Dave Hatfield

Gosh! What's a guy to believe? References here and here say Lyon, but my French food heroine says differently. Think I'll stick with her and gratefully accept being corrected. In either case I'm looking forward to seeing some tasting notes & opinions soon.

Pti, Of course you are right they are both cow's milk not goat. I was trying to see if I could generate interest in a general French cheese thread, but I see that John has saved me from myself. You're right that chaource is the older having been made since the middles ages. I'm not so sure about the St Felicien / St Marcellin tie up although they certainly are similar. My information is that St Felicien was invented in the 50's in Lyon, but is now mainly made outside of the city. Perhaps it was intended as a St Marcellin knock off? Interesting.

Host's note: these were moved over from the Chevre experiment topic so they would be better searched and discussed. Ok, here's a virtual tasting that anybody can try. Two cheeses both cows milk & both raw milk. Both pretty readily available. Here they are: So, St Felicien and Chaource. Buy, try taste. They should be easily findable. As my old prof used to say; "Compare & contrast" in 500 words or less. Let's see who prefers which. And why? Finally, a question for the enthusiast. One of these cheeses is modern dating from the 1950's the other has been made for 500 years or more. Which is which?

Had merguez (lamb &beef) today for lunch along with chipolatas (pork). Can't really imagine a pork merguez. The closest I can think of is charizo, but obviously the taste is very very different. Love them all.

Would have been the same reason one hangs beef. Hanging removes excess water moisture making the flavors less diluted. It also allows enzymes to go to work tenderizing and flavoring the meat. Lamb, pork, etc is generally regarded as not needing to be hung and aged like beef. Some people do like to give it a day or two though, which is just enough for slight effect on a small animal. ← I could not imagine this lamb being any more tender or flavorful than it was. Dave, how old/big was the lamb that you purchased? ← He weighed 16 kilos dressed out. He was (is) very tender. Could be that Rob is a traditionalist as I can't imagine that two days would make a huge difference. I'll have to ask him next time I see him. Welshmen are different in any case.

Doc - Wonderful posts; thank you for sharing. I recently went through the same experience. A friend who is a retired farmer/butcher/ hotelier still keeps a few sheep and occasionally sells one to friends. We went through pretty much exactly the same procedure that you so beautifully documented. My friend Rob would love to have a special chain saw like your farmer's; he sawed by hand. One difference was that Rob hung our lamb for 2 days after slaughtering. You seemed to use yours immediately. Don't know why the difference. I agree that death was as instantaneous as could possibly be. I had Rob cut up our lamb for me since he is a master butcher who used to have his own shop in Wales. It was fascinating to watch a real expert at work. We boned out the legs & cut the chops into racks (4 rib), 'good' chops & end chops. A nice thing Rob did was a boned rolled breast. This baked beautifully & had lots of flavor. We enjoyed all of the offal (I did have Rob keep the brain) but did not keep the blood for 'black pudding' as Rob's opinion is that sheep's blood is not very good. All in all an interesting experience and one that I would certainly repeat. Again, thanks for your posts.

The little crottins are a delight. I'll try to go to the Villefranche market Thursday & do some buying. His cheeses seem to range from very fresh to pretty old, stinky & sharp with several in between. I'll ask him some questions about ages. Hopefully, I'll understand the answers. His French is pretty strongly accented as mainly he speaks Occitan. He does do a Perail type as well as Tomme types. ( including the special fresh ones for Aligot making) This time I'll try to take some pictures.

Yesterday at lunch I tried a small experiment with cheese tasting. I had purchased three little goats cheeses from our local Friday market. They came from a small organic producer who's farm is just a few miles away. Raw milk of course. The first was 'frais' or fresh & young. The type that's so delicious at breakfast with a good jam. The second was older, sort of in between in age. It was firmer and stronger in taste. More of a 'classic' chevre. The third was 'sec' or dry and had been aged far longer. It was smaller having lost a lot of moisture and much much sharper in taste. Of the seven of us at table 4 preferred the medium cheese, 2 the frais and one, me, the sec. I was going to take pictures, but the cheese got eaten before I could get around to it. I'm going to try the same sort of tasting with sheep's milk (Brebis) cheeses next time I go to Villefranche market. There's another local producer who has a stall there. It would be fun to try a regional tasting. SW chevre against Loire valley chevre for instance. Anybody want to try posting a tasting along these lines?

I, as I pretty much usually do, agree with Pti. Its not usually hard to tell what's local. Is it in season? And is it something that's capable of being grown in France? (Clementines in February for example) The signs should also be a good indicator. Personally, I make a point of NOT buying if I can't see/ read the origine sign. Asking is good, but if the stall holder can't take the trouble to obey the regulations I won't be bothered to buy from them. Another misconception I heard a lot from visitors is that produce on the market is cheaper than in the supermarkets. This is not necessarily true. Many times the supermarkets are more than competitive in both price & quality. It varies a lot. In our area for some reason the HyperU is head & shoulders above the LeClerc, the Intermarche & Auchan. Much better produce. Same thing on the markets. Some stall holders just seem to buy better. I love the little guys who don't have a lot to sell, but come for a bit of income & lots of chat. My absolute favorites are the old boys who semi-secretly sell truffles in season. Real cloak & dagger stuff. Very reticent. I remember one, out of season, who had the most mixed up but charming dog. I asked what kind of dog he was & got the whispered reply; a truffle hound! Go to the markets with the idea that you will be experiencing a way of life and social event as well as an opportunity to buy & you won't be disappointed.

Felice - If you could add addresses I can put these on the inexpensive restaurant map. - Dave

Slunch was probably not modeled after Flunch but it certainly reminds you of it in an irresistible way. Slupper sounds fun, and not worse than slunch, did you make it up? ← I did make it up. I was thinking of a sort of semi-liquid meal.

Maybe its a bad take off on Flunch? Flunch being cheap & cheerful cafeteria style places run by the HyperU chain of super markets. Personally, I kind of like slupper.

Margaret - It sounds really good. The post has prompted me to add this place to the interactive map of restaurants outside of Paris. I've used a new symbol, a Yellow one, to designate B & B type places. When I get time I'll do some searching as I know that you and others have posted nice B & B's in the past. Thanks.

Can't resist adding my friend Leo's rub recipe. It works well. Leo’s Dry BBQ Rub 5 T Paprika 4 T Salt 4 T Garlic Powder 2 T Ground Black Pepper 2 T Onion Powder 2 T Cayenne Pepper 2 T Dried Leaf Oregano, Ground 2 T Dried Thyme Combine all ingredients and place in a shaker container that can be sealed. Shake and rub on to any cut of pork. Place meat in covered pan and roast for one hour at 300° prior to cooking on the BBQ. Brown the meat and baste both side with your favorite BBQ sauce. I like simple & this is that & it works.

If you go here to the interactive map you will see a red marker between Paris & Tours. Open this and you will find links to a number of places that are more or less on your route.

Not yet, but it will come. My under 50 eur list in Paris include Wally le saharien, Chez l'Ami Jean, La Régalade, Pho 14, Asia Palace, Thao Ly, Sollia, l'Auberge Bressane, l'Acajou, le Bistrot d'à côté, and that new North-Chinese place that just opened on rue des Colonies and whose name I can't remember. I'll send more detail later if you need to. ← I'll look forward to more posts from you - soon! A note, the 'locals' (John & Felice) dictated that the definition of cheap is 32 Euros for a Paris lunch. Who am I to argue?

Good recipe. About onion cutting, however.... My suggestions: -Cut off the poles first. -Then cut in half, North to South. -Lay each hemisphere cut side down & cut N to S in parallel as many slices as you wish (the more slices the finer the dice) being careful to keep the hemisphere together. - Now, turn the sliced hemisphere 90 degrees & cut across the slices (East to West or West To East??). Again make these cuts as fine as you wish. Doing it this way is efficient and allows you to make your dice as fine as needed for the dish you are cooking. Works for potatoes & any 'roundish' vegetable.

Glad to add your post to the inexpensive restaurants map. Any more?

There are a few places listed here on the interactive map. I can highly recommend Chez Ruffet. Great place.

Are you in this sense thinking of Navettes de Marseillaise? Although Polly is correct that navettes are turnips there is a local sweet bread in that part of France also called Navettes. Here's a link to a recipe. right here! Good luck.

No posts for a long time. Since late April in fact. Its so bad that I had a PM today asking if the cheese thread was still alive. I guess it is, or at least I'll try to put a bit of life in it. We had our friend Jacques & his son Theo coming for lunch today so I went to Caussade market for cheese & other foods. Here's Jacques, Theo , the cheese & the wine. Here's the cheese. From the Top, clockwise. Cantal Entre Deux, Tome de Vache, Cabecous sec de Vache & Bleu de Auvergne. The Tome was particularly good, much stronger than normal. The little dry cabecous are a favorite although normally they are made with goat's or sheep's milk not cow's milk. Here are the labels from the Tome & Cabecou. Both from the same farm. Its about 20 miles from us. Its notable that Madame sells raw milk on her market still. Finally, A close up of the wine label. This chardonnay comes from the Minervois. We buy it just up the hill from the father of the wine maker's wife. 3.60 Euros per bottle. Normally, however, we buy it in 5 liter boxes for 11 Euros. Quite a bargain for exactly the same wine. Packaging & bottling is expensive. In either case its a very nice wine. The rest of our lunch consisted of a salad made with endive, cucumber, onion & radish with a mustard/mayonnaise dressing with cumin & coriander. We then had slow roasted lamb shoulder with sauteed potatoes & fresh peas. Then the cheese. To finish we had some local melon which is just coming into season. Retired life in France is tough. After lunch the government lady arrived to inspect our fosse septique (septic tank). It was Ok so we're good for another 8 years. Afterwards live tennis & a nap. C'est la vie!

Looks like a whole fillet to me. Diameter of the fillet will depend upon the breed of the beef. Most fillets here in France are certainly no more than 3 inches in diameter.

Gosh everyone is being so reasonable. I can't help, but agree with all of the above.

Are we talking grilling? BBQing? Or smoking? I would content that I'm right about very little flavor add except in the case of smoking. A good hot BBQ fire has little or no smoke to impart flavor. The flavor is imparted when the juices hit the hot surface and turn into smoke. Doesn't matter much what the hot surface is. Or that's my opinion in any case. I was 'purist' for 30 years before switching to gas 15 years ago. By the way in rural France they are very much purists. In fact most 'experts' here use seasoned woods, oak, chestnut, cherry and apple are popular. Gas & charcoal are used, but frowned upon by the 'purists' just as in the states.

Didn't forget, just on a low simple carb diet. You're right though both potatoes & the bread are great simple additions. To carry on to dessert another favorite is grilled pineapple with ice cream & rum sauce. More suggestions? Pictorials?