Behind the French Menu

Morille, the Morel Mushroom. Morel mushrooms on French Menus. The Mushrooms of France V.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Morels in a farmers’ market.
Photograph courtesy of Al
www.flickr.com/photos/wessel1943/7170856890/

La Morille – The Morel Mushroom

Morels are a family of tasty mushrooms with a decidedly different look to 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 them 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).

Now that a few members of the morel family have been cultivated, mushroom farmers all around the world are trying to produce mushrooms all year round. Nevertheless, it is still a work in progress and not enough product is reaching the markets to change the prices. On the wild side, each member of the morel family has its own short six-to-eight weeks of glory in France between late February and June. The morel is providentially an easy mushroom to dry and so they may be on menus all year round. Some French chefs freeze morels and extend their "almost fresh" shelf life by a month or two. two.

Dried morels in the market.(The row in the center).
Photograph courtesy of Tom Bridge

www.flickr.com/photos/tbridge/5559121011/

The two most common members you will encounter in France are:

The Yellow Morel, the Morille ronde or Morille blonde – This is the most famous member of the morel family; identified in the markets by its rounded or egg-shaped cap and its honey-yellow to pale brown color. Unlike its cousin, the Black Morel, the ridges on the Yellow Morel are irregular and look like a sponge or a honeycomb. The flavor is mild, nutty, and creamy.

The Black Morel, Morille noire or Morille conique – This variety is identified by its pointed, conical shape and dark brown to black ridges. It appears earlier in the season and is highly prized by chefs for its intense, smoky aroma and stronger flavor.

Morels can grow quite large.

Photograph courtesy of Jena Fuller

www.flickr.com/photos/jsf539/14038716515/

French chefs like wild mushrooms and wild herbs and most will have long-term contracts with ramasseurs: professional wild mushroom and wild herb gatherers. These professional gatherers know the exact season for each member of the morel family, as well as other mushrooms, herbs, fruits, berries, and more. These gatherers keep the places where they find the mushrooms close to their chests; they know they can expect the same wild mushrooms and herbs to appear every year. Importantly, they also know how to keep well away from the false morel and other "look-alike" mushrooms which can be poisonous.

Veloutéd'Asperges Blanches aux Morilles Fraîches- A creamy white asparagus soup served with morel mushrooms. Veloutés are smooth velvety soups and were made from, at least originally, a sauce base; veloutés were one of the five mother sauces of French cuisine

Émincé de Veau aux Morilles – Thin slices of veal served with morel mushrooms.

Filet de Féra du Léman aux Morilles, Risotto à l’Ail des Ours, Tomate Confite - A filet of the broad whitefish caught in Lake Leman (Lake Geneva) prepared with morel mushrooms. The dish is accompanied by a risotto flavored with wild garlic and a tomato confit. The broad whitefish is a relative of salmon and trout and a very tasty fish. When this fish is on your menu in France it will come from a lake or a river, while outside of Europe they may be caught at sea. When this fish comes from Lake Leman, it is considered particularly tasty and so its provenance will be on the menu. The wild garlic in the risotto has a much lighter and delicate taste than cultivated garlic, but do ask the waiter as not all wild garlic plants will have read this post! The tomato confit that accompanies this dish is made with tomatoes cooked very slowly until they reach the consistency of a tomato jam.

Morel Mushrooms

with a Tomato and Pinot Noir Reduction and an Artichoke Pasta

Photograph courtesy of Janet Hudson

www.flickr.com/photos/veganfeast/4803891520/

Poêlée de Ris de Veau aux Morilles à la Crème, Jus au Porto. – Lightly fried veal sweetbreads served with creamed morel mushrooms and flavored with a port wine sauce.

Suprême de Chapon au Vin Jaune et Morilles – Boneless capon breast prepared with the yellow wine of the Jura and morel mushrooms. A capon is a cockerel, a rooster, that was castrated as a chick and they grow to 3 or 4 kilos and have very tender meat. The Vin Jaune, the yellow wine from the Jura is a very aromatic dessert wine; it will have been aged for a minimum of six years in oak barrels. The Vin Jaune is a very unique wine, apart from its preparation, taste, aroma, even its bottle shape and size is different to other French wines.

The season, in France, for Fresh Morels.

Outside of the late February to early June season when one member or another of the morel family may be collected fresh the morels on the menu will have been dried. When dried morels are rehydrated, there is only a little change in the taste and texture, and for morel aficionados, any morel is better than none.

None of the members of the morel family has ever been truly cultivated, and there are nearly fifty members. However, in Europe, only five or six morels grow abundantly and it this small number who reach the restaurants and markets in quantity. There are slight differences in taste and texture between the different family members but you will need a lot of exposure to tell the difference.

Nearly enough for breakfast

Photograph courtesy of Jacob Kaplan-Moss

www.flickr.com/photos/jacobian/8689783655

Dried morels are anywhere from 2.5cm (1”) to 5cm (2”) long, without the stem. Wild morels are often larger with some wild morels more than three times that length.

Gathering wild mushrooms.

If you gather wild morels in France be aware of the false morel that the uninformed can mistake for the real thing; false morels are poisonous! Every town and village in France have a trained mycologist, a mushroom expert and local pharmacists have these expert’s addresses. All mushrooms should be shown to these volunteer experts before being eaten, and, in any case, all morels must be cooked.

The Mushroom Gatherers

Painting by Henry Herbert La Thangue (1859 – 1929)

Yellow Morel, Morille ronde or Morille blonde), in the languages of France’s neighbors: (Catalan – múrgola, rabassola, or morilla), (Dutch – morielje), (German – Speisemorchel or Rund-Morchel), (Italian – spugnola or spugnola gialla), (Spanish – morilla, mazorquita, or pancita), (Latin – Morchella esculenta),

Yellow Morel in other languages: (Chinese (Mandarin) – yángdǔjūn / 羊肚菌), (Greek – manitári morchéla / μανιτάρι μορχέλα), (Hebrew – morel / מוריאל), (Hungarian – kucsmagomba), (Norwegian – Morkel), (Polish – smardz), (Romanian – zbârciog), (Russian – smorchki / сморчки), (Swedish – Murkla),

Black Morel, Morille noire or Morille conique, in the languages of France’s neighbors: (Catalan – múrgola negra), (Dutch – morielje), (German – Spitzmorchel), (Italian – spugnola nera or morchella conica), (Spanish – colmenilla negra or morilla), (Latin – Morchella conica).

Black Morel in other languages: (Chinese (Mandarin) – hēi yángdǔjūn / 黑羊肚菌), (Greek – mávri morchéla / μαύρη μορχέλα), (Hebrew – morel shakhor / מוריאל שחור), (Hungarian – ízletes kucsmagomba), (Norwegian – Spissmorkel), (Polish – smardz wyniosły), (Romanian – zbârciog conic), (Russian – smorchok konicheskiy / сморчок конический), (Swedish – Toppmurkla), (Turkish – sivri kuzu göbeği). (Turkish – kuzu göbeği).

Other mushroom posts:

Rosé des Prés or Agaric Champêtre – The Field or Meadow Mushroom in French Cuisine. French Mushrooms X.

Bolet, Cèpe Jaune des Pins or Nonnette – The Weeping Bolet Mushroom in French Cuisine. The Mushrooms of France IX

Shiitake or Lentin du Chêne –The Shiitake Mushroom in French Cuisine. The Mushrooms of France VIII

Corne d'Abondance, Craterelles or Trompette des Morts, - The Horn of Plenty, the Black Chanterelle and the Black Trumpet Mushroom. French Mushrooms VII

Pleurote – The Oyster Mushroom in French cuisine. The Mushrooms of France VI

Chanterelle Mushrooms. The Most Famous Four. Chanterelle Mushrooms on French Menus. The Mushrooms of France IV

The Cèpe, The Porcini Mushroom, Grows Wild in France. Enjoy the Tasty Wild Mushrooms Of France III.

The Mousseron or St. George's Mushroom, The Wonderful Wild Mushrooms of France II.

Mushrooms in France I, The Champignon de Paris, the ButtonMushroom. -

Soup on the French Menu. A Soup by Any Other Name, but France has So Many Names for Soup.

--------------------------------

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

--------------------------------

Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases

French menus?

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" (best when including the inverted commas), and search with Google, Bing, or another browser. Behind the French Menu’s links, include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 450 articles that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

Munster Cheese.The Premiere Cheese from the Alsace and the Lorraine. The town of Munster in the Alsace.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Aged Munster cheese.

Photograph courtesy of Carnet de Fromages

Munster the town and Munster the Cheese.

(The cheese called Muenster in the USA has a different origin and taste).

Munster AOP or Munster Géromé AOP is a 27 % fat, dry to creamy, ivory-colored, pungent, cow’s milk cheese made with unpasteurized cow’s milk. The natural edible rind of a young Munster begins with a pink tinge for the youngest and drier Petit Munster, to a deep red for a two or three-month mature creamy, smooth Munster.

Munster is one of the really stinky cheeses of France though the cheese's taste is far from as strong as the smell. The smell is a reaction to repeated washing in brine and rock salt which prevents the growth of any mold while intentionally affecting the taste and smell. Nevertheless, plastic wrap, refrigeration, (not freezing), makes this tasty cheese easy to store. The two names Munster and Munster Géromé represent the production in the Alsace for the Munster and the Lorrain for the Munster Géromé, their tastes and smells are identical.

Petit Munster.
Photograph courtesy of SuperMarche Match.

Munster comes in a variety of sizes beginning with a Petit Munster that weighs 120 grams (4 oz) and a Petit Munster Géromé that weighs 200 grams (7 oz). The larger Munsters come in sizes up to 6 kilos (13 lbs). The cheeses are aged for a minimum of two weeks and for up to 3 months. The younger cheeses are lighter and drier, the old are smellier and creamier. In cheese shops in the Alsace, the refrigerated cheese is often on sale unboxed in both square and circular shapes, and then you will see the mature cheese's brick red rind.

Munster au Cumin and misunderstandings.

Despite the name, the cheese called Munster au Cumin is not cumin—it’s caraway! While cumin seeds may resemble distant family members, such as caraway seeds, their taste and aroma differ significantly. In the French region of Alsace, in the Grand Est, a long-standing linguistic mix-up has created a major culinary misunderstanding. In the Alsatian dialect, the term cumin des prés (meadow cumin) or simply cumin refers to caraway seeds, known in proper French as carvi. One cannot easily change hundreds of years of embedded local terminology, and so it is important to remember that in Alsace, "cumin" is always caraway in disguise

Munster the town

The small and attractive town of Munster is in the department of the Haute Rhine in the Alsace part of the region of the Grand Est. The town developed around the now derelict Abbey of Saint Gregory of Munster; Saint-Grégoire. The original abbey was rebuilt many times but destroyed during the French revolution with the final destruction in WWI. The monks built their abbey in a valley of the Vosges Mountains and either named it after a corruption of the word monastery or after Munster in Ireland from where many of the original Celtic speaking monks came. Munster is on the Alsace Route de Vins, the Wine Route of the Alsace which is home to eleven fabulous wines, and the ten white wines in that group are amongst the best that France has to offer. The Gewurztraminer AOC/AOP semi-dry white wine whose vines originated here are now grown and sold all over the world. Munster is on the Alsace wine route just 17 Km (12 miles) from Colmar, the prefecture, the capital of the department of the Haute Rhine and 68 km (42 miles) from Basel, Switzerland.

Like many other Alsatian towns, many Munster rooftops are home to nesting storks; the house with a nesting stork has a good-luck charm. The male storks arrive in the spring and begin building the nest with the same nest serving the couple for many years; storks are faithful to their partners and return to the same nests every year. By September the young storks leave followed by the elder storks joining their 10,000-mile annual migration.

Cranes on a rooftop in Munster.

Photograph courtesy of GK Sens-Yonne

www.flickr.com/photos/sens-yonne/15710630397/

Munster on French menus:

Croustillant de Munster au Miel et Salade Verte – Crisply fried Munster cheese with honey drizzled over it and served with a green salad.

Munster with honey is in many recipes and one of the most wonderful desserts I ever had was a warm, mature Munster cheese cooked inside a thin, crispy pastry and served with the Miel de Sapin des Vosges AOP. Miel de Sapin is a unique honey made with honeydew taken from aphids which are shepherded by bees who do not collect pollen but the honeydew from the aphids that are found on the trees in the Vosges pine forests; that unique honey was sprinkled all over the pastry.

Tarte Flambée au Choix (traditionnelle, gratinée, munster) - A tart flambee, also called flammen kuechen, made to your choice. Eithet the traditional version or one with grated yellow cheese on top, or made with Munster. A tarte flambée with Munster begins with the original tarte flambée recipe which is bread dough covered with crème fraîche and a Bibeleskaes, a local soft white cheese, thinly sliced onions, and lardons, smoked or fried bacon bits; to this is added the Munster cheese. The tarte will be baked in an oven for about ten minutes and served; the traditional wood-fed oven gives the best flavor.

Tarte Flambe with Munster and lardons, bacon bits.

Photograph courtesy of belgianchocolate

www.flickr.com/photos/frank-wouters/24785051/

Jambonneau Gratiné au Munster sur Choucroute – Roasted ham hock, also called a pork knuckle, sprinkled with grated Munster and served on a bed of choucroute, the Alsace’s signature sauerkraut, pickled cabbage.

Tartiflette au Munster - A tartiflette with Munster will have a whole a Munster baked, usually with added cream or crème fraîche and served over boiled potatoes, bacon bits, and onions. The name tartiflette comes from a dish that originated with the Reblochon AOP cheese in the departments of the Savoy the new super region of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Nevertheless, eating a cooked Munster cheese over boiled potatoes has been a local Munster tradition from when potatoes became an important crop in the 17th century.

Tartiflette with Munster and potatoes

Photograph courtesy of Jojo Bombardo

www.flickr.com/photos/jojobombardo/8391281591/

How old is the Munster cheese recipe?

For the monks who came to the valley in the 6th-century cheese making was the only way to preserve excess milk before refrigeration; however, today’s Munster cheese was probably developed by the monks a mere 600 years ago. The same cheese is made on the Lorraine side of the Vosges mountain and the two cheeses were united when Munster earned the right to carry the AOC label in 1986. The Pan European AOP came along in 2006.

The Géromé Munster cheese of the Lorraine.

The Munster Géromé who obtained his own AOC in 1978 takes its name from the city of Gerardmer in the Lorraine Vosges The farmers of the Lorraine then made their own Munster cheese called Géromé or Gerome Munster. A name said to relate, in the Loraine dialect, to the rent paid to the Duke of Lorraine for his permission to graze the Munster cows on his land.

Ready to enjoy Munster.
Photograph courtesy of Matt Ryall
www.flickr.com/photos/mjryall/3758098544/

Is Munster such a smelly cheese?

Munster has a reputation as a smelly cheese; which it deserves. Despite that, while it may be smelly if kept fresh and wrapped and in a plastic box in the refrigerator the smell will not spread, and when served in small quantities the smell is far from overpowering. Certain French cheeses like Roquefort and Epoisses are higher up the list of smelly cheeses and the UK has its Stilton and Germany has its Limburger all of which are higher up the smell rankings.

Tarte flambee with Munster cheese accompanied by wine from the Alsace.

Photograph courtesy of Joel Bez

www.flickr.com/photos/lejoe/2641969144/

Apart from the cheese’s age and maturity you may choose a farm made cheese, a cheese made in a co-operative dairy, a cheese made with organic milk, and or versions made with added cumin.

Munster on Sale.

Photograph courtesy of Brian Kelley

www.flickr.com/photos/kelleys/24159886270/

Taking Munster home.

To take this cheese to take home have it vacuum wrapped, sealed it will travel well for 48 hours. When you arrive home, keep the cheese wrapped in a separate plastic bag in a separate container in the refrigerator, not the freezer; then the cheese’s smell will not affect other cheeses or foods. The stories that I have heard about traveling with this cheese all seem to be related to poor packaging. For buying and traveling with French cheese see the post: Buying Cheese in France. Bringing French Cheese Home and a Cheese Lexicon for buying French Cheese.

The Munster cheese lovers.

Like nearly all French foods and wines, there is a voluntary group promoting this cheese. In and around Munster are most of the members the Confrérie Saint Grégoire du Taste-fromage de la Vallée de Munster. This confrérie, a brother and sisterhood, aim at inspiring cheese lovers, particularly Munster cheese lovers. They arrange dinners, fetes, and if you are ready to swear your enduring love for Munster cheese, you may be accepted as a member.

The name Munster.

Two stories claim to provide the origin of the town’s name. The first story links the word monastery, around which the town was built, and the other links to Munster in Ireland. Munster is one of Ireland’s provinces and from there in the 6th century came many of the Celtic and Latin-speaking proselyting monks who established monasteries in France and Germany.