The food of Normandy

[John Talbott]

Oh yes, the Claude Guermont book.

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Figaro Madame had an article recently on Anne Fontaine’s recipes that she makes in her Normandy home - Pti, except for the last, are they Normand?

Cubes de saumon à l’aneth, Carré d’agneau et courgettes farcies, Délice au lait de coco, Délice au lait normand.

[Ptipois]

Well when coconut trees grow naturally in Fécamp I may reconsider the normanity of her recipes, but there is nothing Norman about salmon, dill (aneth), courgettes, and coconut milk. The fact that she bought a house in Normandy does not mean she is going to cook Norman cooking. This rather sounds like affluent Parisian housewife cooking.

Going back to typical Norman products, what are they exactly?

The list could go on and on, Normandy being one of the most product-rich regions of France. Maupassant used to write about that generous land that it "sweated cider and flesh".

As fresh products go, Normandy is famous for:

CHEESES and dairy products:

Whole milk, thick cream (as seen above), raw milk butter (sweet rather than salted).

North of the Seine, the neuchâtel (cœur, carré de Bray or bondard), creamy, salty with a definite fresh mushroom taste, the excelsior and the la bouille, made near Rouen.

South of the Seine, from the pays d'Auge and some parts of the Orne and Cotentin: camembert, pont-l'évêque, livarot, pavé d'Auge.

FRUIT: apples and pears for the most part, also cherries and plums from Jumièges, West of Rouen.

VEGETABLES: the leek is very popular as a vegetable and as an aromatic. Carrots (Créances, Cotentin) are famous too.

MEATS AND POULTRY: Norman veal and beef are of renowned quality. Pré-salé lamb not so successful as it used to be and not very reliable as a product. Ducks and ducklings from Rouen.

PORK AND CHARCUTERIE: in a category of their own since Normandy is particularly good at them. Outstanding boudin (black and white) in Rouen, andouille (chitterling sausage) from Vire and Domfront, cooked garlic sausage, grilled pig's feet, various pâtés, terrines and galantines (pâté de foie piqué, a hard-to-find traditional galantine of fine pork mince, liver and fat bacon arranged in a mosaic).

SEAFOOD: the most appreciated fish species are the Dover sole from Dieppe, mussels from Fécamp (caïeux), moruette (codling or scrod) or cabillaud (fresh cod), lieu jaune (pollack), colin or merlu (hake), shark liver (foie de hâ), maquereau (macaillâ), small shrimp from Honfleur, skate (raie), mulet du large (grey mullet), tourteau or dormeur (crab), congre (conger eel), carrelet (plaice), limande and limande sole (dab and lemon sole). Anything that can be cooked in cream is supposed to be good.

Oh and I almost forgot the smoked fish from Fécamp, particularly the herring, which used to be brought in, prepared and smoked in town. Still available are the harengs saurs doux, bouffis (bloaters) and safattes, lightly smoked herring that are supposed to be eaten with your hands right after buying them in the street. Very seasonal (early September).

Edited August 3, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[Adam Balic]

Ptipois, hae you seen a copy of "The Norman Table: The Tradional Cooking of Normandy" by Claude Guermont with Paul Frumpkin and if so what is your opinion? It is the only English language cookbook on the food of Normandy that I have come across to date.

[Ptipois]

Ptipois, hae you seen a copy of "The Norman Table: The Tradional Cooking of Normandy" by Claude Guermont with Paul Frumpkin and if so what is your opinion? It is the only English language cookbook on the food of Normandy that I have come across to date.

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I do have a copy of that book and I must say I love it. I explained in an earlier post that I ordered it again from Amazon some time ago because my first copy was no longer accessible.

I bought it back in the '80s when it was first published in the US, I was living in NYC at the time and of course because of my Norman origins I literally pounced on it. However there was not as much nostalgia associated to it as I expected, because Guermont is from a different part of Normandy than I am from; I am from the Northern pays de Caux (Maupassant country, precisely, and the cities of Rouen and Fécamp) and he is from the Orne, a Southwestern part of the region. It is a very large and diversified region, probably owing to the fact that it is a mosaic of former "pays", with different native populations, while other regions like Berry or Burgundy are more culturally unified. To give you an example accents are totally different from one part of Normandy to another. A Domfrontais speaking the native dialect would have trouble understanding a Cauchois speaking his own.

Going back to Guermont, I find all the recipes to be wonderful. There are few cookbooks that I cherish like treasures but this is one. It was written in a time when chefs were not necessarily expected to "innovate" and so they could concentrate on deep, fresh, wholesome tastes, and following a living tradition was not considered slightly laughable as it is now. The recipe for stuffed chicken called "farc normand" is a true gem among others and a good example of how luminous and rich this cuisine is, though based on utter simplicity. First of course you should have a good chicken, but the stuffing is a collection of small tricks that make it unique: first you have to oven-roast whole onions in their skins, and add them to the stuffing when they're quite brown. Add bread soaked in milk, chopped chives, plenty of butter, and a few coarsely chopped chicken livers, and stuff the chicken with that. Truss it, rub it with butter, salt and pepper, and roast it adding a little chicken stock to the pan. Throughout the cooking, the chicken will be basted with the mixture of chicken stock, butter from the stufing and its own juices. A better roasted chicken you'll never have. My son asks for it regularly, though in Paris I can't find the chickens that are available on the Rouen markets.

So it is a wonderful chef book as well as a good document on the cooking of a certain part of Normandy (probably the least well-known part, too), but bear in mind that it does not really reflect the cooking of the whole region. To be fair, I think each "pays" would deserve a book of its own.

And I also think that one small region that is supposed to be part of Brittany — the area around Mont Saint-Michel and Cancale — is culturally more Norman than Breton (the accent is clearly Norman) and should not be overlooked when one decides to study Norman cooking.

Edited August 4, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[Adam Balic]

Sounds like I did well for a few pounds on ebay.

I'm glad to see that it meets with your approval, as I was un-sure how to judge a cuisine with which I have no experience.

Another question. Apples are used quite a bit in the cuisine it seems, but when using fresh apples (rather then cider or calvados) what type of apples are these? Normandy = cider, but some cider apples are rather horrible to eat raw (some are quite sharp/bitter) and I can't imagine them cooked either. On the other had a super sweet apple doesn't seem right in a savory dish.

[Ptipois]

Sounds like I did well for a few pounds on ebay.

I'm glad to see that it meets with your approval, as I was un-sure how to judge a cuisine with which I have no experience.

Another question. Apples are used quite a bit in the cuisine it seems, but when using fresh apples (rather then cider or calvados) what type of apples are these? Normandy = cider, but some cider apples are rather horrible to eat raw (some are quite sharp/bitter) and I can't imagine them cooked either. On the other had a super sweet apple doesn't seem right in a savory dish.

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You are right, cider apples are not usually used in cooking while the very sweet apples of modern agro production are not suitable for Norman dishes.

While most Norman people who have a piece of land grow a certain quantity of cider apples trees, some traditional "eating apple" trees were always thrown in and relied upon for everyday consumption, cooking and baking.

Traditional types are fragrant, slightly acidic and firm-fleshed. My favorite in Haute Normandy is the bailleul apple, very dense and heavy with a bright green skin, speckled with red.

When I was a child my grandmother also used reinettes apples (pippins), Cox's orange pippin and Boskoop apples, or reinette Clochard which is a primitive and much tastier version of Golden Delicious. These are still part of mainstream consumption in France.

I do now know what types of apples are available in Australia, but I have found that traditional North American apples like the Macintosh or the Idared were excellent substitutes for traditional Norman apples. Actually I have never found better substitutes, back home in France when I have to rely on golden delicious, royal gala and the like, it's not as good as it used to be in NYC — when I cannot find Norman apples. I do not know much about British cooking apples. For instance, Bramley would be too soft. Braeburn is fine.

Edited August 4, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[Adam Balic]

That makes sense, thank you. In Australia there are hundreds of apple varieties, although most people are limited to the usual supermarket selection (which is a slightly different selection to what you find in the UK and USA).

My parents have a small orchard with the apples that you mention, but also a few harder to get types like Calville blanc d'hiver, Court pedu plat etc. Is the wrong time of year here for apples, but I will keep what you have said in mind for next year.

[Ptipois]

Continued from the Brittany thread, a little info on the famous omelette à la mère Poulard.

I have two versions of the recipe. Each one slightly different. I have no proof that either one is the "true" recipe.

1st version:

Separate the yolks and whites of 8 fresh eggs. Add salt and pepper to the yolks only. Beat the yolks and the whites (stiff) in two separate vessels.

Melt a nice piece of butter in hot frying pan. When it sizzles, add the yolks. When they begin to set, add a large tablespoonful of beaten crème fraîche then the stiff egg whites. Cook, stirring gently, shaking the pan until set.

2nd version (from Claude Guermont's The Norman Table):

Eggs (whole) are beaten until 4 to 5 times their original volume, no salt added. Salted butter is melted in a dark steel pan. Eggs are added without stirring, then cooked gently until a light brown crust begins forming on the edge. Then the pan is put under the broiler for 15 seconds, folded and served.

Another version of this omelette includes shucked oysters and oyster juice, chopped shallots and parsley. In that case it is called "omelette à l'eau de vive".

I read it slightly differently. My read was that the secret of the omlette is that there is no secret. Simple, fresh, high quality ingredients cooked well.

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Well you certainly get a perfectly good omelette this way, but you don't get a mère Poulard. The way she formulates it is typical of the way cooks with definite "tours de main" communicate with the outside world. Pastry chefs are very good at that too. As you may see in the Normandy thread, there are several versions of this recipe and some involve separating the eggs, some keeping them whole, but all of them require a thorough beating — much longer than for a normal omelette.

I have heard for instance that the fact that the omelette is cooked on a wood fire (which makes any omelette extra light and fluffy as long as you pour the eggs into a very hot pan) is part of the "secret". Well for one thing those omelettes are cooked on a wood fire, but all the versions I have read mention that the butter should not be very hot, just "singing". So there goes the instant fluff effect. I rather tend to trust the common features among the several versions of mère Poulard omelette than the distinctly laconic description the lady gives in her letter...

Edited August 17, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[Ptipois]

My parents have a small orchard with the apples that you mention, but also a few harder to get types like Calville blanc d'hiver, Court pedu plat etc. Is the wrong time of year here for apples, but I will keep what you have said in mind for next year.

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If you have calvilles, you're a rich man. Calvilles are some of the most frequently mentioned apples in Norman recipes.

[Adam Balic]

Which is why I bought the tree. Two years or so and I will have fruit.

OK, it is freezing here and the wife is away on business so Tripes à la mode de Caen is on the menu. No bovine feet possible, so would it work to substitute pigs feet (for the gelatin, if not the flavour)?

[Ptipois]

If you can't have calves' feet, pig's feet will the closest equivalent.

Is there no way you can ask a butcher for calves' feet or order them? Is it absolutely impossible to get calves' feet in Australia?

(Not even kangaroo feet?)

[Adam Balic]

If you can't have calves' feet, pig's feet will the closest equivalent.

Is there no way you can ask a butcher for calves' feet or order them? Is it absolutely impossible to get calves' feet in Australia?

(Not even kangaroo feet?)

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Not impossible (but very difficult). I went to the very large central market here in Melbourne and got two types of tripe (rumen and reticulum). Sad that I can't get abomasum here, as I like the flavor. But I was lucky to get any at all given there are about 20-25 butchers in the complex, but only one of them was selling tripe (+ one selling lamb stomachs). Also the only butcher selling back fat and pork skin.

Anyway, tonight is the night.

[Ptipois]

Too bad you couldn't get abomasum, Adam. Here in France it is not so easy to find either, though it is part of the traditional recipe. When you buy tripes à la mode de Caen in the mainstream commercial network like plastic-wrapped supermarket tripes, abomasum is often absent. It is always present when you buy in Normandy, directly from a charcutier, tripier or boucher who cook the dish on their premises.

[Abra]

Can you explain the three different types of tripe by their appearance? For example, in this picture

which is what?

[Adam Balic]

You have two types here, the rumen (1st stomach) and reticulum (2nd stomach). The rumen gives the blanket tripe and the honeycomb tripe is the reticulum. There is some texture variation in the reticulum tripe, but essentially it looks like a towel.

The two tripe that are missing are the omasum (3rd stomach, book tripe) and abomasum (4th stomach, brown tripe).

[Adam Balic]

So now after cooking for 10 hours I have a large pot of tripe in an a clear amber liquid. Much to my amazement, the carrots (whole) are still firm after this cooking treatment. Will allow to cool, then it will be defatted and meat de-boned etc.