!What the folk?

The fact that the French are very keen on plays on words is something that does not stop to amuse me. Sometimes they come up with something more or less clever, like “Aux Berges de la Grosne” (On the borders of the river Grosne) which is pronounced identically to “Auberge de la Grosne” (Inn on the Grosne), for a restaurant that closed its doors last year, close to that little stream. It is getting worse the moment the French get the urge to abuse the English language (not the way I do, as a non-native speaker, but to be witty). Last year a supermarket was opened in Tournus bearing the name of “Simply”. What better slogan could they come up with but the meaningless and grammatically incorrect “Be simply, be happy”? Some other organisation organises an open air festival centred around mainly children’s games, which is called “On the road a game”. This jewel was clearly based on the hit by Canned Heat (1968) “On the road again”. The best one in this genre is undoubtedly "!What the folk?", the name of a band around here that specialises in folk music; also note the use of punctuation marks! I do not think this one needs any further explanation.
If there would be a contest for the maximum “jokes” one can embed in an advertisement, I might know who could well be the winner. “Le Papillon”, a beer bar and tea room in Bissey-sur-Fley, is moving from there and will re-open soon in the former “Aux Berges de la Grosne”. Not only did they change the spelling into “Le Pap Y llon”, where the Y could be used to impersonate a frothy glass of beer, but they did more, as the sign shows.
Where the word “Bièrexquise” comes from, I do not know (maybe from “Exquisite beer”?), but “convivialithé” is undoubtedly linked to the conviviality that is inherent in drinking tea. This one is almost better than the "Spéciali-thés" on the old sign! I am waiting for the owner to come up with something like “Our beer is bièrey, bièrey good!”. By the way: after having written this blog I found out that the owners of “Le Papyllon” were not French at all, but German!

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Wining and dining

One of the main sources of income in Burgundy is undoubtedly the income from the numerous vineyards and caves in the area. Often we get questions concerning wines from our guests, and although we know next to nothing on the subject, we always try to advise them as best as we can. Luckily often these people know even less about wines than we do, and that makes us kings in the land of the blind.
From experience we know, that good white Burgundy wines are easy to get hold of, at reasonable prizes. Any cave around here, Viré, Lugny, Chardonnay, Bray, etc. sells good white wines and offers tastings.
Red wines are a bit more difficult. If one does not want to spend a fortune on renowned reds from e.g. the Beaune area the choice is less simple. We find the red Mâconnais from around here very often weak, not to say a bit watery in taste, reason why we normally do not buy red Mâconnais. Having said that, the proprietor of the nearby Domaine de la Combe de Bray, Monsieur Henri Lafarge, sells a very nice full bodied red for around € 8.00.
His cave lies a stone throw away from our house, in the village of Bray. One of the disadvantages of caves like this is that they normally only sell their own produce, and hence the choice is rather restricted. Those who prefer to have more choice we generally refer to the Cave in Martailly-sous-Brancion, which has a very wide range of not only Mâconnais, but also of wines from the Côte d’Or.
And then there are always those who prefer to go to a cave armed with a jerry can whilst saying to the attendant “fill her up, please!”. For these customers the Cave Cooperative in Saint-Gengoux-le-National (a branch of the cave in Buxy) is ideal. For a good vin de table, the non-headache variety, put in the jerry can by means of a petrol pump, one pays between 1 and 2 euros a litre. The wines from the pump however do not come from the region.
The Burgundian wine growers can earn a lot more by producing their AOC wines. The pump wines come from other parts of France, where the production is so high that they happily “export” their surplus at cheap rates to Burgundy!
The Cave Cooperative (most of the time, but not always, the cave in Buxy) organises special dégustations. There one of the (very knowledgeable) employees will present a number of wines that go very well with a specific dish. The last time we were there, the food samples and accompanying wines followed the pattern of a standard French meal, i.e. starter, meat dish, fish dish, cheese and sweet dessert. The woman who did the presentation (in our case that was Nadia from Saint-Gengoux), gave an excellent rundown on dishes as well as wines. There was non of this snobbish behaviour, so typical for a lot of the wine evenings organised by so-called connaisseurs!


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The holy corkscrew

Anyway, I was well impressed by the scale of the event. There were several hundreds of people in the procession, which started in Vaux, and climbed the short distance uphill to the church of Saint-Ythaire. The various Guilds had their banners and their different uniforms, whereby the “Chevaliers” of the “Confrérie” were not only carrying their Saint Vincent, but also other paraphernalia. Their coat of arms depicts a cork screw and something resembling a hand grenade. Today we had a better look at this coat of arms and only now we found out that the holy hand grenade, on the other side of the holy corkscrew, was in reality a side view of a tastevin, a shallow metal, often silver platter which is constructed to display the colour of the (red) wine, and used by professional wine tasters. All members of the Confrérie were wearing a big tastevin around their neck, and one was carrying a huge corkscrew.
The mass was celebrated in a normal French way. However, because the church was chocker block full, and we were seated in a recess, right behind a bunch of 10 (ten) horn blowers; I almost got a heart attack when completely unexpectedly all ten of them decided to join the congregation in a song.
Then there was the inevitable wreath laying at the war memorial, followed by a vin d’honneur at the town hall.
But what is a fête in France without a lunch? After two o’clock we piled into the Foyer Rural of Saint-Gengoux, where I did a quick count; the tables were laid for 200 people. We found out quickly who did the catering; a company from Montchanin (about 25 km away) had brought over food, professional cookers and cooking utensils and prepared a stunning meal for all present.
Just to make you jealous:
Pâté de canard avec son foie gras et quelques feuilles;
Dôme de sole, queues d’écrevisses sauce du chef avec riz et fleuron;
Trou Bourguignon;
Souris de cerf braisé et ses légumes;
Fromage plateau servi avec noix et raisins;
Mignardises - Café.
And of course there were plenty of excellent local wines served with this meal....
At the end of the meal another ritual had to be performed. A few members of the communes involved were invited to join the Confrérie, and some were even appointed “Chevalier”; they were given the accolade by means of what we have dubbed the holy corkscrew.
As usual with these sorts of events these lunches last at least four hours, after which the real diehards go on dancing until the wee wee hours. We however are spoil sports in this respect; after the last cup of coffee we were completely worn out, and only wanted to go home. And the fact that the band was in shrill contrast with the rest of the day had not much to do with our wimping out, after an excellent day....

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Old friends

The regular readers of this blog might remember a blog I wrote quite some time ago about a quick bite for lunch. In that blog I made reference to a restaurant in Cluny, Cass’ Crout’, where we have had, every Tuesday, a very pleasant and tasty lunch for over a year. After some time we were considered to be regulars there, and we came to know Martine and her husband a bit better, to the extent that we became more or less friends. One can imagine that we were unpleasantly surprised when Martine told us that her husband was going to retire and that they had sold the restaurant. A new restaurant, Le Comptoir has opened its doors at he same premises, but we never got the hang of that one. We soon found a suitable alternative in La Petite Auberge, and we are more or less accepted by the staff there the same way we were at Cass’ Crout’.
On a Saturday we normally go into Cluny to the market, to buy our ration of good Dutch cheeses from the Ladies van der Linden and fruit from Malik & Kedi. Because the market is very popular by the people from miles around, we regularly meet there friends and relations. And since the first weekly outings to the market coincided with the closure of Cass’ Crout’, we regularly bump into Martine when she is carrying heavy bags of shopping down the main street or whilst she is browsing at the market stalls. During one of these encounters she told us that she was going to start a new business. I immediately had a vision of steak haché frites with a glass of very tasty Belgian beer Leffe, but, no, that was out of the question. Martine was going to open a shop selling local art work, and mainly handicrafts or artisanal products. She had already obtained a venue: a shop in Cluny’s main street, not even a stone throw away from her old restaurant. Recently she told us that she would open shop early December.
Whenever we come past that shop, we try to peer inside to see what is going on there. But the curtains were always hermetically closed, and hence we had no idea what the status of the shop was. But yesterday it was different. This time there were no more curtains, and Martine was standing behind the counter, sorting her business out. Of course we could not do anything else but walk in, and she explained in great detail what her plans were, and from which artisans she bought her merchandise. Her brand new shop is furnished very tastefully, and the products she is selling also show extremely good taste. She sells ceramics from an artist in Martailly-sous-Brancion, she has artfully decorated pebble stones in all sizes on display, there are statues of fairies and gnomes, made of beautifully painted tree leaves, figurative sculptures made of iron and steel....
Her timing to open now, just before the Christmas season starts is perfect. In the short period we were there, we saw at least three potential customers entering the shop, of which one left almost immediately. But not because he did not like what he saw. He returned a few minutes later with cash he had withdrawn from the nearby bank, in order to pay for what he wanted to buy!
When we came back from our lunch at Café du Centre (where we eat occasionally; normally we have a kebab at Le Bosphore on a Saturday) we peered into Martine’s shop window again. And although the shop was closed for lunch, the door was still open, and we could hop in to say hello to Martine’s husband as well. I asked them whether I could take some pictures for future use. Of course that was no problem, but they were quite curious why I wanted pictures. So I explained to them that I regularly publish a blog about things that are happening in and around Cormatin.
Needless to say, that we were not allowed to leave the shop without having promised to send them a link to this blog.....

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Partir, c’est mourir un peu...

One of the few thing I miss every so often in France is a snackbar. What would make me happier than being able to get a bag of French fries or a simple sandwich during the weekly shopping on the market, whereby the price should be well under € 5? Well, Burgundians think differently! Lunch time is the time for a good, solid meal, moistened with some red or white wine. The only alternative appears to be the omnipresent kebab shop, where one can get a sandwich or galette kebab for around € 5.00. However, we also had found a different alternative in Cluny. In the main street we found a small hole in the wall restaurant, called Cass’ Crout’ (casser une croûte = have a quick bite), where French fries, steak haché with French fries and sandwich americain were served. Very soon we had adjusted our shopping habits to suit the opening times of Cass’ Crout’. However, early this year, during one of our shopping sprees, we went in, when the patronne took us apart with the news that they had sold the place. He was just 60, she was 55, and they were getting fed up with the work. We were not very happy with that news, but on the other hand, what can one do about it? Anyway, in the weeks that followed, the place was still open, and we secretly hoped that the sale was off. Until a number of weeks later the lady who runs the shop told us, that this was going to be our last meal with her; she was closing down the next day for good.
Obviously this still came as a shock to us, and we wanted to go back the next day with a bottle of wine, to say properly good bye to them. However, when we reached Cass’ Crout’ the next day around 4 o’clock, the lights were off and there was nobody inside. There we stood like a pair of plonkers with our bottle of wine.... Anyway, we took another chance the next Friday, and this time we caught the couple who were giving the place a last cleaning, chatting with some of the regulars. Luckily we had a chance to say properly good bye to them, and drink a glass of wine with the other regulars. The bottle we brought was well appreciated.
Of course we feel happy for them, but since that time we are desperately looking for another alternative. And I can assure you, that this is not a doddle, but serious, hard work!

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Pizzeria

I have never been a great fan of pizzas, the reason being that in the Netherlands pizza bottoms usually resemble thick cardboard or leather, and the filling seems to be put on top for colour effect only. A holiday in Provence changed all that. A simple pizzeria, embedded with many other small shops in the building of a hypermarché sold pizzas with a thin, nice bottom, and the filling contained all sort of goodies, and was not just a thin layer of tomato ketchup.
That pizzeria was in an Auchan in Le Pontet, on the other side of the river from Avignon. Since my encounter with the first edible pizza, every so often I indulge in one. But only when I am convinced that the pizza baker knows his trade!
When we arrived in Cormatin, there happened to be a take-away Pizzeria, called Pizz’Annie. Of course one day, when we did not feel like cooking, Pizz’Annie had to be tried out. We should not have done that. The verdict over Annie’s pizzas was not very flattering. We advised her to close shop and move to the Netherlands; most Dutch people do not really mind a one inch thick pizza bottom.
However, we do not give up that easily. One day, more or less by accident, we found a restaurant in Cluny that served excellent pizzas. The bottoms are extremely thin, and the fillings are superb. As a little extra, on each table one finds a bottle of olive oil which apart from the oil contains a number of spices as well as some bird’s eyes chillies, to spice up the pizzas for those who like them a bit more spicy. The restaurant also serves other good dishes (including pastas) at a very reasonable price. The name of the restaurant is “Le Loup-Garou”(The Werewolf), and it is located near the postoffice, at the beginning of the main street (Place du Commerce). We recommend the place for a good meal, but also for a quick bite during lunchtime on a Saturday after the market is finished.
Among the ex-pats the opinions are divided. One half is adamant that Loup-Garou is the best one in this part of the world, the other half maintains that there are no better pizzas than those at “Le Maronnier” in Saint-Gengoux-le-National. We have also tried the latter, but we still prefer Loup-Garou.
We think that Annie has followed our advise. In any case, she has sold her restarant to Marco, who rechristened the place to Pizz’A Marco. His pizzas are certainly good, although not as good as Loup-Garou’s. Of course Marco has the big advantage of living next door, but apart from that, he also makes the pizzas while you wait. If you would like to have a different ingredient on your pizza than is mentioned in the menu, you can ask Marco, and he will certainly heed your call.
The amount of empty pizza boxes near the bin on the campsite proves, that Marco certainly draws some clientele from La Tuilerie de Chazelle!

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Local specialities

Whoever has lived abroad for a while will recognise the following. Because no matter how adventurous one is, there are always highlights, or simply treats in international cuisine, that require an acquired taste.
Well known examples of for foreigners “inedible” Dutch goodies are liquorice and raw herring. Throughout the years I have built up quite some experience with international cooking. However, before I lived and worked in Singapore, a fried rice from the local take-away Chinese around the corner was the height of my adventurism. In Singapore I learned to know and appreciate the various multi-cultural kitchens, each with their own etiquette. Malay food, eaten with the right hand, Indian cuisine, eaten with the right hand from a banana leaf, EurAsian cookery, eaten with spoon and fork, the various Chinese cuisines, such as Hainanese, Cantonese, Peking and Cheochew with chopsticks from a rice bowl and from plates in the middle of the table...A few of the things I really hated were seacucumbers and little cubes of dried blood, leaving one with an after-dentist taste in one’s mouth.
Through my British partner I got to know some of the highlights of English cuisine. English tend to get all lyrical about things like Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and marmite; things an average Dutchman would not even look at. But I also cannot get excited about the rest of the yearly extravaganza, the Christmas lunch. As a child I never liked Brussels sprouts, and I still think it is a sneaky way of capital punishment to feed sprouts to children.
So let us analyse an average English Christmas lunch. Which wonderful things can one (I say one, but there is a whole nation eating the same thing on the same day at the same time - frightening or what? -) indulge in? There is dry turkey (give me a juicy steak any time), to be moistened wit gravy (beyond description), stuffing ( only one or two varieties deserve the word nice), Brussels sprouts (the bigger the more horrible), roast potatoes (nice, but not exactly exciting on a festive day), mashed potatoes (same), carrots (same), roast parsnips (same). No wonder the British lost their empire....
But even the culinary champion of the world, France, has things that do not arouse any form of enthusiasm with me. In this part of France, whenever there is something going on, wine is accompanied with something called brioche. Brioche is a bone-dry sort of cake, slightly sweet, and in my view as nice as turkey. Having said that, the French eat it like it is manna from heaven.
Even worse is andouilette, a sort of sausage filled with various sorts of offal. My partner had once told me she had tried it in Arles, but had to throw it away because of taste and consistency. We both like haggis, hence I knew it was not caused by the knowledge of what was contained inside the skin. Anyway, I wanted to try this local speciality (from Lyon) as well. We bought a can of andouilettes, not the cheapest, in order not to end up with low quality stuff. We were going to barbecue them on one of our long Burgundian summer evenings. Of the four andouilettes I ate two, and the other two disappeared in the bin. The taste was certainly not very nice, although not inedible. It was the smell coming from the sausages whilst eating them, getting stronger with every bite, that finally killed my appetite. A very strange experience indeed, knowing that most Frenchmen would commit murder to get hold of a good andouilette. Fortunately we have a cat nowadays. Whenever we make a similar mistake in the future, maybe Fifi will know what to do with the left-overs....

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Wok, Woc or Woque?

During one of the meetings of the Amicale de Cormatin concerning the yearly Loto, a decision had to be made which prizes were going to be bought for the lottery. The chairman of the Amicale produced a catalogue of the hypermarché “Carrefour”, and announced which prizes he had in mind for this event. The secretary kept record of prizes and prices. Somewhere around the first prize of the sixth round something went wrong. Monsieur G. read out “wok, € 39”, and the company went quiet. A number of people looked at each other, and the secretary finally asked “How does one spell that word?”. The French may be renowned for their gastronomy, but when it comes to international cuisine in Burgundy, a Vietnamese or North African restaurant, or a kebab shop, is about the limit of how exotic foreign cooking is around here. For most of those present a wok was something completely unknown and how to write it, wok, wock, woc, woq or woque, was a mistery to them. Fortunately there was one person who knew what it was, and Madame B. was not unwilling share this information. Stir frying obviously did not rank high in her cooking skills, because she happily explained that she had an electric wok, once won in a local lottery, and that she only used the thing to ..... cook large quantities of sauerkraut. And although sauerkraut is an Alsatian specialty, served with big quantities of meat, such as streaky bacon, pork and sausages, it is around here also a very popular winter dish. I am convinced that my Chinese Singaporean friends would laugh their head of if they ever found out to what purpose a wok is used around here.

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Repeated offenders

My better half has already published a Blog dedicated to guests who not only are regularly coming back to La Tuilerie, but who also (on a voluntary basis!) help out in making the vegetable plot ready for the summer and by splitting big logs which are to big to fit in the wood burner.
Fortunately they are not the only ones who seem to like it so much here. We have a number of guests, campers as well as gîte lodgers, whom we can welcome on a regular basis over a number of years. And what is better than discussing the state of affairs in Cormatin as well as in their home country over a nice glass of whine in a sunny patch in our garden?
People come here for a number of reasons. Part of our clientèle are very much attracted by the vicinity of Taizé, where they can follow the services whenever they wish, but where they are not submerged in the hubbub of 6000 youngsters; others come here with bicycles, skeelers or good walking shoes in order to do reconnaissance of the many possibilities the Voie Verte has to offer; some people come to indulge in the over abundance of romanesque (norman) architecture; and of course there are those who like to chill out for a week after having been in the rat race for a year.
Recently we had a couple here for the third year, who came here the first time after in depth investigations. Their son in law, an acquaintance of ours, popped in one day in 2008 on his way to a different holiday destination in the South of France, seemingly for a cup of coffee. however, he was told by his in laws to take pictures, inspect the place thoroughly and find an answer to the question of questions “Is everything clean there?”.
Obvioulsly his reconnaissance satisfied his in laws, because that same autumn Hermann and Carla became our guests. We got on very well, and when they left they booked straight away for 2009. That year they ordered a meal, a service we render, if convenient for both parties, on their arrival day. Our guests share our table, and we as well as they find it a pleasant way to getting to know each other a bit better. Sue always tries to come up with something local, and her boeuf Bourgignon can compete with the same dish pepared at La Terrasse in Cormatin (which we find the best within a radius of 50 miles). And although Hermann and Carla could not give us a definite date for 2010, it was quite obvious that they would come back again.
And lo and behold, by the end of 2009 they made another reservation for two weeks, under the “condition” that we would feed them again a boeuf Bourgignon. But that was not all. A couple of days before they arrived, another e-mail came in with the question whether we would appreciate it if Carla brought an Indonesian meal over for the second evening.
There are few things in this part of the world that I miss every so often, and one of them is a genuine Indonsian meal, in the Netherlands, and certainly around the Hague, readily available everywhere. So the second night the tables were turned, as a matter of speech, and we sat at their table and enjoyed a wonderful meal with nassi putih (white rice), sajur lodeh (vegetables in coconut milk), babi ketjap (pork in sweet soy sauce), rendang (spicy beef) and ajam semoor (well simmered chicken).
And that is, irrespective of the quality of French cooking, one of the few things I miss every so often; a simple, good Indonesian meal.

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Fancy a quick bite?

The people who live in Burgundy enjoy an extensive lunch. In the evening they eat a light meal, often composed of the leftovers of the lunch. In that sense we have not really integrated; we have a proper dinner, and prefer something light for lunch. It would be nice to be able to walk into a fish and chips shop when one is not at home during lunch time; however, these do not exist in this part of the world… Although, by now we have found some alternatives.
The most logical one seems to be a “Sandwicherie”. Although French sandwiches do not resemble British ones; a French sandwich is usually a French loaf with savoury filling. Normally baker shops (Boulangerie and/or Pâtisserie) offer these French sandwiches, but in the tourist season they might sell slices of pizzas and small quiches as well. But be aware, bakers open extremely early in the morning, and usually close around 12h00 for a couple of hours. Along the Voie Verte near Chazelle there was a Sandwicherie, but unfortunately this will not re-open this year.
For those who want something not too heavy and warm for lunch, the kebab shop might be worth considering. Again, kebabs here are quite different from the English equivalent. They sell all sorts of kebabs in different guises. There is an “assiette kebab”, a “sandwich kebab” and a “galette kebab”; the assiette is a plate with meat, French fries, green salad and sauce blanche and/or harissa (spicy). The sandwich is identical but does not come with French fries; everything is propped into half a loaf of Turkish bread. The galette is again the same as the sandwich, but in stead of bread they use a thin wrap. There is a good kebab shop in Cluny, called Bosphorus”, and every bigger place or even village might host one or more kebab shops.
There is also something called “casse-croûte”, which literally means “packed lunch”. It is often displayed on signs (L’Orée-du-Bois, along the Voie Verte), and sometimes it even is the name of the establishment. The menu is simple; there is normally a choice of sandwiches, salads, and French fries with a choice of meat. Our favourite in Cluny is steak-haché frites, a hamburger like piece of (quality) minced meat with French fries. The whole concoction is also available as sandwich steak-haché frites, where everything is propped in between the two halves of a baguette. Still another variation is something called steak-haché au cheval, where the “au cheval” does not stand for the type of meat; the hamburger is topped by a fried egg, which sits on top of the hamburger as if riding a horse (hence “au cheval”). It is safe to eat, even for Brits!
Of course there also pizzerias and normal restaurants. It is often worth to look out for the plat du jour. Usually restaurants offer a menu du jour (starter, main course and dessert - price range approx. € 13) and a plat du jour (price range under € 10), which is the main course only. Our Monique, the owner of La Terrasse in Cormatin often has Boeuf Bourgignon as plat du jour. In my opinion, and I tried a few in the region, she makes the best within a radius of 30 miles. Another of our favourites at La Terrasse is the salade Bressane, a green salad with maïs and chicken livers. However, most salads there are good quality and big enough for a normal meal.
But the real die-hards, craving for fast food, will have a hard time in this part of France. The nearest McDonald’s is either in Mâcon or in Chalon, hence approx. 35 km from here. Saône-et-Loire, our Département, boasts 6 McDonald’s outlets. Do you think that this is much? Saône-et-Loire covers an area of 8500 square kilometers and a population of 550000. Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands has a (land) area of 220 square kilometres and 750000 inhabitants. For those who love statistics:
Saône-et-Loire has 1 McDomald’s outlet per 90000 inhabitants; Amsterdam has 1 per 47000, hence a density twice as high.
Saône-et-Loire has 1 outlet per 1400 square kilometers, Amsterdam 1 per 14 square kilometer, hence a density 100 x as high.
As far as I am concerned, I will stick to the local food; I was never keen on beef burgers anyway!

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Charity (2)

The whole of Saturday 5 December was dedicated to the Téléthon, in the papers, on TV and in the streets of every self-respecting village and town in France. We have finally found out what the Téléthon is all about; it is a yearly nationwide fundraising event for a research institute for myopathy. Something like this on a yearly basis is unknown in the Netherlands, but maybe it is comparable with Red Nose Day in the UK. Each year another (mostly) French celebrity is godfather of the Téléthon, such as Alain Delon, Mireille Matthieu, Julien Clerc and this year the famous actor Daniel Auteuil (Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources). We also found out why this event is so important in Cormatin; one of the village children is suffering from myopathy, and with only 500 inhabitants almost everybody knows kid and parents personally.
We did not have time (and had no intention!) to sit and watch TV all day. After we had helped putting up the tents in front of the church in Cormatin, carried and put up long wooden tables, emptied car boots and carried boxes from car to tent, the Téléthon in Cormatin slowly got going after 10 o’clock. One tent was hosting second hand books, DVD’s and videos, another stall was selling mulled wine, snacks, wafers, ready made boxes with petit salé aux lentils (a typical winter dish from the North of France), in another women were making and selling Christmas decorations, and in yet another one they were selling roses. Throughout the day some children were playing guitar and accordeon, a local bicycle club had organised a tour around all Téléthons in the vicinity, buying something in every village, like a sandwich, some wafers, a glass of mulled wine....
Slowly it started to dawn why we had been making paper roses the week before. On the steps in front of the war memorial a huge board was mounted, with in it cut out the Téléthon logo. For each sold real rose (à € 1 a piece) a paper rose was stuck in the openings of the wooden board, thus producing a multicoloured Téléthon logo by the end of the day! Half the population was in the mean time trying to make the event a success, and the other half was supposed to hang around, buy roses or a second hand book, or spend money in any other way, thus enabling the organiser Monsieur P. to phone the central fund raising authorities to proudly announce that Cormatin had managed to clock up another € 4000 (roughly the average over the past years). This was not the first time that I had noticed that some Cormatinoises are very good in selling package deals. After we had helped putting up the tents we went off to buy the Saturday edition of Le Monde at the local Tabac. However, Mme B. did not let us leave with just Le Monde; we were more or less forced to buy two boxes of petit salé aux lentils. She was very persuasive, with arguments as “I have bought them myself as well”, it makes an excellent and easy luch, and it is for a good cause. Finally we did not leave the shop before we had dished out € 11 in return for two slips of paper entitling us to two boxes. We walked back to the stand with the snacks and in exchange for our pieces of paper we obtained the food, consisting of a layer of lentils garnished with various pieces of meat, such as streaky bacon, sausage and pork. How much the final result for Cormatin is going to be is still unknown; however, Mme B. did not exaggerate about the food; we absolutely do not mind to support next year’s Téléthon exactly the same way!

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The local Chinese

One of the returning questions from friends and relatives is “What do you really miss in France?”. Most are thinking along the lines of Dutch delicacies like raw herring, but one of the things I missed most is the ordinary Chinese-Indonesian restaurant, which you will be able to find even in a small Dutch village. Around here there are some Chinese restaurants, but most of them are originally Vietnamese, which nowadays have taken on board Chinese and Thai food. We have tried a few, in Mâcon and Chalon, but the quality of the food was, to say it kindly, not impressive. When we were renovating the house, we went regularly to Crèches-sur-Saône, because that was where the nearest building merchant was. Almost all shops close between 12 and 2 o’clock, and of course one day we forgot, and were there just past 12. However, we had seen a sign nearby, saying “La Route de Chine, buffet à volonté”, and we decided to have lunch there in stead of driving half an hour back and return around 2 o’clock. That turned out to be a very lucky gamble indeed. The buffet à volonté (eat as much as you like) offered a very good choice of proper Chinese food; the quality was good and the price was very reasonable (€ 11.00 without drinks). After that event we tried to plan our trips to the building merchant in such away, that we could have lunch in Crèches as well. But all good things come to an end, such as the renovation and hence our visits to Crèches. However, we had to go to Mâcon regularly, because Mâcon is the seat of many offices important to us: the prefecture, the health insurance, the tax office, etc. On one of our trips we noticed another sign, saying “Palais d’Asie, buffet à volonté”; thinking of our good experiences with “La Route de Chine” we decided to give this one a try as well. That was definitely the end of our visits to Crèches. The choice in Mâcon was not only bigger, but the quality of the food was even better, and the price (in those days) was € 10.00 for a lunch. Since then the prices have been raised first to € 11.00, and recently lowered to € 10.50 (prices in the evening and week-end tend to be slightly higher). To give an impression of the assortment: there are 6 warm starters, 2 kinds of suhi, 2 kinds of dim sum, 4 sauces and various types of salad available. There are 8 hot meat, fish or shell fish dishes, which can be eaten with Cantonese rice, white rice, fried noodles, vegetables and even French fries. The desserts are various fruit salads, 5 kinds of ice cream and cake. In a word, there is something for everybody. Nowadays we plan our visits strategically around lunch time. And as far as the original question is concerned; the Chinese has been scrapped off the list, and is replaced by something that is really not available in France : an ordinary Dutch snackbar!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The end of an era

In my last Blog I was rather lyrical about the “old-fashioned” cattle market in Saint-Christophe. Unfortunately I was not aware of the changes that had taken place in the meantime. There was an article in the latest bimonthly magazine of the Chamber of Commerce about the market in Saint-Christophe. The article very proudly announced the introduction in June this year of a “marché au cadran”, which is a market by means of a clock. Because we had not been there for a while, we decided to see how dramatic these changes were.

The moment we arrived we saw what had happened. The traditional market still exists, but at a much smaller scale. Next to the old covered market hall a new building had appeared, a modern circular building. Inside the building was a small ring, with around it a sort of amphitheatre. One man brought a cow or cows in from the outside, and made them make a little round in the arena. In the mean time all the particulars, such as vaccinations, weight, lot number, etc. were displayed on a big screen. The farmers were bidding electronically, this time in Euros, although the price in Francs was still displayed as well, and after the highest bid the cow was lead outside the arena, to make place for the next one. It is needless to say that the sterile environment and the efficiency has advantages for farmers as well as cows. However, it is, at least for the tourist lacking the charm of the noise, the smell and of manoeuvring around heaps of cow dung, in order to see what is going on. For those who want to see an old fashioned market in its full glory, the motto is : do not wait too long. It looks like that within a year the old market will completely be replaced by the bidding via a clock. Something similar already has happened to the other big cattle market in Burgundy, the one in Moulins-Engilbert (Nièvre).
The blow was finally softened a bit by an excellent lunch at La Tour d’Auvergne. For € 13.30 we got steak frites, a cheese platter and a mousse au chocolat. Ever been to a restaurant, where, because one of the steaks was a bit on the small side (according to the waitress, they looked the same to us!) the cook had thrown in an extra, third steak? It happened to us that day!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Cattle market

When I look out over the meadows from my windows, I see some beautiful white Charollais cows (bred for meat, with AOC, and not for milk) wondering through the field. That is less strange than it seems; although we do not live in the Charollais region (Charolles is approx. 60 km from here) these sort of cows can be found throughout Saône-et-Loire. In the département there are two markets where this cattle is sold. The most important, biggest and oldest is the one in Saint-Christophe-en-Brionnais, a village even further from here than Charolles.
The market possibly dates back to the X-th century; in 1488 Charles VIII declared the market to be “perpetual”, and ever since there have been cattle markets here. We arrived at about 12h30, and the streets were completely deserted. All we saw were a few market stalls along the main street selling rubber boots. A bit disappointed we walked into a restaurant, it being lunch time. Here it was the same thing; a tiny room, with a few empty tables. We waited a few minutes, until a waitress walked in. We told her that we would like to have lunch, and the moment that magic word was spoken we were whisked away to the back of the restaurant. All of a sudden it became clear. The actual restaurant on a Wednesday (market day) was a great big hall, with endlessly long tables and benches. The hall was completely filled up with noisy farmers, obviously already having started negotiations about cattle prices at the lunch tables. The waitress found us a place, and we joined a bunch of shouting farmers at their table. The restaurant was run like a factory; very efficient. There were lots of waitresses, whizzing around the tables; unlike some busy French lunchtime restaurants around here, there was plenty of choice (although not à la carte), and not just one set menu. Within half an hour one had finished his meal, and made place for yet another farmer. Around one o’clock the hall emptied, but for a handful of tourists, and obviously that was the time the market started. The market is held in an immensely big hall, where the farmers are negotiating the prices by writing offer and demand on little bloc notes. It appears, that prices are still in Francs, although by now I do not think they are still using old Francs.
Farmers here are, as they were in the Netherlands, easily recognisable. French farmers however are generally scrawny, wear blue or dark-blue dust-coats and green or brown rubber boots, unlike Dutch farmers; the common denominator is the walking stick they carry around to hit the cows when necessary. Even though the farmers are different, the whole atmosphere on the market, with its smell of cattle and dung, the shouting and the negotiating, brings back memories from when I was a child, when I wondered across the weekly cattle market in Delft, the place where I was born. Every so often we still go back to Saint-Christophe, to taste the atmosphere, but also for lunch. Those lunches are excellent; of course no restaurateur would dare to come up with a lousy piece of meat when you serve farmers who breed what they are eating….. Saint-Christophe has two restaurants, but we find that the one we tried during our first visit, La Tour d’Auvergne, has, although the same sort and quality of food as the other, the better atmosphere of the two.
Click here for part 2.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Frog legs

As a child I was told that there were actually people who eat frog legs. In English this does not sound so horrifying, but the Dutch call them frog bottoms, and who would want to eat some creature’s bottom? Of course, in those days I was not aware that steak is just a nicer word for cow bottom! When I lived in Singapore, one of the (Chinese) consultants I worked with, thought it was big fun to take westerners to restaurants where they served 100-year eggs, blood cubes, snake and turtle soup, iguana and frog legs. Even though I never got the hang of a couple of these things, frog legs certainly became one of my favourites. Some time ago we wanted to try out Le Rochefort, a restaurant in Cluny. It was packed each lunch time and the car park was full of local cars; normally a very good sign for a restaurant around here.
Unfortunately I had had escargots (snails Burgundian style) and frog legs a couple of days before in a different restaurant. Both dishes were served in a rather fluid sauce, completely covered in parsley (quite a common way to serve this sort of food around here). The plate with frog legs resembled a bit too much a stagnant pond covered in duck-weed with frogs floating in it (the frog legs are still attached to each other when served). Anyway, I ordered something else in Le Rochefort that day. However I saw several plates with frog legs being served around us, and they looked a lot more appetising than the ones I had had before.
A couple of days ago we decided to give it another go. And that turned out to be an excellent choice. The prices give here are the 2009 prices. One portion of frog legs costs € 21.00; a set meal (I chose Terrine foie de volaille = chicken livers, frog legs and desert) costs € 25.00.
Luckily I had shared the excellent starter with my partner, because the main course was so big and labour intensive, that I actually had eaten more than enough after an hour picking meat off minuscule bones. The desert went also to my partner, who was quite happy with the salad she had ordered and my leftovers. The frog legs were fried or deep fried, and were seasoned with parsley. Yesterday, when we were having a picnic at long tables with the inhabitants of Cormatin in the streets of Cluny to celebrate the opening ceremony of Cluny 2010, the conversation veered at some point towards local delicacies. After having been informed on how to catch snails, how to feed them flour for two days and then how to dissect and prepare them, the word frog legs fell. The consensus appeared to be that the best frog legs in the area are being served in, indeed, restaurant Le Rochefort in Cluny. A piece of advise of those who happen to stay around here and are adventurous with food : do not forget to have a meal there, and order a portion of frog legs. It is well worth the money, and not only is it famous in this part of the woods, but also delicious; take my word for it!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle