A Literary Culinary Journal
Apples and cream are a quintessentially Norman flavor combination. This is a festive dish made on Sundays and holidays.
In Normandy, they would traditionally drink it with dry cider or Pommeau, but a fruity white wine such as a Riesling goes well, or even dry white Burgundies. If you prefer red, try a light one, such as Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil or another Loire red.
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Matafans are a specialty of the rugged region of Franche-Comté in eastern France; the word is Franco-Provençal. They are sometimes called mata fame, meaning in Spanish “to kill hunger.” It’s not surprising that the word originally comes from Spanish, since they controlled this region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Matafans are also found in the Savoy and Lyon under the francisized name matefaim.
They are fairly ancient, and Rabelais mentioned them in his third book in 1546.
Matafans were originally eaten by peasants for breakfast. Today, they are often eaten as a starter, accompanied by a green salad.
They are essentially very thick pancakes, and in the old days were made with leftover mashed potatoes, but can also be made with apples and eaten as a dessert. Lucy Vanel gives a recipe for the historical potato recipe on her website. Today, most people make them from wheat flour.
They are eaten at Candlemas, washed down with Génépi, an absinthe liqueur. The dessert version is accompanied by a sparkling rosé or a fortified wine.
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Bourride is the specialty of Sète, a town on the coast of the Languedoc in Provence. Sète is one of the largest fishing ports in the region. Native poet Paul Valéry called it l’île singulaire, the singular island, because it is nestled in between two salt water lakes and the sea.
Bourride is said to date back to the Phocaeans, the ancient inhabitants of Marseilles, then called Massilia.
In Provençal, it is called boulido, meaning “boiled.” It is not unlike bouillabaisse, a specialty of nearby Marseilles, the difference being that bourride is made with only white fish — monkfish tails in particular, and that it is accompanied by aioli instead of the traditional rouille served with bouillabaisse. Shellfish are never added.
My recipe is very traditional. There are many variants, but the aim of this series of articles “What to Eat in France” is to seek original or traditional recipes for traditional, regional dishes.
This dish is a sure pleaser for parties and is easy enough to cook ahead, doing everything but poaching the fish, which should be done before serving.
In the region, many locals drink rosé wine such as Coteaux-d’Aix-en-Provence with bourride, but one might just as easily pair it with a perfumed Languedoc white. There are a world of them to be discovered, but since they are not, for the most part. A.O.C., it’s difficult to recommend one in particular. It’s a matter of producer as much as place.
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11 x 7 x 2 in. (28 x 18 x 5 cm) baking dish or deep pie tin
1 box Speculoos ginger cookies
Mixed summer fruit, washed and chopped into fat chunks such as apricots and blueberries + banana
Cinnamon to taste
1 1/2T – 2 T. dark brown cane sugar
1 1/2 – 2 T. maple syrup, depending on sweetness of fruit
Dried chili pepper flakes
500 g Quark* or Séré cheese
Line baking dish with Speculoos to form a crust, covering sides as well as bottom of pan.
Chop apricots, blueberries and banana into large bite-size pieces. Place in a bowl. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon. Add 1 1/2 – 2 T. of dark brown sugar, 1 1/2 – 2 T. of maple syrup and a sprinkle of dried chili peppers. Mix well. Marinate for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Mix fruit with one large yogurt-size tub Quark (500 g). Leave to marinate for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Pour quark and fruit mixture into pie pan. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.
*Quark is a fresh cheese made in the Germanic countries. It is not the same as cottage cheese or cream cheese, since it is made by warming soured milk fermented with mesophile bacteria until it coagulates. It can be replaced by labneh, ricotta, mascarpone, thick fromage blanc or strained yogurt, although the flavor and texture will not be exactly the same.
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A charlotte is traditionally fruit sautéed in butter which is then placed in a mold lined with bread. In our day, the bread is usually ladyfingers, but I’ve used financier, a dense almond flour cake made with beurre noisette, giving it a distinctive flavor.
Insteading of sautéing the strawberries, I’ve marinated them in rum and used the marinade to “wet” the cake, similar to the way the British make trifle.
600 g strawberries
2 T. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 T. rum
3/4 c. water
4 financier cakes, individual size (or other type of soft, but dense, almond cakes)
200 g thick cream
1/2 vanilla bean
2 T. brown sugar
4 parfait dishes
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This dish hails from Normandy, where cream, butter, apples and calves are abundant. Chartres is not officially in Normandy, but its cuisine is similar.
1 kilogram or 2 pounds veal shoulder, cut into 2″ x 2″ pieces
12 pearl onions, or the white of 12 small spring onions, peeled and whole
1 apple, chopped
4 carrots, cut into large chunks crosswise
Apple juice
Veal or chicken broth
6 small new potatoes in jacket
4-5 tablespoons flour
2-3tablespoons butter
1/2 liter or 1 quart milk
Italian or flat parsley, chopped
Salt
Pepper
Dutch oven or similar large pan
Note: This is often served with rice. If you prefer rice, leave out the potatoes. Small turnips can also be added at the beginning, as well as other vegetables, according to taste.
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Emmanuel Ménétrier / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
Pot-au-feu and petite marmite in today’s vocabulary are the same thing. Until the nineteenth century, the term pot-au-feu simply referred to a family soup to which was added different ingredients every day, usually with beef and chicken added on Sunday. The regional variations were endless, depending on availability and season and depending on the cook.
In 1829, the French etymology dictionary defined pot-pourri as “the name our fathers gave to the pot-au-feu.” In the nineteenth century, the recipe started to take on its modern ingredients of beef, root vegetables and a veal bone, but it still included chicken, which many people, including my French butcher’s wife, leave out these days.
Escoffier, who codified French cuisine in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, set down the recipe in Le Guide Culinaire in 1902, still calling it petite marmite. The regional variations started to disappear, and the recipe has now been simplified by most home cooks to contain only beef, no chicken. Escoffier insisted on the importance of the chicken, but today, one rarely finds a pot-au-feu with mutton, veal, pork, chicken, duck or turkey. The other name, petite marmite, has pretty much gone out of usage.
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The French might claim pot-au-feu as their invention, but my guess is wherever there has been a pan or a pot, humans have made variations of it. Classical pot-au-feu, also known as petite marmite, is nothing more than beef and/or chicken and vegetables cooked in consommé with a marrow bone, with the chicken giblets thrown in at the end. There are regional variations, of course, some with veal or pork, and occasionally even mutton. Traditionally, carrots, turnips, leeks, pearl onions, celery and cabbage are used. These are added to the consommé along with the marrow bone and brought to a boil, then simmered gently for four hours.
The soup, vegetables and meat are then served in a bowl with toasted bread, the meat sometimes eaten on the side and sometimes in the bowl. Traditional garnishes include mustard, pickles and coarse salt. It is normally paired with red wine.
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The French-Vaudois word raisinée refers to a syrup or molasses made of the must of apples and pears. It was originally cooked in grape juice, thus the name — raisin means grape in French. Often called vin cuit, or “cooked wine,” it is in the form of a dark brown, viscous liquid. In still other parts of Switzerland, another concoction similar in consistency to jam and using the same ingredients is called cougnarde and probably dates back to at least the Middle Ages. Raisinée was used as a sweetener in many regions in Europe, and the tradition has lingered in Switzerland, especially in the cantons of Vaud, Fribourg and Neuchâtel. Today, it is mainly used for cakes and pies, and is not fermented, so it not technically a wine.
The tart itself has numerous names — raisinée, vin cuit (literally cooked wine), cougnarde and Biresaassa, depending on the location.
This recipe is inspired by Concert des Casseroles and translated with their authorization
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Swiss Food: Fribourg-style Cuchaule: Saffron Bread to Eat with Your Bénichon MustardFrom the archives
In my article, Bénichon Mustard, A Fribourg Specialty to Welcome the Cows Coming Home a few days ago, I talked about the brioche-like saffron bread cuchaule which is traditionally eaten with Bénichon mustard during the Bénichon fall fair in Fribourg, Switzerland.
I translated this recipe from the Delimoon site from the French and adapted it.
Photo courtesy of Moja Kuchnia with authorization.
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
