from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
bryangnewman@gmail.com
The Auvergne is close to the geographic center of
France and includes the departments of Allier, Cantal, Haute-Loire, and Puy de
Dôme.
The
Auvergne's mountains, rivers, and lakes in the summer are centers for hiking,
camping, and water sports. In the winter, the higher elevations become centers
for winter sports and ski resorts.
Nevertheless, for those who enjoy a quieter vacation, the Auvergne is
the place. The Auvergne is one of the least inhabited areas in Europe; it has
two people per sq km. Compare that with Provence- Alps-Côte-d'Azur with 156
persons per sq km. (In 2016, the
Auvergne region, with its six departments, became part of the administrative
region of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes).
Dining
in the Auvergne can be an awesome experience for visitors to France. Excellent
meals made by well-trained chefs, many of whom only work with local
ingredients. The water, beer and the wines on the table may be regional.
Historically,
the Auvergne was the third-largest wine-producing region of France after
Bordeaux and Burgundy. However, like most other wine-producing regions in
Europe, their vineyards became infected with phylloxera at the end of the 18th
century. (Phylloxera is a pest—a small, aphid-like insect.) Unfortunately,
unlike other areas, the Auvergne wine producers never recovered their fame and
fortune. Nevertheless, that does not mean that the Auvergne has no excellent
local wines; their Chanturgue AOP red wine has a remarkable history in French
cuisine. (At the end of this post, I
have listed some of the most well-known wines.)
Auvergne restaurant menu listings
Bottled
mineral water and beers:
Bottled mineral
water with brands like Volvic, Vichy, Saint-Diéry, and
others that are well-known throughout France will be offered:
Local beers
include Volcans,
Vellavia, Pastourèla, Sagnes, Ambrée, and others. To see a Wikipedia list
of the beers produced in the region, click
here.
Aperitifs:
Couderc Gentiane -
A bitter, but fresh-tasting, local aperitif or digestif served cold or with
ice. It is made from fresh gentian flowers grown in the mountains.
Kir Royal Auvergne - An Auvergne take on the aperitif that originated in
Burgundy. The Auvergne Kir
Royal is made using a local Mousseaux (a lightly
sparkling wine), and an Auvergne crème
de cassis, a black currant liquor.
Soups
and entrées in the Auvergne
(French
entrées are the first course).
Crème de Lentilles
du Puy - A
cream of lentil soup
made with the Auvergne's unique AOP lentils, the Lentilles de Puy.
These lentils have
a dark green color characterized by
blue marbling and are cultivated in an area with its own microclimate around
the small town of Puy-en-Velay in the department of Haute-Loire. For
lentil lovers, these are very special, with less than 300 tons grown in any one
year.
If you do visit
Puy-en-Velay, there is a
12th-century cathedral which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cathedral is
built along the old pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The
pilgrimage route is marked by the sign of the scallop
shell; in France, that is also the shape of those famous
little sponge cakes called Madeleines.
The
Lentils de Puy.
Photograph courtesy of Cornerstone
Fine Foods
Soupe aux Choux au Cantal – This soup is a combination of the Auvergne’s plentiful cabbages
and their superb Cantal AOP cheese. When in the Auvergne, make sure to try an
Auvergne cabbage soup or another Auvergne cabbage dish.
Vichyssoise – Vichyssoise, a cold leek and potato soup. Vichyssoise is the dish to choose on a hot summer's
day. Mind you, not everyone considers Vichyssoise an authentic Auvergnat dish,
even though an Auvergnat native created it.
The chef, Louis
Diat, created his world-famous soup at the New York Ritz-Carlton Hotel, USA, in 1917, and so some chefs claim the soup for
the USA. The Auvergnats, the name given to the Auvergne residents, believe this
soup is their own. Ignoring all the arguments, it is clear that Louis Diat had
different ideas and named the soup after his hometown of Vichy in the Auvergne,
and that was over 100 years ago.
While Vichy is
famous for the food products
named after it, the town of Vichy itself remains infamous for its role as the
center of German collaboration in WWII.
Vichyssoise
Photograph courtesy of stu_spivack
www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/22822969/
Melon Fraîcheur et
son Jambon d'Auvergne –
Chilled melon served with a cured ham from the Auvergne. Jambon cru d'Auvergne hams are salted and
then cured for a minimum of nine months, with the very best cured for up to
sixteen months. For more about French cured hams, click
here.
French cured hams
come from the upper part of the rear legs of a pig, and there are two kinds of ham on French restaurant
menus. The first type of ham and the subject of this post is Jambon Sec
(also called Jambon Cru), air-cured(air-dried) ham. The second type of
ham is wet-cured ham, a ham that may be cooked again. Wet-cured ham includes
the ham used in ham sandwiches, called jambon blanc or jambon de
Paris, Parisian ham; other names include jambon supérieur. Jambon sec
is called dry-cured ham in the UK and country ham in parts of the USA.
Belles Tranches de Bœuf Fin Gras du Mézenc Justes
Marinées et Condiments d'une Béarnaise - Beautiful slices of the Fin Gras du Mézenc AOP beef lightly marinated and served uncooked with the condiments that are used for a Sauce Béarnaise. This particular dish is marinated, uncooked
beef from the Fin Gras du Mézenc AOP cattle and a take on a beef Carpaccio.
The Bœuf
Fin Gras du Mézenc AOP cattle are raised on the Mézenc Massif that runs
through the departments of Ardèche and the Haute-Loire. These are a
unique AOP group
of beef cattle since, they are not a single breed;
rather, they are mixed breeds raised as free-range cattle. They are given their
AOP for the way they are nurtured and the taste of their beef. This finely
marbled beef is only on French Menus between February and early June.
The beef is reared in the departments of Ardèche, Haute-Loire and Lozère, where the cattle feed mostly on the local grasses, wild flowers and hay mixed with Alpine fennel.
Condiments d'une Béarnaise: suggests the flavor profile of Bearnaise without the heavy sauce. The dish will be seasoned with the key ingredients that define Béarnaise: tarragon, chervil, shallots and white wine vinegar. This will have been done to give the raw, delicate beef the classic Béarnaise flavor without overwhelming it with the heavy sauce that is typically served with grilled or roasted meats and fish.
Plats
principal (main dishes), on Auvergne menus:
Petit
Salé aux Lentilles
du Puy – Salted pork with lentils is
a traditional bistro dish
served all over France, but with the Lentilles du Puy from the Auvergne, this dish will also be on
the menu in the finest restaurants.
Coq au Vin de
Chanturgue – Coq au Vin, prepared with the Chanturgue AOP red wine of the Auvergne. Most chefs
agree that the first time this dish appeared on a French restaurant menu, Chanturgue
was the wine used.
Chanturgue is almost universally accepted by French chefs as the
wine used in the first restaurant version of Coq Au Vin.
Long before the first modern restaurant
came to France, experienced French farmers’ wives would have arrived at tasty
solutions for old and out-of-work cockerels. They would use the marinating
powers and flavor of red wine. So nearly
every wine-growing area of France will claim that they invented Coq Au Vin, and
they are all probably correct. However,
on a restaurant menu the Auvergne was there first, and that was in the mid-19th
century. Visit a restaurant in the Auvergne today that offers Coq au Vin de
Chanturgue, and you should have a meal close to the original.
La Potée Auvergnate Traditionnelle - Mijoté de Porc Fermier (Palette & Jambonneau Demi-sel), Saucisse
d'Auvergne, Chou Vert, Carottes et Pommes de Terre du Pays - The traditional
Auvergne Potée - Slow-Simmered Farm Pork (Shoulder & Salted Knuckle),
Auvergne Sausage, Green Cabbage, Carrots, and Local Potatoes.
A Potée is a hearty stew, and while
France’s most famous version is the Pot-au-Feu, made with beef, the Auvergne’s most
popular version is made with pork.
Saucisse d'Auvergne - The traditional Auvergne sausage is a small salami-type
sausage, weighing about 100 grams (3.5 ounces) each and made with pork, pork
fat, and beef. When this sausage is served as part of another dish, it may be
grilled or, as in this listing, stewed; otherwise, it may be eaten uncooked
like any salami-type sausage.
Épaule d’Agneau du Bourbonnais
Confite à l’Ail Rose de Billom, Jus Corsé à la Sarriette, et Purée de Haricots
Blancs Truffée - Bourbonnais
Lamb Shoulder Confit with the Pink
Garlic from Billom,
Savory-Infused Rich Jus, and Truffled White Bean Purée.
The
Charolais Bourbon Lambs were awarded the French Label Rouge, the red
label grading given to some of France’s finest and highest quality foods and
the Pan-European IGP. Charolais Bourbon Lambs have consistently high-quality
meat, and the manner in which they are raised is a condition of the award. The
lambs are raised by their mother until they are weaned and then allowed to
graze freely. They may reach your table
at anywhere from three to seven months of age.
Confit: Confit is a
cooking method with a long history as the techniques grew and matured. Here, the lamb will be cooked slowly at a low
temperature (several hours) until it is incredibly tender and almost ready to fall
off the fork.
Ail
Rose de Billom (also known as Le Peul) is a distinctive pink garlic
variety cultivated around the town of Billom in the department of Puy‑de‑Dôme. Its
cultivation dates back to the Middle Ages, and by the 19th century, it had
become a significant economic force in the region. The garlic’s unique taste is
closely linked to its terroir, benefiting from the mineral-rich volcanic soils
of La Limagne, a large fertile plain in the Allier river valley.
Jus
Corsé à
la Sarriet – the natural cooking juices of the lamb flavored with Summer
Savory is used here as the sauce or gravy that accompanies the lamb. Sarriet,
summer savory, is milder than the winter variety Sarriette des Montagnes
(Winter or Mountain Savory).
Purée de Haricots
Blancs Truffée - Truffled white bean purée. France’s
ubiquitous are a favorite accompaniment for lamb, and the white bean purée has
had truffle added to it. There are many types of truffles, and if this were one
of the most expensive, its name would have been noted. Truffles provide an aromatic, earthy, and
musky flavor that will elevate the simplest bean purée. It would be of interest
to ask which truffle is used or if the flavor comes from truffle oil.
La Cuisse de
Pintade du Velay Confite au Jus de Genièvre- The leg and thigh from a Velay Guinea fowl, slowly cooked
with juice from the
juniper berries.
Volailles du Velay, the
poultry from Velay are
farm raised and include poulets (chickens), pintades
(Guinea fowl), dindes (turkeys), chapons
(capons, fattened cockerels), poulardes (young,
fattened hens). All the poultry must be free-range from slow-growing rustic
breeds, and they are fed a diet with at least 75% cereals. The area where the farmers raise this poultry
is in the department of Haute-Loire, which, prior to the French Revolution, had
been called Velay (or Comté de Velay). (There are some farms with the right to
raise Velay poultry in the department of Puy-de-Dôme.)
Pintades (Guinea
fowl), have darker meat than chicken
and a slightly stronger taste. They were
introduced to France in the 15th or 16th centuries, probably via Portuguese
traders returning from the Guinea Coast of West Africa.
Confit: Confit is a
cooking method with a long history as the techniques grew and matured. The Guinea fowl will have been slowly cooked at
a low temperature for hours.
Juniper
berries are not
really berries. These so-called berries are the tasty, dried, sour, blue-black
pods or cones that contain the juniper seeds. Fresh juniper pods are rarely
seen as they need two years to ripen. So, it is the dried juniper pods that are
used for their flavor, like a herb. The
juniper is an evergreen bush from the conifer family, and it grows wild all
over Europe. The dried pod is behind the flavor in hundreds of sauces,
pastries, and, of course, gin.
Coq au Vin
Photograph courtesy of Nathan Yergler
www.flickr.com/photos/nathan_y/5180111161/
Truite Fario de l’Auvergne Grillée au Feu de Bois avec Carottes
Vichy –
Wild Auvergne brown trout, grilled
over a wood fire and served with carrots
cooked in the manner of Vichy.
Carrots in the style of the town of Vichy is a garnish of carrots served glazed with butter. The
original recipe requires the carrots to be boiled in Vichy’s famous, bottled,
lightly effervescent
mineral water.
The Auvergne is
considered a freshwater angler’s paradise; it has hundreds of rivers and streams. Apart from visitors hoping for brown
trout, the tastiest of all trout, both vacationing anglers and local
professional fishers will be searching for omble chevalier, freshwater char; brochet, pike; sander, pike-perch; perche, freshwater perch; carpe, carp;
and the American import Black-Bass
or Black-bass à Grande Bouche, large-mouthed bass. Many amateur fishermen and women choose the Auvergne
expressly for the exceptional fishing and privacy.
Vichy the town: While the town is
famous for the food products
named after it, such as Vichyssoise and its Vichy mineral water; it is still remembered for its infamous role as the center of German
collaboration in WWII.
Lac Pavin (Lake Pavin), in the department of Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne.
The lake is part of an extinct volcano and a beautiful place to visit.
However, local legends describe
the lake as bottomless, a hiding place for the Devil, or the site of a sunken
city. Scientists have studied it since the 18th century, and the legends may be
rooted in real geological phenomena.
Photograph courtesy of geraldine poisson.
www.flickr.com/photos/98338863@N08/15618693045/
Aligot d'Auvergne Saucisse et Salade de Printemps –
Auvergne aligot, a traditional and very popular dish of mashed potatoes
and a young Cantal or a Tomme d'Auvergne cheese. Here, the
Aligot is served with an Auvergne sausage and a spring salad,
a salad made with young vegetables.
Added to the cheese and mashed
potatoes in an Aligot are garlic, crème
fraîche, milk and
butter. This combination is carefully stirred until long threads of cheese and
potato may be drawn from the pot. From personal experience on a cold winter's
evening, after forty minutes in the freezing cold, while looking for a taxi and
no time for lunch, the smell alone can be mistaken for the ambrosia of the
gods.
The traditional
Auvergne sausage is a small salami-type
pork sausage, about 100 grams (3.5 ozs), made with pork, pork fat, and beef.
When this sausage is served with Aligot, it is usually grilled, though this sausage may be part
of other dishes including stews.
Aligot
Photograph courtesy of Tavallai
www.flickr.com/photos/tavallai/5850019237/
Truffade Auvergnate – A traditional potato dish from the Auvergne. It is a thick potato
pancake made from thinly sliced potatoes fried in goose fat. Just before
serving, it is mixed with a fresh Auvergnat tomme cheese. This dish can be
served on its own or accompanied by grilled Auvergne sausages or locally cured ham.
Tome and Tomme
cheeses – All the tommes with a double
m (mm) are skim milk cheeses, which means they are made from whey and are
relatively low in fat. (The Tomes with
a single m usually have a higher fat content). There are many tomme cheeses,
and apart from their name, they may have very different tastes and textures. Tommes
Fermier are farm-made cheeses, and unless you know the farm or a fromagerie
that sells this specific farm's product at a particular time of the year, you
may have trouble buying the same cheese again. Tommes can have significant
differences that depend on the food the cows eat at different times of the
year.
Entrecôte Charolais de Bourbonnais aux Morilles – An entrecôte,
a rib steak. A rib-eye in the USA and UK. Depending on the
particular cut, it may also be called a sirloin in the UK. Here, the entrecote
comes from the Charolais
cattle and is served
with morel
mushrooms.
The Bœuf
Charolais, Le Bœuf Charolais du Bourbonnais
AOP, are among France's most famous breeds. Bourbonnais was one of France's
traditional provinces and the original home of the French Bourbon dynasty of
kings. The ancient province of Bourbonnais is now divided between the modern
administrative regions of
the Auvergne-Rhône-Alps and Centre-Val de Loire.
Entrecôte, its name translates to “between
the ribs,” which precisely describes its origin: a cut from the rib section; a rib-eye. In
France, this steak is typically prepared boneless, with chefs leaving a strip
of fat along the edge to keep the meat moist and tender during cooking, then
trimming it before serving.
Morilles
– Morels are a family of tasty
mushrooms with a decidedly different look from most other mushrooms. Morels lack the gills and domed caps of many
other mushrooms, but they all have white to ivory-colored stems and a conical
cap. Dried morel caps that you may see
in the market look tube-shaped, but that is part of the drying process, and
when rehydrated, the conical cap returns. The morel’s taste and texture make it
a French favorite; they will be served fresh from early spring through to the
beginning of June. (The idea that Morel stems are not edible is an urban
legend, though they are a little tougher than the cap, and need to be cooked a
little longer.)
A grilled entrecote.
Photograph courtesy of Malmaison Hotels
www.flickr.com/photos/mal-gallery/7138356441/
Tarte de les Perles
Noires et Perles Rouge de l’Auvergne - A tart made with the red and black pearls
of the Auvergne. In season all over the Auvergne’s mountains and hills, the
locals will be collecting their wild and cultivated red and black pearls, the
local berries.
The local pearls
include the baies
de cassis, European black-currants; the groseille rouge, red
currants; myrtille or bleuet, the bilberry; mûre, the blackberry; baie
de Genièvre, the juniper berry; and the framboise, the
raspberry.
A black pearl - a mûre, a blackberry.
Photograph courtesy of Malmont2012
www.flickr.com/photos/malmont/30949598068/
Digestifs:
Verveine du Velay – A liqueur from the Auvergne made from the herb lemon
verbena or lemon-scented verbena, offered as a digestif. Verbena may also be offered as an herbal tea.
Liqueur de Châtaigne de l'Auvergne - The chestnut liqueur of the Auvergne may be offered as a
digestif.
An alternative will
be the Marc d'Auvergne,
one of the many local digestifs that you may choose from. Marcs are very
similar to the grappas of Italy; they are brandies made with the leftovers from
pressing the grapes used for wine. Originally, grappa was a brandy made for the
peasants; now it will be professionally distilled, aged, and served in the
finest restaurants.
Cheese
in the Auvergne
There are five Auvergne cheeses
with an AOP: Cantal, Salers, Bleu d'Auvergne, Saint-Nectaire, and the Forme d'Ambert. Apart
from these five, there are many excellent cheeses without an AOP. These less
expensive, but very tasty, cow's, goat's and sheep's cheeses include Chèvreton,
Chabrirou, Le Chambérat, Fournols, Saint-Amant, and the Tomme d'Auvergne, among many others.
Not having an AOP certainly does not indicate an inferior cheese; many
excellent cheeses do not have the distribution or exact geographical production
areas that are required for an AOP. The Charolais AOP goat's cheese is also made in the Auvergne, though its center is the department of Saône-et-Loire in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
Cantal Vieux
The Cantal Vieux will have been matured for at least six months.
Photograph courtesy of Julien FOUR
www.flickr.com/photos/julienfour/26280943128/
The Auvergne has a Route
des Fromages AOP d'Auvergne,
a cheese road for their five AOP cheeses. Taking this
road is an excellent way to see the region while tasting cheeses of every
type, AOP or not, along with wines and other local
products. There is, unfortunately, no official Route des Vins d'Auvergne,
a wine road. Nevertheless, you may see a map with the Auvergne wineries clearly
marked on the French language website below. (The site is easily navigated in
English with Google or Bing Translate apps.)
https://www.issoire-tourisme.com/en/incontournables/vins-dauvergne/
The English language
website for the Auvergne's five AOP cheeses is:
http://www.fromages-aop-auvergne.com/?lang=en.
You may write ahead to obtain a
printed copy of the map of the cheese road at info@fromages-aop-auvergne.com.
If you buy cheese to take home first, see the post: Bringing French Cheese Home and a
Lexicon for buying French Cheese.
With the map of the
cheese road and the directions to the Auvergne's wineries, make your own
combined wine and cheese road. The farms and wineries that you stop at for a
tasting will ask for a small and reasonable contribution to the local economy.
After a few hours of wine, cheese, beautiful scenery, and picturesque villages,
stop for lunch, or find a hotel, rest, and enjoy the peace and quiet and
continue the next day.
The wines of the Auvergne
There are many good and
inexpensive Auvergne wines, including the Vins IGP du Puy de Dôme. (IGP
wines were previously called Vin de Pays). There are reds, rosés, gris (gray),
and white wines, but the difference between vintners, even with wines from the
same year, can be amazing. I always travel with an up-to-date pocketbook or
eBook on French wines, as a price and year tell me little about what's in the
bottle, and even a well-recommended producer can have a bad year.
Additionally, Auvergne has many
Vins
de France. (Previously, the Vins de France wines were called Vins de Table.) A Vin
de France label may indicate low-cost wines, but a slightly lower price does
not mean that all Vins de France are poor wines. Like all wines, including
those with an AOP, you need recommendations from someone who knows the wine,
the year, and or the vintner. There are many reasons that a wine cannot hold an
AOP grading, and many of those relate to where the grapes grew and the grapes
used, not the taste. N.B.: Old wines at low prices are indications to choose
something else; the French know their wines, and if they were good, the locals
would have been there first. See the post on the wine labels, the AOP,
IGP and Vin de France.
Wines of the Auvergne
Photograph courtesy of clermontauvergnevolcans.
The AOP wines of the Auvergne:
Saint-Pourçain
AOP: Red, rosé, and white.
Côtes d'Auvergne AOP: (5 appellations)
Madargue: Red.
Chateaugay: Red, rose, and white.
Chanturgue: Red. The
original red wine used for Coq au Vin.
Corent: Dry rosé
Boudes: Red
Côte
Roannaise AOP: Reds and rosé.
Côtes
du Forez AOP: Red and rose.
Before traveling to the Auvergne
Study the French Government
English language website, below, for the Auvergne, and you'll be on the way to
a very different and calm part of France.
https://www.france.fr/en/destination/auvergne/
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- Zander in the USA and Pike Perch in the UK. Sandre in French Cuisine.
Sauce
Béarnaise, its Creation, its Creator and its Connection with Béarn. Sauce
Béarnaise in French Cuisine.
Sausages,
an Important Part of French Cuisine.. A Short Introduction to France’s World of
Sausages. The Sausages of France III.
Searching
for the Finest Beef in France; try the Bœuf Fin Gras du Mézenc AOP. This very
special beef is only on French Menus between February and early June.
Soupe
- Soup. The Treasures to be Found in in French Soups. A Lexicon of French
Soups.
The
Féra, Fera or Palée du Léman, The Broad Whitefish - Seeking out France’s
Tastiest Freshwater Fish.
The
Fourme d'Ambert AOP; One of the Auvergne's Very Special cheeses.
The
King Scallop and the Queen Scallop. On French Menus the Saint-Jacque, the
Coquilles Saint-Jacques, and the Vanneaux or Pétoncle.
Truite–
Trout on French Menus.,
Water
in French Restaurants. Free or to be Paid For? Water - Eau. Eau on French Menus
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
bryangnewman@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2014, 2020, 2025
