from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Herbes et Épices – Herbs and Spices.
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This post brings together the herbs and
spices that are the cornerstones of flavors in French cuisine.
French chefs also know that too many
herbs and spices confuse a diner and leave him or her without a distinctive
flavor to remember, while too much of a single herb or spice disguises or
obliterates the natural character of the dish it was supposed to improve.
You won’t find these in a French chef’s spice cupboard.
Menu listings in North America and the UK
may give the nod to their French influences but dried herbs and spices are often
used and they have very different tastes to the fresh kind. Without any clear
information on the flavors that are being added to a dish, how can you think
about ordering?
I am neither a chef nor even a
particularly good home cook, but as a veteran diner, I have a great deal of experience.
That experience has led me into many discussions about herbs and spices with
chefs, maître d’s and the owners of herb and spice shops or stalls, and others.
They are all amazed by recipes in the UK and North American newspapers that
include ten or even fifteen different flavor enhancements while using dried
herbs.
The ingredients in this post are taken
from the appendix on herbs and spices in my nearly completed book Behind the
French Menu, the diners’ guide to French cuisine. Apart from herbs and spices,
my appendix includes those mushrooms, truffles, and vegetables that flavor, but they
are too many to include in this post.
The herbs and spices
most often used in French cuisine.
Wild garlic flowers
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Star Anise
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Cinnamon
The tarragon flower
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Lavandre – Lavender.
The citizens of Provence correctly claim
that lavender comes from Provence; it originated in the area of modern Provence
tens of thousands of years ago; lavender is the product of Provence par
excellence! The local Provencal bees also appreciate lavender flowers, and they
make the famous lavender honey that will be seen on menus all over in Provence.
Lavender has been famous, as a perfume,
for thousands of years, and it is the perfect scent as even dried lavender
flowers hold their scent for a very long time.
Then, in Provence lavender is also
occasionally used a herb; fresh lavender does have a very light flavor but
will, more importantly, add its aroma to local recipes including vinegars and
jellies. For the tourists dried lavender will often be seen in pre-packed bags
of the Herbes de Provence, the Provencal herb group; here, the use of lavender
is used more for the name and the aroma than any serious addition to the taste.
However,
the Herbes de Provence on a menu listing will be made with fresh herbs
and are very different from the dried.
In the world of AOC
and AOP labels for unique and outstanding products, there is also a
lavender product with an AOP. The Huile Essentielle de Lavande Fine AOP, a
lavender essential oil used for aromatherapy, not for eating or drinking.
Strolling through the lavender, Provence, France
www.flickr.com/photos/mikeslone/27745859363/
Oseille – Sorrel, Garden Sorrel, Common
Sorrel and Dock
Sorrel leaves may be picked in the wild, and the smaller, young
leaves make excellent salad greens, and they are rich in vitamin C.
Nevertheless, the sorrel on your menu will probably have come from a farm, it
costs less.
Sorrel may be cooked like spinach or made into a soup, and many
fish dishes will be flavored with sorrel. Among the soups made with sorrel, the most
famous is Potage Germiny named after Count Charles le Bègue of Germiny (1799 –
1871), from when served as the Governor of the Bank of France. Naming new
recipes after important and famous people who frequented expensive restaurants
was the fashion of the time, and so the Count got his soup. The soup is a beef consommé
flavored with sorrel in crème fraîche. The recipe was created by the famous
chef Adolphe Dugléré (1805 -1884) when he was chef de cuisine at the legendary
Café Anglais and it is still on some menus.
As a child growing up in England Lake District, we would go looking
for wild berries and mushrooms in the forests round about, and there were both
stinging nettles and the "dock" member of the sorrel family close by. From there, I have my earliest memory of
homeopathic medicine as the sorrel dock leaves when squashed and rubbed on the
nettle sting cools and soothes the pain. Then, if I had been living in France,
we would have taken revenge on the stinging nettle plants by making a Soupe
d'Orties et Ail Sauvage - A nettle soup
flavored with wild garlic.
Black and white peppercorns.
Poivre
de la Jamaïque, Toute-épice, Piment Jamaïque – Allspice or Jamaica pepper.
In both French and English kitchens, the taste of this spice
provides one of its names; that taste is its combination of cinnamon, nutmeg,
and cloves; the result is toute-épice in French and allspice in English. When discovered it was considered a
guaranteed moneymaker, three spices for the prices of one. However, when
allspice arrived the chefs and cooks already had recipes with the other spices
that produced the same taste; changing quantities and recipes for a new spice
with the same flavors was probably too much like hard work. Still, allspice is a spice that can be used
in many dishes from savory to sweet desserts and so it will occasionally be on
some menu listings and used in several French herbal liquors.
Allspice may look like a large brown peppercorn; however,
it is not a pepper; it is the dried unripe fruit of a Jamaican plant. Ground
allspice, when sold pre-ground in packets, has far less taste than the freshly
ground corns. As one of this spice’s names indicate its origin is Jamaican and
it is an essential ingredient in the spicy Jamaican jerk pastes and
marinades. Most of the allspice sold in
France still comes from Jamaica though some is imported from Mexico. In Mexico,
the mole sauces of Central Mexican have in many cases added allspice to the
local chilies and other spices used. Christopher Columbus discovered Jamaica in
1504, but with so many new herbs and spices already filling Spanish ships and
kitchens, allspice was not at the head of the list.
Allspice
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Quatre Épices or Épice Parisienne – The
four spices.
This is the oldest recorded group of spices used in French cuisine
and the original spices used in this group today have not changed. From the beginning, one of these spices was
nearly always disputed, allowing for two official groups with the same name. Today a chef may be using five or six spices
rather than four, and they will still be on the menu as the quatre épices. The group always includes Poivre, pepper:
Noix de muscade, nutmeg: and Clous de girofle, cloves. The disputed fourth is Gingembre, ginger or
Cannelle, Chinese cinnamon with the Chinese cinnamon usually being replaced by
Cannelle de Ceylan, Ceylonese cinnamon.
Despite this spice group
being slightly out of fashion, it remains on some menus. Chefs who went to
cooking schools enjoy sharing their knowledge and will use this traditional
spice group with a fresh recipe.
Roquette, Arugula – Rocket, Garden
rocket.
Not to be confused with the garden flower called Dame's Rocket or
Sweet Rocket. Rocket, with its spicy
taste, is mainly used to spice up salads; however, it may also be found in
cooked dishes. When Roquette, rather
than arugula is on the menu in France, then you are being served wild rocket
with its narrower leaves and cleaner taste. There are a number of varieties of
rocket, and they have varying degrees of pungency along with with other flavors
and the pungency increases with the age of the fresh leaf; the best and milder
leaves are young and small.
Rosemary
Sauge -
Sage.
Sage is popular all Mediterranean cuisines. In French recipes, sage is often added to
special vinegars and herbal butters, and occasionally sage may be added to the
herb group Les Fine Herbes.
In France, as well as elsewhere in Europe, sage is also used to
flavor preserved meats like sausages. The name sage comes from the Latin
salvere or salvation, and that relates to its historical use in homeopathic
medicines.
Sarriette - Summer savory.
The leaves flavor vegetable dishes, vinegars, and herbal butters
and are an essential ingredient in the Herbes de Provence. Summer savory is also used as a tisane, a
herbal tea where it is believed to aid the digestion and soothe upset stomachs.
Vanilla pods.
www.flickr.com/photos/68177867@N00/305006748/
Travel outside the major towns and cities
of France, and you will see herb gardens that even the smallest restaurants
build and use. In towns and cities lack of space usually makes private herb
gardens a rarity, and so they have agreements with market gardeners who
bring fresh herbs and spices daily.
Large restaurants often use their market gardener's herb garden as if it
were their own private fife with a private section closed off. Then again, chefs build links to ramasseurs,
gatherers, who bring wild mushrooms, berries, herbs, and spices in from the country.
In a visit to any French private home,
fresh herbs and spices will scent the kitchen even before they decorate and
flavor that home's food. Ask for
permission to look in any French restaurant's herb store; there, you will
realize the importance of fresh herbs and spices over the dried or otherwise
preserved options.
The difference
between herbs and spices.
In modern kitchens, the differences
between herbs and spices are often blurred. While avoiding great botanical
detail as I am not a botanist, it is enough to say that most herbs are the
leafy parts of plants and spices come from the rest. In any case, smell easily differentiates most
herbs from spices. Spices smell and taste like they should…..strongly.
Herb and spice
groups.
Also included in this post are the two
most important French herb and spice groups: "Les
Fine Herbes," the Fine Herbs,
and "Les
Herbes de Provence," the Herbs of Provence. Additionally, I have spared a few lines in this post for the "Quatre
Épices or Épice Parisienne," the four spices; they are the oldest recorded
French spice group still in use.
My sources.
To help me with conflicts on usage and
names, I relied on two very knowledgeable sources. They are Gernot Katzer from
Austria and his Gernot
Katzer's Spice Pages and Eric Schoenzetter from France, and his Toil d'Épices. These two experts assembled, checked, and
published a fantastic amount of information on herbs and spices. I used their knowledge to double-check the
information I had prepared as well as to add new details. I have also used
their expertise to lay-to-rest a number of old wives tales that I had been sold
along the way. Still, the history of
French cuisine is not written in stone, and I have also collected and included
many other opinions, stories, bits of history and added my own value judgments.
Any mistakes that have resulted are mine alone.
-----------------------------------
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010,
2019
---------------------------
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