Adam Balic

I'm afraid that we only had one restaurant meal for the week and this was a quick lunch in Grenoble on the way to Chartreuse. This is a €23 meal, which also included a selection of local cheese. A good example of what is great about food in France and why I rarely eat out in Edinburgh. Entrees: Rabbit terrine with prune Charentais melon with vin de noix. This is walnut country and many dishes come with products from this tree. The melons were excellent at this time of the year. Sometimes they are served with port which I don't like, but much to my surprise the vin de noix combination worked rather well Gratin of Ravioles Mains: Lamb Tagine Veal with ravioles and a morel cream sauce There were numerous other dishes on offer including ombre cheveliar. All in all great value. What was slightly odd was the amount of pizza places (Grenoble is relatively close to the Italian border) that sold terrible looking pizza for a similar price that seemed to be packed with tourists and locals alike, compared to the restuarant that we ate at.

These saucisson actually have chunks of cheese in them. As to the English, my guess is that this is one of those 'travelling' stalls that you even see in French markets in the UK. I imagine that "cheese" is put there on the label as there is a good chance that English speakers will not know what "beaufort" etc signify. Or maybe they just knew I was comming.

They look similar to the variety I know as "Brown Turkey", but are more elongated and have a better flavour.

The French Alps has some very famous cheeses, including this hugh Beaufort, a gruyere style cheese made traditionally in these wooden moulds.

This area of France is near to the epicentre of stuffed pasta. While most food travelers in France are familar with ravioli a la Nicoise, they made not have heard of Ravioles du Dauphine (discussed later) or another regional speciality "Tourtons". These are pasta squares stuffed with cheese, spinach or prunes (amoughst others) then fried. I have seen similar items in Liguria and Nice. These can be eaten as is or as part of a salad etc.

Interestingly for me, this market also sold freshwater fish. As well as the usual rainbow trout there was also feras (Coregonus lavaretus) a type land-locked herring type fish and ombre chevalier the local form of Arctic Char.

There are two markets in Mens, the saturday conventional covered market pictured here and a tuesday organic market that is situated in the town square. There is pressure on the organic stalls to move to covered market, but so far they are resisting. The locals look on in interest. Both markets are relatively small, but with produce as good as the stalls sell there is no real need for multiples. Veg Figs et al. I ate myself into a stupor after I discovered the excellence of the combination of fresh ripe figs and a glass or so of Pineau des Charentes. The sausage stall. There was a hugh variety here, I bought wild boar, walnut and donkey sausages.

For the last week I was a guest at a friends home which is located near the village of Mens which is one hour southeast of Grenoble in the Dauphine. This is not a region that I knew anything about (other then a vague idea of gratins), so it was a pleasant experience to have no expectations other then having a few relaxing days with friends. The view from the breakfast table. The trees in the forground were frequently shaken by visting red squirrels and crossbills. The familys home was full of nut and fruit trees/shrubs. A good part of the this is preserved or turned into booze. I must admit that I went a little fruit crazy and ate most of their current crop... Sour (griotte) cherries. These looked like balls of wax when on the tree. For my crime of eating the wintr fruit supply, I attempted to make a clafoutis. It is quite a scary experience cooking for 12 French persons in their own home.

Well that is good to know . Interesting that it got into a book of 'local cooking', I noticed that the same book has a recpe for carrot cake with cream cheese icing... I guess this indicates that even if I would like to think that every household kitchen is a monument to traditional cooking, this reflects my naivety then the reality.

Sea bass seems to be more of a food icon, then a delcious relality in the UK, the vast majority that I have seen is farmed tastes like the mushy crap that it is. I can not understand why people will pay £14 for such rubbish. Other farmed fish that I have seen recently are sea bream,cod, turbot and sea trout. My fishmonger commneted recently that although the farmed fish get better ever year, in general they are 'not quite right'. I see that there was a comment ot the effect that fish meal is made of scraps of edible fish species, my impression was that the majority of fish meal is made from "industrial" fish such as sand eels, which puts farmed fish in direct competition with wild fish for resources (not to mention puffins etc etc)?

Is this recipe for alcuzcuz reported as being continguous from Moorish times? Or is it a more recent rediscovery? ← Sorry I have been in France for the week. Judging from the book, the dish is simply 'what people make at home' and reflects personal preferences, rather then reflecting absolutely historical or local cooking. As Sanlucar is a port town with a long history and an extant fishing fleet, it would be nice to think that there was an local exchange of food items/traditions with North Africa (there are two Spanish ports in North Africa?), but I didn't see any evidence of this and it is difficult to know exactly were the lady that wrote down the couscous recipe got the recipe from. As vserna indicates, from the recipe it seems to me that it is more likely to be an recent addaption, then a historical recipe. But, it is difficult to know the good ladies of Sanlucar could be cooking couscous every friday night with their excellent fish and sherry and I would never know if it didn't appear in a restuarant menu.

Ah I see. But sure this has more to do with having the the time and resources to obsess about food (or wine, or hill climbing or stamp collecting etc), where as religion isn't dependent eing able to question this? The religions that I have any knowledge of make a point of not being testable, by definition it is a question of faith. There are aspects of this in food and wine, but ultimately a high priest of food or wine can only lead you so far. If you stick it in your mouth, yet can't form an opinion of your own about it (Do I like this? Do I like it after tasting it 100 times? are pretty basic) then that is foolish. No matter what the motivations of an interest in food are, I believe very firmly that is about increasing knowledge, not a matter of faith.

Actually, this is an Australian lobster (Crayfish or Langouste to the French), no claws. I saw it on my honeymoon. The Scottish (European) lobsters are the same genus as the North American lobster.

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Wonderful lines, wonderful question. ← Worship me puny mortal.

I'm not sure that the increased interest in food in the USA and UK can be put down to a simple substitute for the traditional religions, unless it is a very shallow take on religion (although Christ knows there is enough of that). I think that before religion some of the aspects of food interest that are been spoken about here are about aspirational desires and prestige factor. Lobster is interesting in this respect. It has high prestige factor and very good lobster is found in Scottish waters. At the moment they are not at their best, but the demand is such that most of the live lobster I see sold in Edinburgh are imported from Canada. There is nothing wrong with these lobsters really (same species as you get on the rest of the eastern N.A. coast), except that due to the transport and time of the year they are not at their best. If the desire for a lobster was a substitute for a religious experience, then surely you would wait until they were in season or eat something that was at its peak now? Why build a meal around a second rate lobster when for a fraction of the cost you could have some of the worlds best soft fruits for instance? Having said that I guess that aspirational desires and prestige factor are not exclusively mutual from religious participation.

I haven't been to France for a while (but are off to the Haute-Savoie tomorrow, yay), but one thing that I would be interested in knowing is what types of cookbooks are on the shelves and how much this reflects what people are eating? For example: Asian food is pretty dire (in my limited experience) in Florence, yet looking in a local bookshop there were numerous SE-Asian cookbooks and even a Italian language version of David Thompson's pink monster. Italian food porn? The French seem to be historically pretty good at incorprating foreign foods and basically making them French. I can't see any reason why this process of sorting and assimilation should have stopped. The best obvious examples I have had are the North African and the worst is the Vietnamese. Could not stand the latter, it is more then possible that this is a flawed view. As a naive traveller in Burgundy I saw home deliver 'couscous' everywhere (in Dijon), I thought it was French. Was quite surprised to eventually find out that this was not entirely true.

On a more homely note I have a copy of This book from Sanlucar. It seems to be produced by a local association of ladies that determined to publish some of the dishes made in Sanlucar. In it is a recipe for alcuzcuz, which looks like a very typical couscous with seven vegetables, but with the addtion of Manzanilla.

Eden - the Locusts look excellent. How do you think this batch compares to the previous batch using the non-reduced honey?

Cheers Kevin, very good stuff. Also, I often cook crappily, I just never put images of it on the web. Friends still remind me of how I destroyed an entire days picking worth of brambles by using salt instead of sugar for the crumble..

I'm not too concerned about al dente (a modern idea anyway now?), what I should have said is how dry is the final mixture? Doe pasta completely take up the lquid or is it still a little soupy at the bottom?

Kevin - that all looks great. I especially like the sound of pasta "en cartoccio". What is the testure of the past cooked in this manner though?

I don' think that pectin was the reason for the use of these apples, as they were most often served whole. Possibly the key to there use was that they were relatively hard and didn't turn into mush when poached Here is an American recipe demonstrating how they were cooked (both whole and cut up). Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery [To Make] A Codling Tarte Eyther to Looke Clear or Green "First coddle [poach] ye [the] apples in faire water; yn [then] take halfe the weight in sugar & make as much syrrop as will cover ye bottom of yr [your] preserving pan, & ye rest of ye suger keepe to throw on them as the boyle, which must be very softly; & you must turne them often least they burne too. Then put them in a thin tart crust, & give them with theyr syrrup halfe an hours bakeing; or If you pleas, you may serve them up in a handsome dish, onely garnished with suger & cinnamon. If you would gave yr apples looke green, coddle them in fair water, then pill them, & put them into ye water againe, & cover them very close. Then lay them in yr coffins [ crust] of paste with lofe [loaf] suger, & bake them not too hard. When you serve them up, put in with a tunnell [funnel] to as many of them as you pleas, a little thick sweet cream." ---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York] 1981 (p. 95-96)

1. Well, my honey was mixed with red wine and then reduced. From memory it was still pretty runnyu, but starting to get that bubbly thinkness you get with sugar syrup. No real risk of burning at this stage. 2. You know, I missed the 'thickened' bit in the first reading. Given the similarity to Medieval gingerbread (maybe the Arabic sweetmeat is even an ancestor) and other similar products, I guess it means reduced. But, you could always ask Charles Perry for his opinion as her did the translation and has an interest in recreating these foods? 3. When I was in Fez (Morocco) I was offered both musk and ambergris. Very tempted I was, as these are common ingredients from my favourite period. But, as I was un-happpy not knowing the sources and how they were obtained, I declined. I can tell you what they smell like though. 4. Well another idea would be to pick a later period dish and see if it can be traced back. For instance I was interested in the idea of chicken with custard sauce (think like a modern Avgolemono sauce), I have British versions from the Forme of Cury to the late 18th century in Scotland where is finally dies. Icecream/sorbert/sherbet would be neat to do. But what may be the most simple thing to do is to pick a week and each person that is interested make a dish and post images, recipes etc. If that works out then maybe something more structured could be planned. I am in France next week, but I will do something for the week after.

Well I reduced the honey until it reached 235.F (soft ball) on my thermometre. Didn't actually test if it formed a soft ball or not, but the recipe work well. It does involve guess work though and trial and error. I though my gingerbread was too soft, but when I tested a bit after a month it was perfect. Part of the point of these gingerbread was that they were made for storage, so this makes sense. These recipes are not really exact, For instance 'thickened honey' in the Al-andalus recipe could mean 'reduced' as I have done above. If you think about it honey is already 'thick' so what exactly does 'thickened' mean then? Difficult to know for sure after 700 years or so.

"Clarify" etc means to make it clear (L. calrus=clear) etc. Modern commercial honey is already clear so doesn't need the crude removed, but boiling it reduces and this means that a fudge textured sweetmeat/candy can be made when mixed and kneaded with breadcrumbs. Otherwise you will just get a damp sticky mixture that will not set. This technique is similar to the method for producing Siena's panforte and pan pepato, which can be thought of as cousins to this type of extinct English gingerbread.