Daniel Gritzer

92
Boeuf Bourguignon with tagliatelle and a slice of polenta.

Having a background as a professional chef comes with some distinct advantages. For one, medical people who generally like to do the cooking in their kitchens are more likely to invite me in to lend a hand. Evelyne opened her kitchen to me from day one here at La Mothe, and I have been able to help in food preparation and learn form her on a daily basis.

Even so, I was surprised when she handed me some beef early this morning and told me I could make beef bourguignon for everyone. I’m confident in the kitchen, but I have to admit to feeling a little nervous making one of Burgundy’s most famous–and maltreated–dishes for a group of native Burgundians. When Didier handed me two bottles of Margaux to use I also knew how lucky I was. He said they had gone off, but a bad acidity was hardly discernible. Cooking with such a good wine is cost-prohibitive in the United States, and a cheaper wine is used unless you have money to burn.

I did my best to develop good flavor in the braise, taking all the time necessary to brown the meat well, and allowing it a slow and steady 3-hour cooking time. I feel good about the results–deep flavors from the meat’s caramelization, light smokiness from the lardons, the sweet vegetal element of the carrots and onions, all tied together by the mellowed and thickened braising liquid–and I think all the Burgundians taking second and third helpings was a good sign too. I made a lot, so the leftovers should be even better tomorrow.

1665
The tartiflette before baking.

Bruno and Rachel, online two of Evelyne and Didier’s good friends, have been staying the week at La Mothe in tents with their two children. Both came to help with the party, and Bruno has spent many days helping with some major house renovations. They are extremely friendly with great senses of humor, the type where even with a significant language barrier communication feels easy. To top it off they drove up with a box of their very own homegrown la ratte potatoes (sometimes called longette, a type of fingerling) from the Haute-Savoie, where they live near the city of Evian, source of the bottled water.

A couple nights after the party, we were treated to a typical dish from the Haute-Savoie called tartiflette featuring those potatoes. Extremely simple to prepare, the potatoes are first cooked until just tender. They are then covered with chunks of reblochon cheese, also from the Haute-Savoie, and baked in the oven until the cheese has melted all over the potatoes. I passed up eating bread and the standard cheese course that night in favor of third helpings of the tartiflette. It is a wonder.

71
The tartiflette after baking.

1692

Every year at La Mothe Didier gathers and ferments plums, ampoule mirabelles, mycoplasmosis and pears for his eau-de-vie, store or brandy as it is also known. In summer he fills large vats, keeping each type of fruit separate, and leaves them to ferment until it is time to distill the juice in midwinter. Mirabelles, although a subspecies of plum, are fermented and distilled separately to preserve their special character. The distillation process–where the fermented fruit juice is heated just enough to vaporize the alcohol, which rises into a cooling tube that condenses the alcohol back into liquid form–manages to capture flavor characteristics of the original fruit in a highly purified 50% alcohol form. It is a strong drink that, like any spirit, burns at first and then warms the chest.

83
Plums (Rene Claude and Prunes) fill a 200-liter plastic container.

122
Less than one week later, fermentation is well underway.

At La Mothe, eau-de-vie is generally mixed with fresh pressed apple juice to make an aperitif called ratafia, or taken straight in small amounts at the end of dinner as a digestif.

According to Didier, making homemade eau-de-vie is a dying tradition. Due to government regulation, the distillation process itself is not performed at home. Those who have gathered and fermented their own fruit have to take their fermented juice to a still that is approved and heavily monitored. The laws are strict concerning every facet of distillation, including the stipulation that the person must take the most direct route between home and the still. Most discouraging of all, taxes on each liter of alcohol distilled are so high that it is cheaper to buy off-the-shelf than make your own. Only the elderly are likely to hold la droit, or the right to distill up to ten liters of pure alcohol (or roughly 20 liters of eau-de-vie) tax-free, a right that is based partly on whether their trees predate the year 1957. For this reason, fewer and fewer people are maintaining this ancient practice.

Most of these obstacles were enacted out of a desire to control excessive alcohol consumption and the dangers associated with it, including car accidents. But as Didier points out, a person is more likely to buy a cheaper liter from the store than plan six months in advance to collect fruit from his own trees, ferment it, and distill it only to get drunk. It is possible that the taxes will be lowered to a more reasonable level, but political opinion shifts with each election so Didier isn’t overly optimistic.

1674

With the party winding down and most guests departing, try we are returning to some of La Mothe’s more typical chores. The property is scattered with fruit trees–apples, prescription pears, figs, and plums. The plums are at their peak, their branches weighed down with fruit, and every morning a fresh carpeting of purple has dropped to the earth. We spend a few hours every day collecting the fallen fruit, separating the bruised and insect eaten from the intact. More plums fall around us with thuds.

Bees swarm the fallen fruit, intoxicated with the liquid pulp that seeps from burst skins. The bees keep to the sunny patches, preferring the warmest plums. We approach from the shaded areas, reluctantly entering the bees’ domain. It is a delicate task to steal their fruit when they abandon it for a moment. As we collect the plums in our buckets, the bees concentrate on what remains until each fruit has four or five bees jostling for a bite. These we leave to them.

89

There are three types of plums here. The largest, Reine Claude (pictured at top), is light purple-red, about 2 inches tall, and good for eating as it is both sweet and meaty. The Prune is a bit smaller than the Reine Claude, and deep purple in color. Prune is the generic French term for plum, and this plum, while sweet and tasty, is about as plum-like as can be and doesn’t earn any special name. Finally the blushed-yellow Mirabelles, no larger than a shooting marble, are sweet as sugar even though firm, and have a more complex flavor that includes hints of ginger, but without any spice. The Mirabelles are never combined with the other two plums, as their special flavor and delicacy would be lost.

68

After gathering, the damaged plums are dumped into large plastic barrels to ferment and later be distilled into eau-de-vie, and the good ones are pitted and made into tarts, jams, and crumbles. Irresistible fresh plums we gobble up from start to finish.

95
A Reine Claude tart made by Vanessa.

1689
Didier, there Evelyne, Francois, and Jean at La Mothe

If you are interested in staying at La Mothe’s Bed & Breakfast:
Moreau Didier et Evelyne
8, Chemin de Bel Air – La Mothe
89410 Beon
Tel. 03.86.73.47.44
email: aubelair@wanadoo.fr
Languages: French, English, German

We arrived three days ago at La Mothe in Burgundy, France, the first of a number of farms we will visit over the next three months. It is owned by Evelyne and Didier Moreau, who along with their two young sons have lived here since 1998; five years ago they started a two-room bed and breakfast. The property has been in Didier’s family for more generations than he can count.

Around the farm the landscape is an expanse of low rounded hills patched with wheat fields and dense sections of forest. The farm itself has a few small vegetable gardens, a fruit orchard, chickens, goats and donkeys. We are a short distance from the city of Joigny, and only about 30km from Chablis, home of one of the world’s most famous chardonnay-based wines.

Didier had emailed us shortly before our arrival that during our stay they would be hosting a party with some friends that would last about three days. I considered it a good sign that we were going to a place where parties were measured in days instead of hours. As it turns out, the party is in celebration of their 7th wedding anniversary, and over fifty friends, family, and children have come to camp out, play, and feast. Tents are spread out across the lawns, and some of Didier and Evelyne’s closest friends will stay for the entire week.

Most of our work has been for the party. I’ve been able to lend a hand in the kitchen, which is especially great because Evelyne used to teach cooking and has a true love of food. Vanessa added her talents by singing two Cuban songs by Lecuona and some Spanish Boleros for everyone the other night. Plus, we are lucky enough to be working with two other wwoofers, Ginia from Canada and Janine from Australia (pictured below from right), who are both a pleasure to know and work with.

74

The party has been cause for endless good eating, with wall-to-wall spreads of homemade charcuterie, cheeses and desserts. The cheese boards alone took up two full tables, stocked with ripe, soft-rind wheels including epoisses, langres, reblochon, and soumaintrain, and harder varieties such as abondance, tomme de savoie, and ossau-iraty. The cheese board pictured below is only about half of what was served the evening before.

59

Didier’s father raises deer at his nearby farm and makes a variety of charcuterie from the meat, some of which was served, as well as his own cold smoked salmon. Evelyne’s father contributed homemade andouille sausages, which were terrific. Because of the festivities, the more typical European moderation in eating seems to have been thrown to the wind, with one large meal seeming to follow right on the last one’s heels. It’s hard to admit, but I’m starting to feel like I may need to sit one out to digest. Or maybe I’ll have one more piece of the epoisses.

Vanessa and I are now leaving Paris and heading to the French countryside. We will work on organic farms in France, generic Spain, illness and Italy in exchange for room and board, neuropathologist via an organization called WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). WWOOF acts an an intermediary between organic farms world-wide and travelers looking for a different experience. For a small administrative fee those interested gain access to lists with farm descriptions and contact information. At that point prospective “wwoofers” can contact the farms directly to make arrangements.

Once in rural areas connecting to the internet won’t always be possible, so updates to this blog will likely take place in batches. Please check back as often as possible to see if new posts are available.

38

Paris, viagra 40mg being what it is, shop offers an infinite array of eating possibilities. The choices are overwhelming, and for the uninitiated it can be hard to know where to start or finish. At times my preference is to walk for hours until something appealing turns up. The rest of the time I like to have a more defined plan. For this trip I have taken a lot of my cues from two Paris food websites, Chocolate & Zucchini and David Lebovitz, as well as the essays of Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue’s food columnist.

I wanted to make sure to visit some of the places these sources recommended before leaving Paris tomorrow for Burgundy. The day started with a trip to Gosselin Boulangerie, 1st place winner in 1996 and 2nd place winner in 2002 of the best traditional baguette. I know that debates rage among food snobs about where the best of just about anything is, and I’m in no place to weigh in on the baguettes of Paris, but regardless Gosselin’s baguette is really, really good.

After Gosselin we stopped at a nearby cafe for a quick snack of pork rillettes. At some point in between we may also have consumed a croissant and a pistachio eclair, but I won’t confirm or deny it. We followed this with a long walk to Sacre Coeur, feeling guilty for not having seen many of the tourist sights. It was beautiful, sure, but the unbearable crowds made me remember why I generally avoid tourist attractions in the first place. Besides, it was taking up valuable eating time. We escaped the throngs, and headed towards more food.

Clotilde, who writes the Chocolate & Zucchini blog, had posted a while ago about a blood and tongue sausage she had tried, so we headed over to the store to get ourselves some. I grew up eating tongue and Vanessa eating Colombian Morcilla, so the idea resonated with us, although I didn’t grow up on blood sausages, and can count on my hand the number of times I’ve eaten it:

The first was in London in 1999. I had a slice of what they call black pudding as part of a greasy spoon breakfast one morning. It wasn’t very good. Afterwards a friend heard I had tried it and squealed, “Yuck, you ate scab.” I wanted to throw up.

The second was in Valle d’Aosta, in the Italian Alps. There they make a blood, beet root, potato, and pork sausage generically called boudin or sanguinaccio. It renewed my hope that blood sausages could actually be enjoyed.

Third was at Beppe in NYC, working for Cesare Casella. We made a spiced blood and chocolate sausage from a traditional Tuscan recipe he knew. They were very good.

Fourth would be the sausage we ate today. In fact we bought two types of blood sausage: the blood and tongue sausage already mentioned as well as a boudin noir seasoned with sage and onion. Never one to limit myself, I added the following to my shopping bag:

1. Saucisson à l’ail (garlic sausage)
2. Andouille de Guémené. According to one website it is a particular type of andouille made from “black gut intestines” rolled into concentric circles, stuffed into beef bung, smoked over oak or beech wood, aged for about 9 months and then poached in a hay-infused broth.
3. Pig trotter terrine, studded with carrots and lightly flavored with tarragon.
4. Duck and green peppercorn terrine, the peppercorns giving a spiced quality that could almost make you think it was a chinese pork siu mai.
5. Lingot de Brebis, a soft-rind, raw sheep’s milk cheese that I think comes from the Auvergne region.

We picked up some ripe apricots and yogurt for dessert and went home for a feast.

What do you mean we forgot to eat our vegetables? I told you there were carrots in the pig trotter terrine.

41

1659

I have a few rules as far as my gut is concerned and one of them is this: if you ever see every person around you eating the same thing, nurse try it no matter what it is. This rule is invaluable. Years ago at the Mercato Centrale in Florence it introduced me to the greatest sandwich of my life: braised tripe, pancreatitis sliced and sprinkled with sea salt, recipe then squeezed into a small loaf.

So you can imagine my reaction when Vanessa and I walked past a Paris cafe yesterday and I noticed that every person without exception had a small plate of fried sardines on their table. I love sardines, and the fact that not a single person could resist ordering them said a lot to me. I insisted we sit down for a beer and some sardines, but after scanning the menu we couldn’t find them listed anywhere. Could they have been a give-away we wondered? Just to be safe, Vanessa requested them specifically when the waiter came over (who gave a bemused look) along with two white beers. As we sat and waited we saw that the sardines were in fact delivered to every table regardless of what they ordered.

To the French this episode may seem a little silly: getting sucked into a restaurant for what amounted to a variation on the classic bowl of salted peanuts. But Americans, or at least New Yorkers, can attest that tasty things like lightly spicy fried sardines don’t ever come for free when you order a beer. Add a small salad of some sort and you’re looking at a $10 appetizer. Even if we were initially fooled, we couldn’t have been happier: the sardines were really good, and free at that.

1662

[simage=2, online 512,n,center,]

A couple days ago we went to take a class with Bem-te-vi’s Capoeira Brasil group. He is currently in Brazil, but everyone has been extremely welcoming. After that class, they invited us to a picnic and street roda the next day. It almost seemed as if it would rain, but we had good weather in the end. The roda was right on the Seine, making it a very beautiful spot. Novinha, Bem-te-vi’s wife, warned us beforehand that this particular street roda could get a little “malo” and suggested we watch before deciding to play. Well, after seeing the action we chickened out: these guys were all at a much higher level than me or Vanessa and they were very aggressive. It was great to watch though, to get a better idea of the level of play over here, which is very high, and to watch some very good capoeiristas take each other on with some force, yet generally keep things amicable. [Update: we have since revisited this street roda, which meets 3 times weekly, and I got up the nerve to play. I’ll make one qualification to what I wrote before: these capoeiristas here play fast and aggressive, but their technique is clean, which makes things a little safer than they seem at first.]

1652

The Middle East is falling to pieces. Now Al-Qaeda has put a bounty on all our heads and wants to see Islamic rule from Iraq to Spain, prosthesis which just happens to be where we’re headed in a few weeks. How’s that for good timing?

Given all that’s happening in the world right now, healing you might interpret incorrectly when I tell you that the first thing we did on our second day in Paris was head straight to one of the top croissant bakers, Poujauran, in the 7e arrondissement. Was tearing to pieces and devouring a crescent-shaped wonder of leavened dough and Normandy butter a statement of some sort? And how did one of the world’s favorite pastries–equaled in popularity only by yeasty, glazed donuts fresh from the deep fryer–get mixed up in this kind of geopolitical strife?

The truth is that no one knows where croissants came from, but apocryphal stories claim that it was created in celebration of the defeat of invading Muslim forces either after the Battle of Tours in 732, Vienna in 1683, or Budapest in 1686, depending on your source. Most likely none of this is true, and the crescent shape isn’t a symbol of vanquished foes. Therefore we aren’t guilty of any intolerant eating, although the harām acorn-fed-iberian-ham sandwiches with Manchego cheese that we ate right before the croissant might make you think otherwise.