Coco de Paimpol - France's Famous Bean from Paimpol in Brittany. The Cocos de Paimpol AOP in French Cuisine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

  
The Coco de Paimpol.
www.flickr.com/photos/marckjerland/4044122852/
    
The Haricot de Cocos de Paimpol AOP is the most famous bean in Brittany. The French love beans and this bean is the gourmand’s bean. The Cocos de Paimpol took the slow boat from the New World to the Old World and only began to be recognized for their distinctive taste and texture in the 1930s
  
When did the Coco de Paimpol arrives in Brittany?
  
Within one-hundred and fifty years of Christopher Columbus and the Conquistadors discovering South America in 1492 beans and maize was being grown all over France along with French-produced hybrids. However, no one is entirely sure when the original bean that would become the Cocos de Paimpol arrived in Brittany, but it did not reach via Spain with other beans. Cultivation began in the 1930s, and by the end of the 1940s, the Cocos de Paimpol was famous. 

Saucisses de Toulouse aux Cocos de Paimpol
Toulouse Sausages with Cocos de Paimpol.
   
The bean itself
  
This white bean has an oval shape with a pale yellow pod that has slight violet markings; it is sold as a haricot demi-sec, a semi-dry bean. Semi-dry means the bean will be sold without the pod but not dried like many of France’s traditional beans, which require prolonged soaking to rehydrate them before use. The Haricot de Cocos de Paimpol will be in recipes from soups to salads, accompanying roasts, and many other dishes and, of course, will be in stews and cassoulets.

The Cocos de Paimpol on your menu in France:

Filet de Sole Cuit Meunière, Cocos de Paimpol aux Truffes, Beurre de Persil Plat- A filet of sole prepared with a Sauce Meunièr beans with truffles and flat parsley butter.  Sauce Meunier is a tasty but straightforward butter sauce made with added lemon juice and parsley. Accompanying the sole, the fish, are the Cocos de Paimpol beans flavored with truffles and a parsley butter made with the slightly stronger flavored flat parsley. A wedge of the parsley butter is placed on the fish just as it is served to allow the butter and parsley to flavor the fish as it melts. (For decoration, curly parsley is preferred, but the flat parsley is used when more parsley flavor is required). 

The truffles offered in this dish will not be France's famous Black Perigord truffles or the nearly as famous Burgundy truffles; otherwise, they would have starred on the menu. Nevertheless, France has a number of truffles that do add their own flavor to a dish and are relatively inexpensive. The truffles offered here may be the Truffle d'Été, The Summer truffle; it is a lightly scented truffle or the Truffe d'Hiver or Truffe Brumale, the Winter Truffle. Ask.
       
Dos de Haddock.Cocos de Paimpol.
A thick cut of smoked haddock accompanied by the Cocos de Paimpol.
  
Pavé de Thon Mi-cuit, Compotée de Coco de Paimpol Frais  A thick cut  of very, very, lightly cooked tuna served with a compote made from fresh Coco de Paimpol beans. Fresh beans will only be on menus from the end of June through October.
    
RIs d'Agneau aux Cocos de Paimpol, Jus de Veau Réduit  - Lamb sweetbreads  served with Cocos de Paimpol beans and a reduced sauce made from a veal base.

Soupe aux Haricots Coco de Paimpol - Coco de Paimpol bean soup. A soup made with the Coco de Paimpol will be creamy and velvety.    
  
Crème de Cocos de Paimpol à la Poitrine Fumée
Cream of Coco de Paimpol soup
flavored with smoked streaky bacon; in the USA, smoked slab bacon.
Photograph courtesy of Cuisine Actuelle.
   
Souris d'Agneau Confite et Caramélisée, Haricots Cocos de Paimpol  Souris d’Agneau is the foreshank and knuckle of lamb served as a caramelized confit accompanied by the Coco de Paimpol beans. In this menu listing, the lamb confit has been caramelized, probably with honey and wine vinegar.  To a confit, caramelization adds additional texture and taste.

 A Souris d’Agneau is nearly always prepared as part of a stew or, as here, as a confit. Confits were, and are still, made by slowly cooking the meat on a low heat in its own fat and juices. A slow, low, heat breaks down the muscle and other tissues so that the meat will, practically, melt in your mouth. Historically, duck and pork confits would be preserved under a layer of the same fat in which it was cooked,  allowing the flavors to mingle. Just as a soup or stew tastes better the day after it is cooked, so these confits which were kept for the winter months in airtight containers while their taste improved with time.  Today, a lamb confit will not have been stored under fat, rather very very slowly simmered.  

Translating the Souris on your menu listing.
 
N.B.: When translating menus with a traveler’s English-French dictionary or Google Translate, you will find the word souris in French also means a mouse or a rat. However, worry not; this is a cut of lamb, and no mice or rats are included. In the days when French cuisine was in its infancy, culinary names were either traditional names or allocated with kitchen humor without any need to be politically correct. The uncooked cut was said to resemble a mouse, and despite its unfortunate connotations, the name stuck. 

Choosing your aperitif and digestif in Paimpol.

Choose a glass of ice-cold Chouchen, the alcoholic mead that the Celtic Druids who came from Britain to France brought with them. You may also choose a Kir Royal in the manner of Brittany as your aperitif. That is a Kir made with Brittany’s sparkling cider replacing the original champagne. or Brittany’s Pommeau de Bretagne  AOP. With your meal you might choose Brittany’s Cidre Cornouaille AOP. This is the Bretagne, Brittany’s delicately sparkling semi-dry AOP cider. Its apples come from the area called Cornouaille in the département of Finistère. If you are visiting this area, take their Route du Cidre AOC Cornouaille, their cider road.

Your digestif in Brittany will be their famous Lambig apple brandy, over that, there will be no discussion.
    
A Brittany Lambig Apple Brandy.
Horse d’ Âge – Over six years old.
  
Around Paimpol and within Côtes-d'Armor
  
Around Paimpol and within the department of Côtes-d'Armor, you will see the names Goëllo, Penthièvre, and Trégor again and again. These are the names of the old Brittany Provinces that today make up the department of Côtes-d'Armor.  The names came from the hereditary Counts who held these areas as their personal fifes. The department of Côtes-d'Armor was created during the French revolution, but many businesses and place names still have the old names linked to them.
   
In Brittany celebrations always include oysters.
They will often be accompanied by Cidre Bouché, not champagne.
   
Visiting Paimpol
  
Paimpol is not only famous for its beans. Long before the beans arrived, it was an important fishing port and a vacation center. Paimpol and the area around have excellent beaches, and today there is a lot of activities, restaurants, fetes, and celebrations in town. However, in July and August, you will have problems finding even one hotel room if you did not book the year before. During the French holiday season in July and August, the area’s population increases by more than 300%. Nearly all of that population growth comes from French citizens who know a good thing when they see one.

In Paimpol
    
If you are in the area during the first weekend in August, make sure that you are ready for the Fête du Coco de Paimpol, the bean from Paimpol celebrations. Apart from opportunities to taste the bean and to pick up some recipes, you may join in traditional competitions such as the ramassage, bean picking, and the all-important d'écossage, bean podding. Who knows what fabulous prizes you might win?

Apart from the celebration and fete connected to Paimpol’s famous beans, there are other celebrations, concerts, and fetes every month. An example is the bi-annual "Fête des Chants de Marin." This is a sea shanty festival with groups bringing shanties from all over the world. It attracts thousands of visitors for three days in August.
   
A Breton procession in Paimpol.
www.flickr.com/photos/mwf2005/14665004689/
   
 In the summer, there are often two events in the same week. That is in addition to a Tuesday morning street market, night markets, and the "Mardi du Port" - where locals and visitors enjoy music beside the port every Tuesday. There is also a weekly farmer’s market where everything from beans to ciders, local cheeses, seafood, sausages, poultry, and more are on sale.
   
Paimpol Port.
Paimpol, apart from being an active fishing port, has a large harbor for the growing number of visitors who arrive in their own yachts.
www.flickr.com/photos/12195219@N02/1242829387/
   
Paimpol’s English language Tourist Information website:


To see the calendar of events for the whole year in Paimpol, click on the box on the lower left on the home page. It is entitled “Events: Diary of the Paimpol Country.” 
   
Tasting local products close to Paimpol

Within a short distance from Paimpol, you may visit oyster and mussel farms and cider mills. From the Tourist Information Office, get addresses for those who accept visitors and make a morning visit to the seafood farms and taste their products for lunch. 
  

Langoustines - Dublin Bay Prawns and Huitres – Oysters
For lunch.

In the afternoon, visit producers of Brittany’s famed cider, Chouchen, Pommeau, and Lambig, but with a designated driver!
  
 Paimpol is also home to the first Label Rouge, red label, sea-farmed turbot, the fish. The Label Rouge level of excellence requires adherence to humane farming methods apart from the quality of the product.
  


Wild Turbot on sale.
www.flickr.com/photos/cvalette/20707640115/

The coast around Paimpol
  
Along the excellent beaches close to Paimpol are a wide range of fish and seafood restaurants. When you have had too much fish, and seafood you will find other restaurants a few miles inland where the local Label Rouge free-range chickensturkeys, pork products, veal, and the pre-sale lamb will be on the menu.
   
Pêche à Pied.

This part of the coast of Brittany has many places to join in one of the more popular Breton seaside sports, La Pêche à Pied. La Pêche à Pied is fishing while on land, literally, it translates as fishing on foot. Whenever there is a high tide, buy a net, a hand rake, a bucket, and gloves and join the locals and other visitors at low tide, which is in the afternoon. There among the rocks and sand pools look for and collect crabes, crabs: crevettes, shimps; amande de mer, dog cockles; langoustines, Dublin Bay Prawns;  coques, cockles; and more. If you are lucky, you may find a langouste, the rock lobster, and the owner of the lobster tail. All may be collected for dinner.
  

Pêche à pied, fishing on foot.
www.flickr.com/photos/rhian/36291882871/
  
Paris to Paimpol
  
Paris to Paimpol is 450 km (281 miles) by car or three hours by TGV train to St Bruec, followed by a forty-minute drive by bus or train for the 46.0 km (30 miles) to Paimpol.

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

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017.
  
 
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Behind the French Menu

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1 comment:

  1. Calvados is NOT a Breton drink. It is from NORMANDIE and takes its title from the eponymous department of that region. Brittany prouces a similar licquor from distilled apples which is called Lambig and has its own Apellation Controlee, also known as Fine de Bretagne, minimum 40percent alc. Also, 'Dublin Bay prawns' are the same as langoustine - asking the local fish seller in les halles or the street for the former will generally get a blank stare. Ask for langoustine.

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