Archive for the ‘milk’ category
-
Concert piece
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
Speaking to the Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier about his jazz concert performance with Andy Sheppard earlier this year, he was clear that he wanted to turn out recipes that would be impossible with a conventially-equipped domestic kitchen. His recipe for galettes, topped with a 65 degree egg and laid out on a cappucino of [...]
-
The roots of an AOC
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
There is a saying in Normandy that ‘the water makes the grass and the grass makes the milk.’ Research that was carried out to make the case for an Isigny AOC found that Isigny’s milk is rich in proteins and casein. The Normandy cows play their part and represent a high proportion of the regional [...]
-
Postwar powdered milk: the height of modernity
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Isigny’s first drying tower for powdered milk started work in 1949 and was such a resounding success that by 1959 the cooperative had built a second one, three times the size. Capable of processing two and a half tonnes of milk an hour, the second tower was housed in an ultramodern glass-walled building. It was [...]
-
France's first spray drying tower
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
By 1946, Henri Babeur had decided that the cooperative should build a milk drying tower and make soluble milk powder from what had previously been given back to the members. “It will not only increase the value of the skimmed milk above what it is worth as a cheese by-product, but will allow us to [...]
-
Postwar reconstruction
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
As the liberating armies moved on to Caen and Paris, the Isigny dairy farmers returned to developing their cooperative. There were just 28 of the founder members who had survived the war: they were joined by a further 208 new members. As the war drew to a close, the Bessin exceeded a previous 1938 high [...]
-
Visits become part of butter calendar
Monday, May 25th, 2009
The first group of visiting crémiers must have talked about little else than Isigny on their return from Normandy. The visit to Isigny sur Mer for a study tour became an annual fixture for the Parisians, for whom the invitation to Isigny was a source of both inspiration and enlightenment. Visiting a farm in the [...]
-
Visits build knowledge and confidence
Monday, May 25th, 2009
Henri Babeur was quick to build the confidence of customers by inviting them to visit Isigny sur Mer. Whatever the Paris crémier was to tell Parisian customers needed to be based on the cremier’s own observations to be credible. Working with Georges Picou, the Parisian wholesale trader, Babeur organised a special train and cars to [...]
-
Churning challenge to new dairy venture
Monday, May 25th, 2009
Following an exploratory meeting in January 1930, a month or so later, some 300 to 400 Isigny milk producers turned out for a meeting to formally launch a milk producers’ syndicate. All the local processors and merchants were present, too. While the producers voted unanimously for the aims of the new syndicate, the processors and [...]
-
Isigny milk producers band together
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
After the First World War and the demise of Louis Dupont’s first cooperative, the chill winds of change started to blow through the Isigny economy. A continuing wariness in relations between dairy farmers and butter merchants was punctuated with accusations of speculative trading in butter and the misuse of the Isigny name to sell blends [...]
-
The Model Dairy runs out of steam
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
From its arrival in rue de Brésil as milk to its despatch as butter, workers on the production floor never touched any of the food they were working on. Using the Danish system for ripening cream before it is churned, the Model Dairy made butter that could be kept for four weeks and more, or [...]
