Showing posts with label Crémant de Bourgogne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crémant de Bourgogne. Show all posts

Chaource AOP; One of France's Greatest Cheeses.

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

 
 

               

Chaource AOP cheese

Chaource AOP is a 24.5% fat, cow's milk cheese and, when ripe, is creamy but not easily spreadable. It has a taste somewhat similar to a Brie, but a different texture, and that's what makes it unique. Chaource has an edible rind, and most farm-produced cheeses are made with unpasteurized milk, with dairies producing pasteurized versions. Similarities to Brie exist as they do in other cheeses like Coulommiers, but it is Chaource's different texture that makes the final taste quite different. 

New Chaource cheeses beginning their maturing process.

Aging Chaource

The cheese is matured for a minimum of two weeks before being sold. Then it will be allowed to age in the cool cellars of the better fromageries and cheese shops for another 14 days. When you buy this cheese, the center should be slightly soft and yield to the light pressure of a finger. In a fromagerie, you may request a cheese that will be ready for the same evening or a cheese that will be ready in ten days or two weeks. Chaource cheeses are available in small wheels weighing from 250 – 500 grams and from 8 - 10 cm high. For more about buying cheese in France and taking it home, click here.

The history of the Chaource cheese.

It is generally accepted that Chaource cheese originated with the monks in the Abbey of Pontivy in Yonne, Burgundy, in the 15th century; this was long before the French Revolution and France's modern departments and administrative regions. The cheese was sold at the market in the village of Chaource, in the department of Aube; it was from this village the cheese took its name. Chaource is just 44 km (27 miles) from the Abbey of Pontivy. Today the production of Chaource is divided between the departments of Aube and Yonne. 

The village of Chaource and getting there

The pretty village of Chaource, from whence the cheese took its name, has just over 1,000 inhabitants. Just over 50% of the cheese production comes from farms and dairies around the village. Paris to Chaource via a TGV fast takes about two hours, it's 209 km (130 miles) by road, and outside of the rush hours when you may lose time getting out of Paris, it's just over two hours by car.


The village of Chaource.
Photograph courtesy of allispossible
www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/2860132005/

Chaource and its AOP

While the recipe for this cheese dates to the Middle Ages, until sixty years or so ago, it was just considered an excellent local cheese but rarely seen outside the area. Then came travelers, industry, and better roads and cheese gourmets. With the increase in demand, the farmers organized to ensure that the cheese was only made to agreed high standards. Finally, in 1986 the cheese Chaource received its AOC grading. There are over four hundred registered cheeses in France, but less than 70 have the right to an AOC; now, an AOP, label, and Chaource is one of those. For more about AOC and AOP grades and labels, click here.

Chaource on French menus:

     

Andouillette de Troyes AAAAA Sauce Chaource, Frites – The Andouillette de Troyes AAAAA sausages with a Chaource sauce and French fries. Andouillettes are one of France's favorite sausages made with pork or veal tripe and intestines. The name Andouillettes may sometimes be confused by visitors with another famous French sausage, the Andouille. At first glance, there would seem to be many similarities as both sausages are made with pork or veal tripe and intestines, but there the difference ends. Andouillettes have a very healthy bite and, for most visitors, are an acquired taste. The highly-rated Andouillette de Troyes AAAAA comes from the town of Troyes in the same department as Chaource and is just 30 km (19 miles) away. The AAAAA after the name indicates the Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentiques, the Friendly Association of the Lovers of Authentic Andouillette sausages, AAAAA for short; it is a manufacturers' association.

   


Baked Macaroni, Chorizo, and Chaource Cheese
Photograph courtesy of Sainsbury's Magazine

 

Escargots Sauce Chaource – Six Petit-Gris snails served with a Chaource cheese sauce. There are two snails raised for the table in France; the larger and more expensive snail is the Burgundy snail, and if it were being served, its name would be on the menu. The smaller snail is called the Petit Gris, and they weigh approximately 10 grams each without their shell. This is still tasty, but a smaller snail is the one being served, and its size indicates that this will be a French entrée (the first course). Each snail weighs about 10 grams, so the serving will be approximately 60 grams (2 ounces).

 

Chaource et sa Petite Salade aux Noix – Chaource cheese served with a small green and walnut salad.

 

Côte de Cochon d'Antan Gratinée Au Chaource - A pork chop from free-range heirloom pigs served browned with a covering of Chaource cheese. Cochon d'Antan translates as pigs from yesteryear and will be a bread that is rarely seen today, and a question to the server may bring some interesting history. When Cochon d'Antan pork is on the menu, you know that you will be enjoying a rare treat. 

 


Mini Potato Gratins with Chaource Cheese
Photograph courtesy of Gourmandize – UK, Ireland

 

Dos de Cabillaud Sauce Chaource – Fresh cod served with a sauce made with Chaource cheese. Cod is a large fish, often over 10 kilos ( 22 lbs), so you will be served a fillet. Fresh cod from the Atlantic coast of France will rarely be seen; they have been overfished and are in danger. The fresh cod on your table will mostly come from the North Atlantic and flown in fresh or chilled. Fresh cod is one of the two most popular fish in France with rehydrated salted cod, also very popular in many modern and traditional dishes such as Brandade Nîmoise.

 

Salade de Chaource Chaud au Miel – A salad with warmed Chaource cheese served with honey. 

 

Tournedos de Boeuf et Son Coulant de Chaource – A thick cut from a beef fillet served with warm, running Chaource cheese. Only two steaks of the size required for the original tournedos can be cut from the fillet, and initially, they were cooked together and separated just before serving. Today, that will rarely be the case, but you should expect a 300-gram plus fillet steak. Tournedos, as cuts, trace their origins to the original Chateaubriand and Tournedos Rossini. For the post: Ordering a Steak in France, Cooked the Way You Like it, click here.


Truffled Chaource, Caramelized Pear with Lemon Confit
Photograph courtesy of City Foodsters
www.flickr.com/photos/cityfoodsters/16513755169/

The wines that pair well with the Chaource

If you drive into the area and see vineyards, the grapes growing are most likely those used for Champagne. Chaource is in Champagne country, and the larger Champagne houses are in Reims, only 155 km away ( 96 miles), and those of Épernay, 139 km (86 miles). 


Chaource and Champagne
Photograph courtesy of SFGATE

The village of Chaource is also just 43 km (27 miles) from Chablis in Burgundy, where I first tasted the cheese and then paired it with a Chablis' white wine. The small town of Chablis and the area around it is also an excellent place to enjoy the cuisine of Burgundy with Chaource on the cheese plate at the end. Enjoy with Chablis or optionally pair Chaource with Burgundy's excellent sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne. Other famous cow's milk cheeses in Champagne country include the Langres AOP and the Cendré de Champagne; both of these cheeses are also produced just over Burgundy's border.

The Chaource cheese museum.

The village of Chaource has a cheese museum, Musée du Fromage à Chaource, which is dedicated to this cheese alone; at the end of a visit, you are offered a tasting. The museum is open all year round but from November to March by appointment.


The cheese museum in Chaource
Photograph courtesy of allispossible org uk
www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/2868060439/

The Chaource cheese fete.

On the second Sunday in October, the village has a Fête de Fromage, its cheese fete. If you are in the area, you may enjoy demonstrations of cheese and butter making as well as tastings. N.B.: Always double-check the dates of fetes with the French Tourist Information Offices; dates do change.

The English language website for Chaource and the immediate area is:

http://www.tourisme-en-chaourcois.com/en/land-tasting/chaource-cheese

Visiting the area around Chaource.

The village of Chaource and the area around it are beautiful places to visit. To the north, just 15 km (9 miles) from the village, is the Parc Naturel Régional de la Forêt d'Orient, shades of the Knights Templar, who once owned the land upon which the park was created.

The park is extensive and covers over 750 sq km (290 sq miles); it includes lovely villages and lakes apart from areas covered with heavy forest. The park is a trendy vacation spot, and the lakes are centers for swimming and water sports. The lakes are also stocked with fish, making them very popular with amateur fishermen and women.

The park has a French-language website, but Bing and Google translate apps make it easily understood:

http://www.pnr-foret-orient.fr/fr/content/pnrfo

Visiting Chaource from Paris

If you stay in Paris and have access to a car, consider that a beautiful day trip can be a visit to Chaource. There are plenty of interesting and enjoyable stops along the way. For example, from Paris's drive to Melun, 45 km (28 miles) away, Melun is the home of one of the two AOP Brie cheeses. Then visit one of the two incredible Chateaus that are on your way. Choose the Château de Vaux le Vicomtewhich is just 10 minutes away, 6 km (4 miles) from Melun, or choose the Château de Fontainebleau, only 17 km (11 miles) away. After visiting either of the Chateaus for an enjoyable two-and-a-half to three-hour visit, have lunch in the area. It is just 145 km (90 miles), a pleasant one-and-a-half-hour drive to Chaource. The return drive to Paris is a two-hour drive.

-------------------------------- 


Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman 
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com 
Copyright 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024 


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Kir and Kir Royale the Classic French Aperitifs. Kir, the Aperitif of Burgundy.

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

 

A Kir Apéritif.
www.flickr.com/photos/stuartwebster/4599787292/
                
In some parts of New York, London, Tokyo, and even Paris the aperitifs Kir and Kir Royal are looked down on as passé.  Nevertheless, the 80-year-old wine and blackcurrant flavored Kir aperitifs from Burgundy are, inside France, still in the top ten.

The original Kir
 
The original Kir includes the dry, white Aligoté AOP wine from Burgundy and a touch of  Crème de Cassis the sweet 15-20% alcoholic blackcurrant Ratafia (cordial) also from Burgundy. The result is a sweet blackcurrant flavored aperitif served in a wine glass.  (For more about ratafias see the end of this post).
  
A Kir Royal
www.flickr.com/photos/alexbrn/4849349648/
  
The Kir Royal

Kir Royal is a Kir upgrade where the white wine is replaced with a dry Champagne and it will be served in a Champagne flute.  A dry Champagne is used as even semi-sweet Champagne with the already sweet blackcurrant makes for a sickly sweet drink. Today, in Burgundy, the Champagne in the Kir Royal is often replaced with Burgundy’s own sparkling white Crémant to make the Kir Royal 100% Burgundian.
                         
Both of these apéritifs are named after Canon Felix Kir, a priest who, earned fame in the French resistance during WWII and went on to be elected Deputy Mayor of the city of Dijon, the capital of the department of Côte-d'Or in Burgundy. To boost Burgundy Felix Kir exclusively served these, his favorite aperitifs, at all official receptions.  Felix Kir did not invent Kir or Kir Royal but he certainly made them famous and unwittingly immortalized his own name. (Since 1-1-2016 Burgundy with its four departments has administratively become part of the new super region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté).

Kir Imperial

Along the way, someone wanted to trump the Kir Royal and created a Kir Imperial. Here une larme, a drop, of Marc de Champagne AOC is added to the Champagne and Crème de Cassis. That ups the overall alcohol content and provides a drier Kir Royale.   (For more about Marc’s see the end of this article). Marc de Champagne and other Marcs including Burgundy’s own Marc de Bourgogne are produced similarly to Italian Grappa; a brandy made from the left-over grapes leaves and other bits from wine production that has a 40% alcohol content.  Marc de Champagne was awarded an AOC in 2008 and Marc de Bourgogne in 2011.
  
The excellent sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne and the Marc de Bourgogne to replace Champagne and the Marc de Champagne were not around when Canon Felix Kir was alive, but since both are 100% Burgundian creations Canon Kir would undoubtedly have approved. If you are dining in Burgundy then a Kir is the only aperitif.

Kir outside Burgundy

Order a Kir or Kir Royal today outside of Burgundy, and the wines and blackcurrant cordial will usually have been replaced by local products; though that may make Canon Kir turn over in his grave. There are eight sparkling French Crémants that may or may not replace the original Champagne in the Kir Royal and there is a ninth Crémant, but it comes from Luxembourg and Canon Kir may not approve; however, Luxembourg is in the EU.
 
Blackcurrants in French are Baies de Cassis
 
At the heart of any genuine Kir is Burgundy’s Crème de Cassis, its alcoholic blackcurrant alcoholic cordial, also called a ratafia.   Black currants had always been part of Burgundy’s wine country, but originally they represented a tiny part of the economy.   Then in the 1860s Burgundy’s and all the other French vineyards were attacked by the phylloxera aphid which arrived from the New World. These horrible little insects decimated nearly all of France’s wine industry, and it took over twenty years to recover.  While waiting for American rootstock that was not affected to replace the susceptible European vines between many of the rows of Burgundy’s grapes blackcurrants were planted.   With the recovery of the vineyards with there are still many vineyards with blackcurrants planted between the rows and so they see two harvests a year, Blackcurrants from June through August, with the grapes usually beginning to be harvested in Mid-September.
 
Kir and Kir Royale are equally popular outside of the region of Burgundy.  Only a few purists demand a white wine and a blackcurrant ratafia from Burgundy, and though I may be banned from Burgundy forever for saying so there are excellent Kirs in other areas. In the Alsace, I enjoy Kirs made with the Alsace’s fabulous Riesling and a Crème de Cassis Alsacienne and a Kir Royal with a Crémant d'Alsace.  For those who need it, a Marc d'Alsace AOP is available.
   
Blackcurrants
www.flickr.com/photos/foodista/3705212000/
 
Other parts of France have taken to honoring Canon Kir’s name:

Kir Breton and Kir Normande 
 
Kir Breton and Kir Normande are the Brittany’s and Normandy’s way to honor Canon Kir’s name.  These two regions grow few wines, but they do have fantastic still and sparkling ciders.  There, replacing the Champagne in the local Kir aperitifs will be a dry, sparkling cider.  These make an interesting change and enjoyed when I am visiting; though I quickly return to the wine and crémant versions when I am outside those two regions. 

Kir Royal d’Auvergne

Kir Royal d’Auvergne -  The  Auvergne’s take on the aperitif made using the local Saint-Pourçain Mousseaux lightly sparkling wine and an Auvergne crème cassis, its black currant liquor.
   
Blackcurrants
Page 369 of "Dictionnaire-manuel-illustré des sciences usuelles (1897).
www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14578166020/

Kir Berrichon

Berry is a historic French province that during the French revolution was divided into two departments, Cher and Indre, both in the Loire Valley and here a Kir Berrichon is made with a glass of a chilled, light, local red wine, and a blackberry cordial, a crème de mûre. Using a blackberry cordial/ratafia and a red wine is a long step from the original but they still use the name Kir. There is a white sparkling Crémant de Loire AOP, but here they have still chosen a red.

Outside of France do not be surprised to see other wines used and I have seen that fabulous Italian sparkling wine a Prosecco offered as a Kir Royale.  A good Prosecco is a fabulous wine, and I believe it should be enjoyed on its own, but like those who demand Champagne in their Kir Royal, there are those who demand Prosecco.
 
Ratafias
 
Ratafias were the forerunners of most alcoholic, eau-de-vies, fruit liquors/cordials including Crème de Cassis. The name ratafia comes from the Latin “rata fiat” to settle or “ratify” an agreement.  Back then, as still happens today, a deal could be sealed with a drink: "let's drink on it.”   Cassis was first made into a liqueur during the 18th century when sweet alcoholic fruit ratafias became fashionable under France’s King Louis XV.

The most famous blackcurrant ratafia was the Ratafia de Neuilly from Neuilly-sur-Seine in the department of Hauts-de-Seine which is right next to Paris. The Ratafia de Neuilly laid the ground for Creme de Cassis with blackcurrants and an alcoholic base that didn’t need wine.  Another ratafia that doesn’t include wine is Pommeau made in Normandy with fresh apple juice and Calvados.

The Ratafia de Neuilly
set the ground for Burgundy’s Crème de Cassis.

The story behind Burgundy’s Crème de Cassis began in 1841 with two café owners from Dijon, Auguste-Denis Lagoute and Henri Lejay, traveling to Paris to taste the famous Ratafia de Neuilly. With a plentiful supply of blackcurrants back home the two decided to develop their own recipe and so Crème de Cassis de Bourgogne was launched.
  

City hall at Neuilly-sur-Seine

Maison LEJAYstill bears the name of one of the founders and has its a French-language website that can be read clearly with the Bing or Google translate apps:

  
Crème de Cassis de Bourgogne hold an IGP rating and those bottles with labels marked Crème de Cassis de Dijon are considered by many to be the very best.
   
Crème de Cassis de Dijon
  
I am sure that Canon Kir sitting in heaven surrounded by angels carrying bottles would have been pleased with the appearance of Burgundy’s fine Crémant that often replaces Champagne.   But, he would have been completely floored with the additions in 2016 of the Grand Eminent Crémant de Bourgogne aged for a minimum of 36 months with its lees months, and the Eminent Crémant de Bourgogne, aged with lees for a minimum of 24 months. (I understand very little about lees but was told that for white wines these are yeasts which if not handled correctly can destroy a wine but under strict controls can make a superior wine fantastic).
    
Crémant de Bourgogne

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

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com 

Copyright 2010, 2014, 2019, 2023

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

Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French menus?

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. 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.

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