Boris_A

I believe the translation is "char" (Salvelinus). It's a kind of lake trout. BTW, grayling is "ombre de rivière" or "Äsche" in German, an excellent river salmonide.

To spin a bit more the unimportance: The term "lecker" for tasty doesn't exist in Swiss German. Sametime a Swiss German expression for sweeties is "Schläckwaare", where "schläcke" stands for "lecken"(to lick). But I'm open for the question wether "Lickers" or "Tasties" is the adequate translation. In the end we all love those 400+ years old little things!

As a side note, the number of extremes at the top are not suited to judge the average level of a population. For example, a population with many giants and dwarfs can produce many more giants than another more evenly distributed population, yet the average body height can still be considerably higher with the latter. Nevertheless, even though I find the notion of "national competition" much better suited for things like soccer or tennis than for cuisine, Spain seems to be more on the move than Italy wrt. modern cuisine.

annadev, this is a great suggestion. I regularly buy "Basler Läckerli" ("Lickers") as a gift, especially when transport circumstances (temperature, weight) are difficult. It's a sort of gingerbread. They seem to origin from the years 1430-1450 and the first written recipe is from 17th century. This producer is the most popular and successful one with numerous branches in Swiss towns and an online shop.

Caro Andrea! Thank you for sharing your time and attention with eGullet. Nebbiolo ist my favourite red grape variety and without any doubt it reaches it's most splendid expression with the wines from the Langhe region. With regard to your profound knowledge and understanding of this variety, what wines, producers or wine styles from outside the Langhe (Ghemme, Valtellino, ... for example) did impress you? Grazie and regards, Boris from Zurigo

I had snails on two occasions in French "higher" end restaurants. It was in the Jura region two or three years ago. In Malbuisson, a dish of seemingly braised snails with garlick and some reduction, and one in Arbois, fried snails served in a cup with a savoury, foamy cream. A glas of semi-oxydised "Côte du Jura" white wine was a great pairing in both cases. I think both (the particular wine and the snails) are underrated delicacies, but not easy to understand (to use adventurous-gourmand-speak )

After googling a bit with "lumache" etc., there can be found 12 Italian towns claiming to be a "snail town": here: ... Cherasco (Cuneo), Borgo San Dalmazzo (Cuneo), Molini di Triora (Imperia), Sant'Andrea di Badia Calavena (Verona), Bobbio (Piacenza), Zocca (Modena), Nonantola (Modena), Crespadoro (Vicenza) e Cantalupo di Bevagna (Perugia), Cannole (Lecce), Quero ...Verrazze ...Gesico the latter three in Sardegna, I assume Here they talk about Borgo San Dalmazzo having a several century old relation to snails and a yearly snail market in December.

As a small addition for people curious about snails outside Spain or France: the small Piedmontese town Cherasco near Bra and Alba is something like the Italian capital of snail lovers. Recommended: "La Rosa Rossa" and "La Luamca".

Welcome and thank you, vesnuccia! I highly appreciate recommendations for simple restaurants which are esteemed among local conoscentis. This is the kind of information most difficult to gather, IMHO.

FWIW There's another very nice, smaller market called "Brunnenmarkt" or "Yppenmarkt" (16th precinct) . At the upper end, there's a square ("Yppenplatz") with several small cabins. One of tehem is Stauds Pavillon, the home shop of a meantime successful producer of preserved food. The pavillon is run by mama Staud, and I found there a lot of cute specialties I've never seen elsewhere. For example, once I bought 2 different apricot marmelades made from the famous "Wachauer Marillen" (apricots from the wine area), each made from different "vineyards"of the same region. The difference was amazing and not unlike comparing wine or eaux-de-vie from different places. When in Vienna, I always go there to sample some unknown stuff. On Saturday morning, there are farmers from the near region there and during the week a vast selection of turkish/greek/balkan products.

When in Liguria, I could die for "Moscardini alla Ligure" (squids). But frankly I have no idea how typical the Ligurian squids are, and I must confess I never acquired knowledge about the terroir of squids. However, the recipe seems extremely simple, so I have no other explanation why I like them so much there.

The truffle thing is fascinating: 1) I remember still the first time im I had a dish with a lot of fresh white truffles in Piedmont. Divine. 2) Years later, when the smell of a truffled oil got to my nose, I had the same feelings like you. I never tasted truffle oil ever since. But I still adore (sic) fresh truffles. 3) Theres's a window at my home which I use to open daily. Some months ago, every time I opened it there was for one or two seconds a distinct smell in the air not unlike that of truffles. After days I found the dried body of a dead bat hooked under my window board outside. Even when removing it, I smelled truffles. An experience which supported my idea that some fermented food (cheese, some cured meat) appeals to very old regions ans memories of our limbic systems, when rotten food was still appreciated as food. (I heard once that jakals go a long way to find their stuff. They clearly *prefer* it over fresh meat, it seems.) I believe, like in art (horror movies) or sex or many other fields, there can be a fine line between lust and disgust. Sometimes, riding on the line can be great entertainment. But crossing the line can only provoke revulsion. I think you have to wait for fresh truffles in order to determine your line in this area.

I suggest the "Bunet Astigiano" (or "Bonet"), an easy to made piedmontese pudding consisting of amaretti, egg, milk, cream, chocolate and caramel. It's not really a secret, but I've never seen it served outside of the Piedmont. When googling, you'll find at least a dozen, sometimes quite different recipes regarding the quantities of the ingredients. Therefore I suspect some secrecy when it comes to implementation.

Thank you for explaining the circumstances, Mayhaw Man. I regularly buy from this excellent Leon Beyer range of priceworthy Alsatian spirits (around and below $40) to explore the wonders of destilling autumn harvest scents into a bottle. But additional import markups will for sure prevent too many gourmets to share the experience. Grappa at $ 6-10 per shot is really outrageous. Most of the stuff sold in this price ranges is coming in very suspect designer bottles. One can still find a very decent grappa at $20 per bottle in Italian wine producing regions. Only some months ago, Boony Doon had a "Poire" on its web page, though it's gone right now. But I have little doubt, that a guy with a long term goal and working hard on acquiring the technique will be pretty successful with such a range of products. And let me add that in Europe, the distribution of the fruit spirits aficionados is very uneven. It's pretty clearly confined to France, Switzerland, Southwest of Germany, Austria and the Balkan region. In Italy, for example, you'll find tons of grappa, but very rarely or almost none of the fruit spirit varities.

Two of the most popular, traditional Swiss spirits (or eau-de-vie) are "williams pear brandy" from the canton of Valais/Wallis and "Kirsch" (cherry spirit) from the German speaking part. The French Alsatian labels for eau-de-vie use to offer a good price/perf. ration. In general, fruit brandies (plum, cherry, pear, raspberry etc. etc) seem to far more popular in Central and Eastern Europe than in the US. Consequently, you'll find a far superiour choice of excellent qualities of these -mostly in small quantities - produced spirits. OTOH beware - American palates dont' seem to appreciate these kind of spirits as enthusiastically as many Europeans do.

Victor, thank you so much for this report. When reading, I felt for 10 minutes on vacation.

Congrats. So you came in after a 10 hrs, 41 mins, 55 secs ride. Wow! The burdens of performance cycling. OTOH, a shared dinner and bottle of wine in a basic "Logis de France" after pedalling some hours through the landscape of the Auvergne or the Aquitaine can be a transcending experience. Vive la petite Reine! (Long live the little queen [bicycle])!

And how did you survive your "L'Etape du Tour", Druck? 238 km and 9 climbs, right? Äie! What did you stuff down into your gullet?

A real treasure! I'm envying you! And thanks for your great blog, tejon!

1997, sigh. But when I saw Lucys recommendation, I couldn't resist. I liked this place very much, not only for food, but for atmosphere as well. And Beijing aside, I visited the southwest

I strongly second that. It's at the NE corner of the Ritan park: the Xihe Yaju restaurant. I was invited there by a Chinese/Spanish couple living for 10 years now in Beijing.

To roughly illustrate this by some numbers (taken from an study 1997): world wide market share of: table wine (<$5/btl): >50% premium wine ($5-$7): ~25% super premium ($7$-$14): <10% ultra premium (>$14/btl.) ~2% As a footnote, wine consumption in France is ~60l/capita. I guess market share leader is still wine sold en vrac = reusable 5l plastic containers filled at rural wineries and wine shops with equipment not unlike to a gasoline station. 1963 yearly consumption in France peaked at 127.3 l (sic).

Does this mean that fruit spirits (raspberry, cherry, plum, etc) are in general not much requested by wine lovers? Too soft for real men? Thanks for you wonderful pictures of the farmer market. If there's a food sci-fi gadget I'd really like to own it would be a portable kitchen. You could visit every market of this world, buy some interesting ingredients and start cooking right away.

Thank you for reposting, because I missed it the first time around. There's no X in Italian. "Expres" is a French word. A mystery! If true, than "expres/espresso" probably made an allusion to "quickly made" above all. Lettre chargé (registered post) and Lettre exprès (express post) have been common designators in France (and Switzerland) by then. I think exprès meant that you had to voice *explicitly* your desire for fast transportation. Around 1900, with all the new railways, ther must have been a fever for internationalism and technical progress. Hence all the international trade shows and Expos.

Boeuf Bourguignon and Gulasz are another two classic examples of dishes said to be better the second day. I never made a Cassoulet but I believe to remember same comments. I experienced tasty dishes with reheated (oven fryed in this case) risotto and polenta and even some long cooked vegetables and I found them sometimes superiour. Should make an attractive range of possibilites for an entertaining home cook to escape the logistic problems of a professional "cuisine à la minute". Should be viewn separated from the left-over/cantine-food notion.