Archive for the ‘river’ category
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Something else Isigny is famous for…
Saturday, December 25th, 2010
At the end of every year, it is common to see oyster sellers outside the entrances to French supermarket entrances. Everywhere you look, there will be tables piled high with France’s favourite seasonal seafood: marquees filled with boxes of oysters of all sizes destined for new year celebrations. Depending on the region, the sellers will [...]
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Snow can spread faster than butter…
Monday, December 20th, 2010
The snow currently falling across Europe is a timely reminder that butter was once a cold weather product. Before the days of universal refrigeration, it was harder to keep butter from going rancid or melting. Not impossible, but a sufficient challenge to ensure it remained the prerogative of rich households. Where available, a buttery or [...]
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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 [...]
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How steam shifted French food output
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
Long before grain started arriving in France from the New World, steam had already transformed the way in which goods, particularly food, were being traded around France. The arrival of the railways
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The Ville d'Isigny steams out of town
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
As the prevailing size of ships grew in the nineteenth century, so the port of Isigny become inaccessible to the long haul freight shipping of the day. The gap was plugged by the Ville d’Isigny, a small coastal steamer of 150-200 tonnes that entered the Vire estuary, before carefully threading its way up to the [...]
