Archive for November, 2009
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A treat in store
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
As every Camembert is wrapped before going into its box, bear in mind that it is a living cheese and needs to breathe. That is why at least half the box will be made of wood, since boxes made completely of cardboard tend to go soggy, while the cheese does not travel well. The Camembert [...]
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The magic of ceps
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
The cep is a member of the boletes family, which sports tubes instead of gills underneath the cap. Also known as porcini (piglets) in Italian and once referred to as the ‘penny bun’ in England, this imposing fungus has a delicate hazelnut flavour. It is a classic culinary fungus which, like the morel, can be [...]
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The magic of morels
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
You need to be out early to find this fungus: the morel grows in the late spring and early summer. It is an unpredictable fungus, too, growing in different places from one year to the next, although they do like patches of scorched ground, especially where fruit trees have been burnt the previous autumn. Its [...]
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The magic of truffles
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
The ancients appreciated the truffle just as much as we hold it in awe today. Nowadays this underground fungus is appreciated for the beautiful flavour it adds to even the simplest of dishes. In the middle ages, this fungus was imbued with supposed magical powers, while some went so far as to say that truffle [...]
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Terroir as living tradition (2)
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
A terroir is built on human activity and delimited by geography factors, often by geology or river basin in the case of the Isigny terroir. The special qualities of any terroir reflect the quality of the relationship between food producers and their environment at all levels. The ability to unlock every aspect of the local [...]
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Terroir as living tradition (1)
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
Most of the things that make a terroir a distinct environment are simple enough: Normandy cows grazing in the marshland meadows or the patchwork of upland pastures known as the bocage are not hard to spot; rain that falls on the land all drains into small rivers like the Vire that converge on a breach [...]
