothing of buying runner beans from Kenya, coffee from Colombia and strawberries the whole year round.

The opening up of the Mediterranean as one of the great trading areas of the world, and the Crusades to the Near East were crucial. Plums from Damascus (Damson is French for plum), pomegranates, figs from Malta, dates and rice all appeared in the towns and cities of Europe.

But most important of all were the spices that now flooded into western Europe: aniseed, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon. These invaluable commodities disguised the tastes of gently rotting ingredients and helped preserve them.

In the 12^th century, mustard was first produced in Dijon, giving added taste to the meat cooked by the rôtisseurs (roast meat sellers), and pie makers of urban life.

Aristocratic life and cooking

The lords and nobles kept their châteaux well stocked and their inhabitants well fed, though table arrangements were still primitive. The 14^th-century chef to Charles V, Guillaume Tirel, better known as Taillevent (1310-1395) published his cookbook Le Viandier which became the basis for all subsequent French cuisine. It lists all the ingredients then in vogue which ran from peacocks to swan, whale to young rabbits cooked in spiced sauce.

A new source of Food of France

At the end of the 15^th century and beginning of the 16th, foods began arriving from the newly discovered land of America. Can you imagine the extraordinary effect of guinea fowls, turkeys, tomatoes, potatoes and sweetcorn suddenly appearing.

The Renaissance and the flowering of French Cooking

Italy had a huge influence on France following the marriage of the future Henri II to Catherine de’ Medici in 1547. Not only did the powerful and wily Italian lqueen build (and take over) magnificent châteaux in the Loire valley like Blois and Chenonceau, she also brought Italian ingredients, dishes and the Italian way of eating to her new country. Italian head chefs flocked to France, particularly developing the idea of banquets that might include lampreys in hippocras sauce and ducklings.

The 17th Century and cuisine takes off

Henry IV (‘good King Henry’) born in 1553, was the first Bourbon King of France, reigning from 1559 to his death in 1610. From the point of view of food, his reign is marked by the poule au pot dish about which he proclaimed: “I want there to be no peasant in my kingdom so poor that he cannot have a chicken in his pot every Sunday”.

It was a time of expanding agriculture and particularly of vegetables like cauliflowers and asparagus introduced by the agronomist Olivier de Serres. Another innovation was sorbet – again pioneered by the Italians. More famous cook books appeared, including Cuisinier français by François de la Varenne in 1651.

Louis XIV’s reign was characterized by huge, elaborate formal banquets, with dishes served separately for the first time. The Sun King (1638-1715) certainly knew how to live well. His favorite palace? The magnificent Versailles — where the potager (kitchen garden) has to be seen to be believed.

More Kings: Louis XV to Louis XVI (1715-1793)

The 18^th century is seen as the golden age of French cuisine; a time when the Age of Enlightenment encouraged healthy living. Agriculture boomed and large-scale famine disappeared. It was also the time when petits soupers (little suppers) encouraged chefs to come up with good (and for that era simple) dishes such as paté de foie gras with truffles and chicken vol-au-vent.

The first restaurants appeared in Paris during the reign of Louis XV, serving menus that would be familiar today in their order (though the desserts by far outnumbered the other dishes).

Several of the 18th-century innovators are still thriving today like the Parisian restaurant La Pérouse. It was founded in 1766 by King Louis XVI’s personal limonadier or beverage maker, Monsieur Lefèvre.

All change for the Food of France: French Revolution to the Second Empire 1789-1833

Although the French Revolutionaries had other things to concern themselves, they did secure the release of thousands of cooks whose aristocratic masters had been guillotined or had fled abroad. They were the perfect people to try their luck at opening a restaurant.

In the 1870s following the loss of the French province of Alsace to a newly unified Germany after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Paris saw an influx of Alsatian chefs and custsomers. Beer and choucroute were the flavor of the time, and brasseries appeared on every street corner. Grand cafés had already begun to open, gorgeous over-the-top affairs for the new restaurant-going public.

Moving on: 19th and 20th Centuries

By the early 1900s French chefs were employed by the monarchs of Europe and anybody who had any pretension to the good life. Escoffier was one of the great names; visit his modest house, now a museum, in Villeneuve-Loubet in the south of France for an idea of the times.

Grand restaurants were joined by smaller bistros, run often by people from the Auvergne, escaping the poverty of life in that remote region.

Michelin published its first guide to France for motorists in 1900, giving a copy away with any tyre purchase. In 1926 Michelin began to award stars and took off as the bible of restaurant goers in France.

Nouvelle Cuisine

Michelin was challenged in 1972 by two French food critics, Henri Gault and Christian Millau who championed the Nouvelle Cuisine movement that was sweeping France. Cooking was simplified; restaurants were seen as places to enjoy a meal rather than the temple of gastronomy ideal. Presentation and a healthier diet were all part and parcel of this new movement. For years their Gault Millau guides encouraged new restaurants that were very different from the Michelin formula.

Nouvelle cuisine was later rejected; it became allied in people’s minds with small portions, albeit beautifully presented, odd combinations of tastes (raspberry vinegar at one point seemed to appear in everything), and pretentiousness.

The Food of France Today

Today there is a huge diversity of restaurants in France. The top 3-Michelin starred restaurants are among the best in the world (though increasingly challenged by other countries), with chefs like Alain Ducasse conquering the haute cuisine world.

Small restaurants flourish, relying on fresh, seasonal ingredients sourced locally.

Brasseries continue to be wildly popular and many of them offer some of the best value for money, in terms of food, décor and sheer enjoyment.

BUT…there are changes in France; particularly among the young who no longer learn to cook from their mothers and grandmothers as life becomes more fragmented and busy.

Don’t worry…the rot has not entirely set in. France virtually stops between noon and 2pm to sit down to lunch with shops, businesses and banks closed. All is not yet lost.

Except…

Sacré Bleu! What is the World coming to?

In 2021 Michelin awarded a star to…a vegan restaurant! It’s a first in France and an acknowledgement that the country is slowly beginning to appreciate vegetarian and vegan dishes.

ONA which stands for Origine Non Animale, is in Ares, in the Arcachon basin near Bordeaux. Claire Vallée, the young owner, launched the restaurant in 2016 through crowd funding and a loan from the green bank La Nef.

In 2021 54 restaurants earned their first star. Michelin said a “key takeaway from the 2021 selection is the continued spread of diverse styles of cuisine across France.”

More about the Food of France

The Food of Provence
The Food in Burgundy
The Best Regional French Food
The Art of Cuisine of Toulouse-Lautrec, cook and artist
Visit the Champagne Houses in Reims

And French Christmas Food, a real feast.

The post The Food of France – An Intriguing Story appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

France is rightly proud of its regional French food and its local products. Keep your eyes open as you shop in markets and towns and you’ll come across treasures like jams and preserves made from trees in the orchards you might just have passed.

Seafood and Shellfish

All those regions that have a seaside produce great fish from the oceans.

Check out oysters in the Cotentin peninsular in Normandy in picturesque villages like Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, or in the inland sea of the Bay of Arcachon on the Atlantic coast.

Sardines from around the island of Noirmoutier are prized.

In Brittany scallops are trawled in and around Saint-Brieuc bay.

Down in the south of France, the Côte Bleue near Marseille is known for its sea urchins.

Caviar is another French specialty. It’s produced in Aquitaine on fish farms, having started in the Gironde, Dordogne and Garonne estuaries.

Read more about the great Rivers of France

Regional French Vegetables

Onions are grown everywhere, but the Cevennes produces a wonderfully sweet onion that chefs all over France prize.

Le Puy-en-Velay in the Auvergne is the center of AOC green lentils and in their pretty tins they make great gifts to take home.

Nord-Pas de Calais in the north produces delightful tender Tilques carrots. The marais around Saint-Omer is a large market garden, producing cauliflower, artichokes, leeks and endive.

Large Soissons white beans were first grown in the Aisne Department in the 18^th century. Today its production area is around the valley of l’Ailette.

The potatoes of Noirmoutiers, an island in the Vendée, are a particular speciality – and the most expensive in the world. They’re known among chefs and potato freaks as ‘the caviar of the vegetable world’.

Regional french Food – Meat

Many regions produce beef: Burgundy is home to the Charolais variety; Aubrac in the Massif Central produces an eponymous variety.

Some of the most famous poultry in the world comes from Burgundy; poulets de bresse are wonderful white feathered chickens raised organically and about as far from factory-raised chickens that you can get.

Pork is produced all over France, particularly in Alsace where it’s used extensively in choucroute garnie: pork sausages or ribs served over sauerkraut.

Lamb from Provence is wonderfully tender and sweet.

Salt marsh lamb is particularly prized; try out those from the Normandy coast near Mont-Saint-Michel.

Duck, Goose and Foie Gras

The best known region for duck and good foie gras is Aquitaine, which includes the Dordogne (Périgord), the Landes and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

Salt

Look out for local salt. Perhaps the best known is salt from Guérande in Brittany but there are many thriving salt works along the French Atlantic coast and on islands like Ile de Ré.

Olive Oil

Of all regional French food, olive oil is probably the most famous and best loved. Olive oil is produced extensively throughout the south, particularly in Provence.

It’s a good plan to visit the shops of olive oil producers. You’ll be hard pressed (apologies; that was not meant to be a pun) to find many top oils anywhere but locally. They are often sold in pretty tins or bottles, so make great gifts.

Mushrooms and Truffles

Mushrooms are found all over France. There are over 3,000 different varieties of mushrooms in France, but the most popular are girolles, chanterelles, cèpes, bolets and morilles. If you’re uncertain about what you’ve collected, take your basketful to the local pharmacie who can check them out for you. The best season for mushrooms is between mid-August and mid-September when the sun comes out after a rain shower.

Truffles are some of the most expensive ingredients, and you’ll come across dishes made with the black diamonds particularly in Périgord. Burgundy is also famous for its truffles. All regions sniff out the rare delicacy with dogs; pigs were used in the past.

Cheeses

As Charles de Gaulle famously remarked: “How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?” What more can I say? Just find out the local ones and you’ll be happy.

Fruit

Fruit grows all over France. but if you’re in Lorraine make sure you try mirabelles. These are the small yellow colored plums that appear in desserts, as jams, preserves and liqueurs.

The best sweet melons come from Cavaillon in the Vaucluse which holds a special festival in July.

Agen in Lot-et-Garonne, is known for its prunes.

If you’re in the Loire valley, you’ll see wonderful spring blossoms on cherry trees.

60% of strawberries are grown in Limousin. If you’re in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne in May enjoy the wonderfully succulent festival there.

Chestnuts are used extensively and imaginatively in France. The best known place for growing them is in Mourju in the Auvergne.

More to Discover about French Food

Discover the top Food Festivals in France throughout the year
Read more about Food in Burgundy
Read more about the Food of Provence
French Christmas Food

Surprisingly, the artist Toulouse-Lautrec was a great cook. He followed the seasons and local produce. More about this unexpected gourmet and the Art of Cuisine.

Regions of France
Departments of France

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Checking out local food festivals in France is a wonderful way to get to know a region.  And there are plenty of them. Here are a few of the large, small and quirky food festivals in France. You’ll come across many more. So please do let me know and I can add your favorites.

I hope you enjoy reading about these food festivals in France and that they’ll give you inspiration to visit as soon as it becomes possible.

The Intriguing story of Food in France through the ages.

January Food Festivals

Fête de la Truffe (Truffle Festival) Sarlat-la-Canéda, Périgord. Mid January
The ‘black diamond’ is celebrated in many places but this festival in mid January is well known throughout France. It’s held in the historic, picturesque town of Sarlat-la-Canéda in the heart of the Dordogne. The market takes pride of place, with local producers selling bread, cheese, meat, charcuterie, jams and preserves.
There are truffle identification workshops and truffle-hunting demonstrations for the uninitiated, plus demonstrations and cooking classes from local chefs.
Book at one of the restaurants for croustous, tapas-style snacks of truffle and foie-gras.
Make sure you see the prestigious Jean Rougié Award for truffle-cooking where young chefs from all over France pit their skills.
Fête de la Truffe

February Food Festivals

Le Salon des Vignerons et des Terroirs (Wine Growers and Terroir Show), Calais, Pas de Calais. Feb 6-8, 2026
Plenty of small vineyards from all over France set up stalls offering excellent wines and gastronomic treats from snails to cheese. It’s in the forum Gambetta. 
Le Salon des Vignerons et des Terroirs

March Food Festivals

Sarlat Fest’Oie (Foie Gras Festival), Sarlat-la-Canéda, Périgord. First weekend of March.
This rich area is famous for foie gras, celebrated in pretty Sarlat on Place de la Liberté on the first weekend in March. Lovers of foie gras can book for the banquet to taste the likes of grillon paté, stew or duck pot-au-feu. Or sample the Périgord Carcass soup made from goose at one of the stalls. There’s a large market to buy products and flocks of geese are ceremoniously, if noisily, guided around the city.
Sarlat Fest’Oie

April Food Festivals

Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques (Scallop Festival) Paimpol, Côtes-d’Armor, Brittany.
Scallop fishing is one of Brittany’s great industries. The scallop fishing season in St-Brieuc bay opens in October and ends in April. Even then, fishing is only allowed for 45 minutes twice a week. It protects the species but makes scallops an expensive delicacy. Remember as you taste the delicious shellfish that this is your last chance for the year.
At the festival, you can board a fishing boat and go out to sea to watch how they catch the scallops. You can also take learn-to-dive sessions. On land follow the ‘Knights of the Scallop’ parade then enjoy plenty of street music and entertainment. 
The three fishing ports of Erquy, Saint-Quay-Portrieux and Paimpol take it in turns to host the festival.
Both Brittany and Normandy take pride in their fishing heritage with an abundance of food festivals in France devoted to the sea.
Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques

More Events in April in France

May Food Festivals

Fête de la Fraise (Strawberry Festival), Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, Limousin, 2^nd Sunday in May
May is the month for sweet, succulent strawberries. 60% of France’s strawberries are grown in the pretty small town of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne. The festival has stalls groaning with the glorious fruit, as well as sweets and cakes made from strawberries. In good French food tradition, a giant 8-metre wide tart filled with 800 kgms of fresh berries holds pride of place, cooked by the bakers and pâtissiers in the town.
Strawberry production became serious here in the 19^th century after the vineyards were attacked by pheloxora.
As a piece of fun but fairly useless information, there are 500 varieties of strawberries; each of the around 200 tiny yellow seeds in each individual strawberry is technically an individual fruit in itself.  
Fête de la Fraise

Taste of Paris, Grand Palais, Paris. May 21-24, 2026
Since 2015 the Grand-Palais has hosted the ‘Taste of Paris’ festival. It’s the place for taster-sized signature dishes from the great chefs of France at pop-up restaurants, tasting sessions and free cooking classes.
Taste of Paris

More Events in May in France

June Food Festivals

Fête de la Crabe (Crab Festival), Audresselles, Côte d’Opale, Pas de Calais. Mid-June 2026
Each year the small fishing village of Audresselles honours the crab. Crabs and shellfish have provided the living for decades before fishing became industrial and the fishing industry slowed down. But still the fishermen bring back crabs in small fishing boats. The festival has meals, live music which includes old sea shanties, dancing, and excellent freshly cooked crabs served with warm freshly baked bread.
Fête de la Crabe

Vitiloire, Tours, Loire Valley. Early June
This free event was started to promote Loire Valley wines. It’s a producers’ and crafts’ village with cookery demonstrations, a market, wine bars, bookshop, walks or cycle rides through the vineyards and dinner parties with dancing. And of course wine producers – over 150 of them.
Vitiloire

Lyon Street Food Festival, Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône Alpes. Jun 11-16, 2026
Lyon regards itself as the most important city in France for food…way better than that place…what’s it called? Ah yes, Paris. When you go there you see why. Its restaurants, particularly the famous bouchons are a revelation. So it’s appropriate for them to hold this festival. Filling the former Fabor Brandt factories in the Gerland it’s full of Michelin-starred chefs and small bouchons serving haute cuisine cooking and bistro-style dishes. Over 100 chefs hold cooking demonstrations; workshops let you try your hand. It goes on til midnight each day and there are evening concerts to keep you entertained.
Lyon Street Food Festival

More Events in June in France
Events in July in France

August Food Festivals

Fête de l’ail rose (Pink Garlic Festival), Lautrec, Tarn – Early August
Founded in 1970, the Lautrec festival promotes the wonderful, protected pink garlic bulbs. There’s a market, soup tastings, contests for garlic peeling and plaiting plus a huge feast. And being France, the festival includes music and story-telling.
Lautrec Pink Garlic Festival

More about Lautrec in the Tarn
Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi
Toulouse-Lautrec’s great cookbook

Fête de la Carotte (Carrot Festival), Créances, Manche, Normandy. Aug 2026
A festival of the normally un-feted vegetable, the AOC labelled local carrot, takes place in Créances in Normandy. This is the region that grows the prestigious ‘red label’ variety. There’s a lot of food, music, fireworks and brocante sales.
Fête de la Carotte

Fête du Reblochon et de l’Artisanat (Festival of Reblochon and Crafts), La Clusaz, Haute-Savoie. Aug 2026
For a true taste of tartiflette, the dish from Savoy made with potatoes, reblochon cheese, lardons and onions, go for this festival. There are cheese-making demonstrations, street parades and folk dancing. And of course, tastings and a giant tartiflette.
Fête du Reblochon et de l’Artisanat

Fêtes de la Mirabelle, Metz, Moselle – Mid-August
Try those gorgeous mirabelle plums at this festival. The large market gives you plenty of choice from different growers. There are fireworks, parades and concerts and the crowning of the year’s Mirabelle queen.
Fêtes de la Mirabelle

Le Pruneau Show d’Agen (Prune show of Agen), Lot et Garonne. End of August
The pretty town celebrates its status as the capital of prunes with an annual event. Taste the first prunes of the season, buy them at the market and enjoy the festivities. Agen makes it an excuse for excellent concerts and show.
Le Pruneau Show d’Agen

More Events in August in France

September Food Festivals

Fête de la Gastronomie (Gastronomy Festival), France. Sept 2026
Launched in 2011 by the French government and overseen by Alain Ducasse, the gastronomy festival is celebrated throughout France, and also internationally. Restaurants serve a special French meal and there are local events. This year, Centre-Val de Loire is designated as the honoured area. It’s appropriate; it was in Tours in the region that the European Institute of the History and Culture of Food began pushing for the Gastronomy of France to be included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.
Fête de la Gastronomie

Fête des coquillages (Scallop Festival), Granville, Normandy.
Granville is France’s major shellfish fishing port and it really celebrates its importance on this weekend. Naturally there’s a great market to buy every kind of shellfish, but there’s an educational (and fun) side to the festival as well. There are films, exhibitions, demonstrations and workshops devoted to understanding more about the scallop. Great fun.
Fête des coquillages

More Events in September in France

October Food Festivals

Foire de la Châtaigne (Chestnut Festival), Mourju, Cantal, Auvergne.
This chestnut fair is one of the best, held in the little village of Mourjou in the Auvergne since 1990. There’s a huge market with stalls selling different foods made with chestnut. You’d be surprised at how versatile the chestnut is, appearing in food from bread to chocolate, as chestnut liquor (of course, this is France), and in jam. During the festival around 4,500 pounds of chestnuts are roasted, washed down with cider. This is the event to stock up with raw chestnuts. It’s one of the smaller food festivals in France, but well worth the detour.
Foire de la Châtaigne

La Fête du Ventre et de la Gastronomie (Festival of the Stomach and Gastronomy), Rouen, Normandy. Oct 11-12, 2025
The well-named Festival of the Stomach is understandably in Rouen in Normandy, a region well known for its superb food. Rouen fills up with market stalls selling local produce, from oysters to honey, apples (of course) to andouillette. It’s remarkably colourful, with stall holders dressed in traditional Normandy clothes; women wear veiled hats.
La Fête du Ventre et de la Gastronomie

Foire aux Pommes (Apple Festival), Azay-le-Rideau, Indre-et-Loire, Loire Valley. Late October
Azay-le-Rideau is a lovely little town with a château that is one of the great treasures of the Loire Valley. Combine a visit there with their Apple Fair, one of the smaller but delightfu food festivals in France. Who could have known there were so many apple varieties in France? The fair has stalls selling all those varieties, cider-making demonstrations, music and of course a grand feast.
La Foire aux Pommes

Fête du Piment d’Espelette (Espelette Chilli Festival), Espelette, Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Oct 25-26, 2025
This Basque village in south west France is the home of spicy dried red peppers. There’s even a brotherhood, the Confrérie du Piment who of course take pride of place in the pepper procession. Chilli peppers first appeared in 1650 when a Basque navigator in Christopher Columbus’ ship brought them back. Harvested in August, the peppers are then hung inside and outside the houses to dry. You get a real flavour of Basque country here with music, dancing, peppers galore and games of pelota.
Fête du Piment d’Espelette

La Fête des Vins (Wine Festival), Chablis, Burgundy. October 23-24 2021
There are so many wine, as well as food festivals at this time of year that I haven’t tried to cover them. I am including this one as most people know Chablis and it’s in Burgundy, well known for its wines. Apologies to the other regions and festivals! Around 40 producers from Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois region set out their posh wares, offering tastings from different appellations and vintages. There are stands run by local food producers, organised walks in the vineyards and more events. It has one special ceremony: the baptizing of the new vintage by a godmother and godfather.
La Fête des Vins

Paris Chocolate Fair, Porte de Versailles, Paris. Oct 30-Nov 3
Food festivals in France don’t get much more self-indulgent that this one in Paris where 700 of those masters of fine chocolate, pâtissiers and professionals show off their best. It’s extraordinary to see what can be done with chocolate (watch the fashion show to be amazed). Tasting sessions are popular, naturally; there are cooking demonstrations, children’s workshops and of course chocolates to taste and buy.
Paris Chocolate Fair

More Events in October in France

November Food Festivals

Le Goût du Large (Taste of the Sea), Port-en-Bessin-Huppain, Normandy. Nov 7, 8
Food festival fans love this one; it’s a great seafood festival with the professional fish market open to the general public. There are special scallop and seafood recipes devised by the fishermen’s wives to try, guides explaining how scallops are fished, and fascinating demonstrations of how fishing net menders go about their skilled task. Another delight is the festival of European maritime songs and old sailing boats in the harbour.
An interesting aside about Port-en-Bessin-Huppain. It was the actual linkup point between the American and British forces on June 7, 1944.
Le Goût du Large

The Herring and Coquilles Saint-Jacques Festival Dieppe, Normandy
This fabulous (and odorous) celebration of these famous fishes, so necessary to Normandy takes over Dieppe. Join the 100,000 odd enthusiasts for two days of tasting, discussing the merits of, and enjoying every kind of cured herring and Coquille Saint-Jacques.

Check the website above for other herring festivals in Normandy.

Millévin, Avignon, Provence. Nov 18 2021
Avignon hosts the celebration of the new vintage of Côtes-du-Rhône valley wines. Good food like aligot, oysters and cheeses accompanies excellent wine from around 30 winemakers. And this being a serious business, there’s a parade of Brotherhoods through the centre of this magnificent city.
Millévin

Foire Internationale et gastronomique de Dijon (International Gastronomic Fair), Dijon, Burgundy. Oct 31-Nov 11 2021
This is a thoroughly serious event and the one to go to if you’re anything of a gourmet. Great stalls, demonstrations, tastings, workshops and a restaurant.
Foire Internationale et gastronomique de Dijon

More Events in November in France

December Food Festivals

La Fête des coquilles Saint-Jacques et les fruits de mer (Scallop and Seafish Festival), Trouville, Normandy. Dec 3-5 2021
Another fishing village celebrates scallops and seafood in typical Normandy generous fashion. Two days of a great market, demonstrations, local specialties, a themed craft village, parades in the streets and of course, lots of entertainment.
La Fête des coquilles Saint-Jacques et les fruits de mer

Les Habits de Lumière (Clothes of Light), Épernay, Champagne. Dec 10-12 2021
This pre-Christmas, thoroughly enjoyable celebration of Champagne in the second of the region’s great bubbly centres (after Reims) takes over the city. Lights twinkle and glow in the streets and Champagne houses, there’s a parade, fireworks, music and dancing, cellar tours, cookery demonstrations and lots of bubbly tasting. Don’t miss the vintage car parade on Sunday.  
If you’re in Reims, consider a visit to one of the great Champagne houses in Reims.
Les Habits de Lumière

Fiera di a Castagna (Chestnut Fair), Bocognano, Corsica. Mid-December
The Chestnut Fair in Corsica includes all the local specialties grown and produced in Corsica. Taste and buy cheeses, olive oil, honey, wine and more. In fact all the goodies grown and produced in Corsica. There’s music, crafts and more. And of course, there are those chestnuts.
Fiera di a Castagna

And then there’s Christmas! No food festivals, but a cornucopia of ingredients in the big supermarkets to assemble that Christmas Eve feast.

More Events in December in France
Christmas Markets offer local specialties

More about French Food

Discover the best Regional Food of France
The Art of Cuisine – Toulouse-Lautrec’s cookery book
Food Of Provence
Food in Burgundy

The post Top Food Festivals in France appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

The art of cuisine – who would have expected that from Toulouse-Lautrec? The brilliant artist’s depictions of the life of the theatres, cafés, bars and brothels have become part of our perception of 19^th-century Paris, but we know little about his other skill.

To his friends, he was also a great cook and a generous host. As he saw it, everything deserved a celebration, particularly the completion of a new work of art. The art of cuisine was one of his abiding passions.

The Art of Cuisine Recipe Book

After Toulouse-Lautrec’s death in September 1901 at the age of just 36, his friend and art dealer, Maurice Joyant, collected together the menus and recipes of the artist. He also added recipes they had discovered together from others.

As you’ll discover from the book, Toulouse-Lautrec was an outlandish and adventurous cook.

For Joyant, putting the recipes together was a labour of love: “Each recipe brings back a memory of sheer delight, a moment of perfect relaxation.”

Toulouse-Lautrec the Gourmand at Home

The artist’s upbringing was in a privileged, aristocratic family whose wealthy ancestors as the counts of Toulouse played quite a part in French history. The young boy spent his time between the town house of the Hôtel du Bosc in Albi and the countryside pleasures of the Château du Bosc in Camjac, around 48 kms (30 miles) north east of the city.

On their country estate, the family fished and hunted; the servants cooked and served the results. It was all part of the natural order, but for the Lautrecs, there was with an added element.

“When my sons kill a woodcock they are delighted three times over: once when they shoot it, once when they sketch it, once when they eat it”, the artist’s grandmother wrote.

Toulouse-Lautrec the Gourmand in Paris

In Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec’s life revolved around painting and those Belle Epoque Parisian pleasures. His circle of friends was wide, and often eccentric, made up of poets, fellow artists, and men like Thadée Natanson, publisher of La Revue Blanche. He remarked about Toulouse-Lautrec’s continual drinking: “He does not give his moustache time to dry”.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s cooking skills – and his capacity for eating and drinking – were admired by every one of them. The Symbolist poet Paul Leclercq remarked that “He was a great gourmand…He loved to talk about cooking and knew of many rare recipes for making the most standard dishes… Cooking a leg of lamb for seven hours or preparing a lobster à l’Américaine held no secrets for him.”

Lobster was his favourite seafood and on a ship travelling between Le Havre and Bordeaux  he insisted that the captain go off course for a few miles to catch lobsters.

Throughout his short life, Toulouse-Lautrec ate, and particularly drank, as if there was no tomorrow. One of his great pleasures was cooking for his friends, captured in Vuillard’s portrait of the artist at the stove at Thadée Natanson’s country house at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne in 1898.

Weekly Food Parcels

Every Friday a hamper would arrive from his mother’s château near Bordeaux. Adèle had moved there after she had left her charming, but philandering husband, Alphonse. For her son, living in Paris, it was a weekly excuse for a feast.

He sent out personal invitations and wrote out the menus, delightfully illustrated with sketches.

The menus were invariably elaborate. For his Irish dancer friend, Miss May Belfort, the feast consisted of:

Oxtail soup
Hors d’oeuvre
Lake Michigan trout
Haunch of venison on a purée of chestnuts
Foie gras in a crust
Salad
Sweet course
Dessert
Grand table wine – Vouvray, Corton

Cooking for Friends

Friends would often ask him to prepare a meal for them, though if unfamiliar with his approach they could get caught out. The artist Georges Henri-Manuel invited him to his pristine bachelor apartment to cook a lobster. Lautrec arrived, refused to use the kitchen and instead set up an electric hot plate in the drawing room. His cousin Gabriel Tapié de Céleyran was there as well.

 “George Henri-Manuel, in great anguish because a lobster lobster à l’Américaine has to be cut up alive, hastily covered his most precious pieces of furniture with sheets. Then, wrapped in a long white apron in which his short legs kept getting entangled, brandishing a spoon as long as himself, and moving saucepans about, Lautrec prepared the lobster lobster à l’Américaine  whose memory lingers with me yet.”

Instructions to Friends

Toulouse-Lautrec would send a letter well ahead of the proposed feat with a list of the ingredients he needed to cook for his friends. Jacques Bizet, son of the French composer was asked:

“Dear master, here is the list of fish to be obtained, Eels, (one pound), 2 gurnards, 1 hake, 1 sole, 1 small lobster. Seasonings: garlic, cayenne pepper, olive oil. Have all this at 5 o’clock Sunday. We will be there at 6.15 o’clock… Our humble respects to Madame Bizet and to you. H.T. Toulouse-Lautrec.”

In December 1896 he moved into a studio opening onto a garden on avenue Frochot. The following spring he invited his friends around with an invitation that read

“Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec will be very flattered if you agree to take a cup of milk on Saturday 15 May at about half-past three in the afternoon.”

This was not the turning over of a new leaf, but a dig at the new fashionable habit of drinking milk. “I’ll drink milk when the cows graze on grapes,” was his reaction.

19th-century Recipes

When the book was written, recipes were inspirational rather than exact. There are no precise ingredients listed, nor any measurements or cooking times. The reader was expected to be a pretty mean chef already.

If you get a modern copy, there are measurements listed. But the recipes are still a challenge.

The Art of Cuisine Book

This is an unusual cookbook which has some real gems.

Chapter headings are intriguing. The first chapter is called About Certain Soups, but what of The Rainbow of Sauces, About Certain Game of Fur and Feather, and finally About Certain Domestic Animals? In fact, those ‘domestic’ animals are beef, veal, lamb, and so on. So no need to worry that they ate cats and dogs in 19th-century France.
Sweet things go into About Certain Flatteries.

An Unusual Approach

The book is full of delightful anecdotes and advice and descriptions that take you by the imaginative hand and offer nuggets of information. Take the unusual recipe of Stewed turbot Livers:

“Towards Christmas time, when the turbot come upstream and are caught in large quantities in the eel pots…”
Who knew turbot were caught in eel pots?

Or one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s favourite dishes: Stewed fillets of Porpoise

“When mounted on the bowsprit of a cutter you have harpooned a porpoise in the English Channel, open it lengthwise and take from it some nice fillets of fish.”

Once caught they should be cooked then and there on the boat.

Different Century – Different Tastes

People were less squeamish in those days and methods of killing, cleaning and cooking are set out in detail. I won’t describe how to empty a minnow (though you’d have to be pretty desperate to cook them anyway). And as for pressed duck – it takes a strong cook for this one. The dish is famous, best known at La Tour d’Argent restaurant in Paris.

Regional Products

French cooking still centres around the best products from the right region as it did in the past. The book recommends using trout from the Bresle river in Picardy; or black trout from the Black Forest or French mountains for truite au bleu; pike from the Somme to roast; crayfish from the Ardennes; wild duck from Champagne, wild boar from the Solonge (where they still hunt wild boar in great style), and lamb from the Auvergne.

The Art of Cuisine Goes with the Seasons  

The seasons ruled a cook’s life and the Art of Cuisine follows the rules. 19th-century technical advances might have brought more modern ways to preserve food but the best always reflected the time of year.

More about seasonal food in France
Major Food Festivals in France

The Start of the Year

There are plenty of tips that modern day foragers might find useful. So for a dandelion salad: “In the fields at the end of January or February, after a thaw, pick some dandelions which are beginning to grow – whose hearts already show signs of yellow.”

Summer

Summer brings mullet roe to spread on toast.

“Toward July, when the gray mullet, coming from the Mediterranean  return to the estuaries to swim up to lay their eggs in fresh water, and are full of roe…” Steep them for 48 hours in salted water, then lay the strings of roe between ‘two very clean white wood planks’ and put a light weight on top. Hang them in the hot sun when a mistral blows (strong, cold north westerly wind blowing from south west France into the north Mediterranean). Voilà…

“Thus you will have poutarde, which is eaten with bread like chocolate and which, by its special taste of fermented fish, pleases connoisseurs, although its flavour is less subtle than that of caviar.” But of course, much less expensive.

Autumn Game

September and October bring a wealth of game. Wood pigeons appear in October as they migrate and those birds in the shooting season get their own recipes like quails in ashes, and partridge with cabbage.

Some of the dishes are not possible today. Neither fillet of herons, nor thrushes with juniper would go down well even if you could somehow get hold of them.

Squirrels are not protected but they have very little flesh, unless they are marmots which are bigger. But you have to feel sorry for the marmots:

“Having killed some marmots sunning themselves belly up in the sun with their noses in the air one sunrise in September…”.

There’s even some health advice from marmots which I will pass on free to health fans. Apparently you should keep the fat ‘which is excellent for rubbing into the bellies of pregnant women, into the knees, ankles, and painful joints of sprains’. If there’s nothing wrong with you, you can always rub it ‘into the leather of shoes’.

Rainbows

The Rainbow of Sauces deals with white sauces from A la Poulette to one for asparagus. Yellow sauces cover Aioli and mayonnaise which can be made into a green sauce by adding chervil, tarragon, parsley, chives and watercress.

A rose-red sauce is an exotic concoction.
“Incorporate in your sauces made of butter, bouillon, flour and binding also: tomatoes, cooked, strained and seeded; puree of sea-urchins’ roe; puree of crabs’ roe; butter – melted and passed through a sieve after having been coloured with the cooking juices of prawns, female crabs, crayfish, lobster, crawfish , crushed anchovies.” Brown sauces come with Madeira, Miroton or mustard.  

Cocktails

The Rainbow of Sauces chapter heading might well refer to Toulouse-Lautrec’s love of cocktails. When inviting his friends to see his latest work, he advised them that “Properly to appreciate a painting one has to drink a good cocktail first.”

He had his own cocktail shaker to rustle up some pretty deadly concoctions. The Earthquake was four parts absinthe (which was 63% proof) to two parts red wine and finished off with a splash of cognac.

The rainbow cocktail was copied from one of his favourite bars. Known as the ‘corpse reviver’, it was made from 12 different liqueurs poured carefully over a small spoon so they didn’t mix.

Cooking Ingredients

Late 19^th-century Paris was a good time for anyone interested in cooking. The great food market Les Halles was built between 1851 and 1854. Called the ‘Belly of Paris’ by the French novelist Émile Zola, the market supplied the capital’s voracious appetite with oysters from Brittany (and lobster), grain from the centre of France, meat from the Auvergne, mirabelles, plums, apricots and chestnuts. They came daily by river and the newly built railways making Les Halles the biggest wholesale market in the world.

The Great 19^th-century Chefs and their Cook Books

The 19^th century was the start of a new golden age of gastronomy. It all began in France with Marie-Antoine Carême who changed French haute cuisine for ever. He was a master at producing extraordinary magical feasts, dishes and edible replicas of buildings from ancient Roman temples to Turkish mosques. The world had never seen anything like it, buying his new cookbooks in such quantities they became bestsellers.

While England had the homely Mrs Beeton whose books were first published in 1861, France had writers like Brillat-Savarin who published his meditation on culinary matters, La Physiologie du Goût (The Physiology of Taste) in 1862. Later, Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935) updated and popularized classic French cooking methods.

To find out more about Escoffier, visit the Escoffier Museum of Culinary Art in Villeneuve-Loubet in the south of France.

The Last Word

The sting in the tail is the tongue-in-cheek last chapter Ultima Ratio Finis (the ultimate goal) which is pure fantasy, and a dig at the Catholic church. Grasshoppers should be grilled in the fashion of Saint John the Baptist; you might try Saint on the Grill: ‘With the help of the Vatican try to procure for yourself a real saint’.

And the final recipe?

“Full of mystery. It will never be known. God revealed the knowledge only to his Prophet, who uttered no word about it. This recipe will, therefore, remain forever unknown to all other human beings.”

More of Interest to Food Lovers

Food of Burgundy

Food of Provence

More on Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec and the Tarn where he grew up. What to see and where to stay and eat

Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi

The post The Art of Cuisine of Toulouse-Lautrec, Painter…and Cook appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

Imagine the food of Provence and you’re sitting in cafés watching the world go by and enjoying leisurely meals in peaceful squares beside a fountain in the dappled sunlight. Or at least that’s what any mention of the food of Provence does for me.

Provence is one of France’s greatest regions for food. Its long coastline on the Mediterranean gives it the freshest fish and seafood; the hinterland that stretches behind offers pasture full of sheep, olive groves and fruit orchards. With its balmy climate, Provence became a wine-producing area after the Greeks founded Marseille, making it France’s oldest wine growing region. The food of Provence is truly inspiring.

Provençal cooking is, like the rest of life in this gorgeous region, simple. It concentrates on the best fresh ingredients in season like tomatoes, peppers, garlic and saffron, anchovies, wild herbs and olive oil…lots of it.

Food of Provence Ingredients

Fish and Seafood

With its long Mediterranean coast, and inland rivers and lakes, Provence is strong on fish. Along the coast, you’ll find fish markets from small to large so if you’re self-catering this is a great opportunity to try out new ingredients and new recipes. Or just light a barbecue and grill the sea’s harvest with bunches of rosemary and thyme. Marseille is one of the great harbors of the south with trawlers and small fishing boats supplying the fishmongers in Marseille’s Vielle Port.

Fruit

Provence is full of small market gardens, with the valleys of the Rhône and Durance the largest fruit- and vegetable-producing areas of France. Dessert grapes are produced in the Vaucluse; figs and almonds around Aix, and oranges and lemons everywhere in the Alpes-Maritimes region. The Menton lemon festival in February transforms the town into one vast citrus fest, celebrating the food of Provence.

Meat

Provence is not known for its meat as it has never been a big animal-rearing area. The goats of Provence are bred for providing cheese rather than meat. But if you’re in Sisteron in Haute-Provence, try the special lamb which is tender and sweet.

Olives and Olive Oil

Olive groves, many of which have been here for centuries, fill the landscape. Between April and June, the trees blossom then produce their fruit which becomes gorged with oil and goes from green to black.

Olive oil was considered so important that French kings were baptized with it from the 5^th century to the French Revolution. The Provence climate is perfect for olive trees, which is great as it takes 5 kilos of olives to make 1 litre of olive oil. The olive harvest for oil begins in early November; if you want to buy that season’s oil at the mill (the best way to buy it), March is the last month to shop for the previous year’s olive oil.

Garlic

Provence and garlic go hand in hand. Just think of the famous Provençal dish of aioli and its ton of garlic and you get the idea. It’s harvested in June and woven into garlands, piled high in the daily food markets.

Melons

There’s more to Cavaillon than melons, but that’s what the town is famous for. Check out the Cavaillon melon festival on the weekend before July 14^th each year.

Pâtisserie

Different town produce different specialities like the calisson of Aix and navettes of Marseille. Also try the soufflé cakes and croissants with pine nuts, which make up one of the celebrated thirteen desserts of the Provencal Christmas, celebrating the 12 apostles and Christ.

Provençal herbs

Imagine Provence and you conjure up aromatic plants like thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil and lavender. All these are more are used extensively in Provencal recipes.

Rice

Rice is grown extensively in the Camargue, Europe’s most northerly rice-growing region. The rice is planted in a flat field at the end of April and flooded with fresh water from the Rhône, which in turn helps keep the delta’s delicate ecological balance. While white and brown rice varieties are produced here, it’s the red rice that is regarded as particularly good. The result of cross-pollination of wild red and cultivated short-grain rice, it’s harvested in September. 

Tomatoes

Hundreds of different varieties are grown in Provence, including black tomatoes which are becoming increasingly popular. The tomato is a staple of Provençal cooking, from a simple tomato salad to sauces made with garlic and olive oil.

Typical Food of Provence: Dishes and Flavours

Aïoli, made with garlic and olive oil with egg yolks added to make it a mayonnaise, was first made in the 1^st century. It’s served with cold poached fish, in bourride, salad and cold meat.

Bouillabaisse comes from Marseille and each chef has his own particular take on this most Mediterranean of dishes. It’s all kinds of fish cooked with herbs, originally cooked on the beach by fishermen.

Bourride or fish soup originally came from Sète and is made with monkfish. After cooking, the strained liquid is bound with aioli (that famous garlic mayonnaise).

Daube of beef is a Provençal stew cooked for a long time in wine with inexpensive beef and vegetables.

Fruits de mer. Try one of the groaning platters of seafood at any good restaurant for a spectacular meal.

Gigot d’agneau is leg of mutton or lamb cooked with local herbs.

Pan Bagnat is a sandwich that is very common in Nice and around, using tuna, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and boiled eggs. If you’re in Antibes on the Salis beach, buy one from the little stall Chez Jose.

Pistou, made of fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, cheese and olive oil, comes in various dishes, including soup and as a sauce with pasta.

Pizza. You might think this is Italian, but with the region around Nice once belonging to Italy, it’s regarded here as a French dish. Wander through the streets of Nice to find small pizzerias cooking with wood ovens.

Ratatouille is a vegetable stew made of eggplant (aubergine), zucchini (courgettes), onions, bell peppers and tomatoes, cooked in olive oil and flavoured with herbs and garlic.

Salade Niçoise is one of Provence’s most famous dishes, made with tuna, vegetables and anchovies.

Tapenade is olives and capers crushed into a paste, mixed with olive oil and lemon juice and then strongly spiced. Often served on toast with an apéritif.

Markets of Provence

Wandering around the open air fruit and vegetable markets in Provence is one of the great pleasures of a trip to the south of France.

Before you travel, check the local tourist office for details of the markets in the areas you’re visiting.

The major markets are in Aix-en-Provence (daily); Antibes (famous covered market daily); Arles (Wednesday and a bigger one on Saturdays); Avignon (covered market Tuesdays to Sundays); Cannes (3 big covered markets daily); Carpentras (one of the best farmer’s markets in France, Tuesdays to Sundays); Marseille (famous fish market Mondays to Saturdays); Nice (Cours Saleya is one of the best known and great markets in France, Tuesdays to Sundays); Vaison-la-Romaine (big Provençal market Tuesdays).

Read the Travel Guide to Provence for more information about the region

More about Food in France

The intriguing story of Food in France from Gauls to vegans
Discover the top Food Festivals in France throughout the year
Best Regional French Food
French Christmas Food
Surprisingly, the artist Toulouse-Lautrec was a great cook. He followed the seasons and local produce. More about this unexpected gourmet and the Art of Cuisine.
Compare Provence with Food in Burgundy
The Auvergne‘s food is far more earthy and rustic!

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