Archive for the ‘Vire’ 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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Foods that span centuries
Friday, December 18th, 2009
A Croque Monsieur is standard offering at bars and cafes across France: it comprises melted cheese on toast with a slice of ham between the cheese and the meat. When the Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier prepared his version, he used Normandy’s charcuterie speciality, andouille, with Pont l’Evêque cheese. The andouille is a speciality sausage [...]
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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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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 [...]
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Revolutionary priorities for butter
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
The French Revolution meant that cross-Channel commerce to England was forbidden, including shipments of butter
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Butter as booty
Friday, April 10th, 2009
In times of war, such as those in the 1670s, during Louis XIV’s reign, traders along the French coast often had to defend themselves against
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Butter for barbarians?
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Pliny the elder despised the barbarians for their use of butter. The Roman writer added: “In France it is in general use, more often among the poor than the rich.” These dismissive words stuck for centuries
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From Normandy to Westminster
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
After ruling what is now Haute Normandie (high Normandy), Rollo was later granted the Bessin, while the other bank of the river Vire, the Cotentin, was being ruled by Breton nobles. When the lord of the Cotentin died without an heir in 933, Rollo’s successor William Longsword was appointed by the French crown to rule [...]
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Butter: worth its salt
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Normandy’s Viking settlers brought cattle with them in their longboats (drakkars) and an appetite for dairy products. They routinely ate a coarse gruel, later adopted in the British Isles as porridge, as well as
