The Valençay AOP Cheese and the Valençay AOP Wines. The Town of Valençay and the Chateau de Valençay.

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

The Valençay Cheese.
Photograph courtesy of Frédérique Voisin-Demery
www.flickr.com/photos/vialbost/5486322753/
 
 
The Valençay Cheese and Wine

In 1998 the Valençay cheese received AOC status and the wine followed in 2004. That made the town of Valençay the first place in France to have both an AOC cheese and AOC wines; now AOPs.

The Valençay cheese and the Valençay wines took their name from the small and attractive town of Valençay in the Valley of the Loire. The valley has beautiful countryside with fabulous chateaus and some of France’s most beautiful villages. Many of these are within 50–80 km (30-50 miles) of Valençay.

The town of Valençay is in the department of Indre. Indre, together with the department of Cher, was created from the old Province of Berry during the French Revolution. Berry has its own cuisine, and though rarely heard today, it also has its own language. Along with its cuisine, the language is called Berrichone.

France’s mainland regions.
The departments of Indre and Cher are in the region of the Centre-Val de Loire, close to the center of mainland France.
Photograph courtesy of aer.eu/
  
The Valençay Cheese

Valençay is a mild, tasty, smooth, creamy, non-pasteurized goat’s milk cheese with 23% fat. (A pasteurized version of the Valençay cheese is available for export). Both versions of this cheese are at their best when just ripened, and that’s after about five weeks of aging when the edible rind becomes blue-grey. The blue color develops naturally as the cheese ages. The farm-made cheese, marked “Fermier,” is covered with a charcoal powder before sale though the rind remains edible. When I have the opportunity, I scrape off most of the charcoal and enjoy the rind. The dairy-produced cheeses are marked “Laitier” and are covered with vegetable ash.

Valencay “Fermier”
A farm made Valencay
Photograph courtesy of Affinord. 

The Valençay cheese looks like a truncated pyramid, and its weight varies between 250 grams ( 8.8 oz) to 300 grams ( 10.5 oz) with a base of 6 cm (2.4”) by 6 cm (2.4”). Also available is a Petit Valençay, which weighs approximately 110 grams. Both are suitable sizes to take home from a visit to France. Request a cheese that will be ready in one week and have it vacuumed packed. The cheese will be perfect if placed in the refrigerator when you return home within 48 hours, and it will keep well for about two to three weeks. Keep it refrigerated, not frozen. Take it out of the refrigerator one hour before serving. (For more about buying and taking French cheeses home, click here). When taking this cheese back home with you, make sure you buy one that explicitly says pasteurized. Declare it, and the customs will not argue with a pasteurized cheese.

Valençay cheeses made with organic milk are available. They will have the word Bio or Biologique a food product is organic the label will include the government-approved AB logo clearly visible. 

The AB organic produce label.
The AB logo became part of French law in 1985. 
The label identifies products that are defined as organic under French law.  

Fresh goat’s cheeses will be off the market between January and February. These two months are the birth times for most goats, and then the nanny goats need their milk for their young. However, matured cheeses will still be available. The whole region around Valençay is famous for its goat’s cheeses. Look out for the local Crottin de Chavignol AOP, Pouligny Saint Pierre AOP; Selles sur Cher, AOP, and the Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine AOP. 

A few of France’s many goat’s cheeses.
Photograph courtesy of Marc Kjerland
www.flickr.com/photos/marckjerland/3956521102/
    
The Valençay cheese and its shape.

The Valençay cheese itself is considered a new cheese as it is only 200 years old! With its truncated pyramid, the cheese's shape has many stories about how it arrived at its final shape. The stories told and retold include a tongue-in-cheek story that includes Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte I. In that story, Emperor Napoleon I cuts off the cheese's pointed top with his sword since the points reminded him of the sails of the British ships that destroyed his navy in the Battle of the Nile. Nevertheless, whatever the reason for the flat-topped pyramid, it is the shape of the cheese today, and its taste remains none the worse for it.

Valençay cheese on French Menus:

Polenta Crémeuse au Fromage de Valençay et Flan de Sucrine du Berry -  Polenta is the French version of the North Italian dish of cornmeal polenta. For much of the European peasantry, polenta was a cornmeal and corn flour dish brought from the New World and easily adapted to France's agricultural needs. Cornmeal saved many peasants from starvation. Today polenta in France and Italy has returned as a fashionable side dish in fine restaurants. Here a creamy polenta is made with Valençay cheese and served with a flan made from the Sucrine du Berry. The Sucrine du Berry is a baby Romaine lettuce; it is crisp and sweet and sold as the "Little Gem" in North America. In France, the Sucrine du Berry may be in your salad or part of another dish. In Berry, where this baby lettuce was first grown in France, restaurants may also offer Soupe à la Sucrine du Berry, a little gem lettuce soup. For more about Berry's cuisine, click here.

Beetroot and watercress on a base of Valençay cheese.

Photograph courtesy of H. Alexander Talbot

www.flickr.com/photos/ideasinfood/8311593231/

Quiche de Valençay au Parfum de Basilic - A quiche made with Valençay cheese and flavored with basil.

Boudin Noir au Valençay, Purée de Pommes de Terre – The French version of Black pudding, the much-loved pork blood sausage served with here with Valençay cheese and mashed potatoes.

Valençay AOP Wines

The Valençay AOP wines are whites, roses, and reds. The white wine blends include  Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Chardonnay, and sometimes the Arbois grape. The rosés are made from Gamay, Pinot Noir and Pineau d'Aunis. The Reds use the Gamay, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, and Pinot Noir grapes. Even with all these grapes, only 240 acres are included in the Valençay appellation, and so from this tiny area comes an extensive range of wines. When you try a Valençay wine, you had better have done your homework or brought an up-to-date French wine book with you or have a knowledgeable sommelier as the wines produced under the label Valençay are incredibly varied. Valençay wines are not a single type of blend.

Rose and white Valençay wines
Photograph courtesy of Loire Valley Wine Tour.com
   

Valençay wines on French menus:

Salade Berrichonne, Œuf Poché Sauce Valençay Toast de Chèvre Valençay Chaud, Lardons Légèrement Fumés, Lentilles Vertes du Berry -  The Berrichonne salad is prepared with an egg poached in a Valençay wine sauce served with toast and warm Valençay cheese. The dish is accompanied by slowly smoked lardons (bacon pieces) and the famous green lentils of berry. Dishes with accents from the old Berry province will be on the menu as Berrichonne. Despite the two-hundred years that changed the name of the province the people still call themselves Berrichonnes.

Entrecôte Sauce Vin Valençay à la Moelle, Pommes Frites - An entrecote is a rib-eye steak in North America and a rib-eye, fore rib or Sirloin in the UK. (USA sirloins are a different cut). Entrecôte is a French name and means between the ribs, and that it is. A French entrecote steak is usually prepared without the bone and is one of the tastiest steaks that any restaurant can offer.  Here the steak is prepared in a Valençay wine sauce with added bone marrow and served with French fries, the UK chips. (To order your steak cooked the way you prefer click here.) 

Tournedos de Lapereau Farci Sauce au Valençay Rouge -  A stuffed tournedos from a young, farm-raised rabbit stuffed and prepared with a Valençay red wine sauce. A Tournedos is usually thought of as cut from a fillrt steak like a Tournedos Rossini; however, the word is used to described a thick cut.  However, a tournedos of a young rabbit must be seen through the eye of the beholder. From a young rabbit, the tournedos is not going to be a large serving. 

A red Valençay wine
Photograph courtesy of Loire Valley Wine Tour.com
 
 
Wines from the Loire Valley include the Valençay  wines. 

If you are looking for wines from Valençay as well as the area around the town, then you had better have done your homework. Your homework will need a very up-to-date book on French wines and there are some excellent pocketbooks are available. In the Loire Valley, there over 69 appellations and producing them are hundreds, if not thousands of vintners. In a restaurant, which in any case will not offer all the 69 different appellations, ask for their carte du vins, their wine-list. Then to reduce the myriad choices look for their white, rosé and light red Sancerre wines, the wines of Anjou, Saumur, and the Touraine. In a restaurant, a good sommelier or your French wine book and a clear budget will aid in choosing the better vintners and the affordable years. I am not a wine maven and without a book, I would not remember 10% of the vintners, let alone the years with the best vintages.

Over a three-day period, Valençay has its wine and cheese fete. It is usually held in the last days of May and the beginning of June. However, dates have been known to move a little every year or so. Check with the French Tourist Information Office in your home country before leaving home or look at the Valençay Tourist Information Office website:

http://www.valencay-tourisme.fr/infos-pratiques/les-offices-de-tourisme-du-pays-de-valencay.html 

The town of Valençay
Photograph courtesy of Moto Itinerari
www.flickr.com/photos/motoitinerari/20759332392/ 

The attractive small town of Valençay is walkable; it has less than 3,000 inhabitants. The town has an antique car museum, the Musee de l'Automobile de Valencay; most cars are pre - 1939. N.B. The museum is closed from mid-November through mid-March. The town also has a museum of sugar art: The Musee du Sucre d'Art is attached to a local pastry shop.

In Valençay, there is a farmer's market every Tuesday morning, and the Valençay Tourist Information Office has the dates and times for other markets and points of interest around the town.

A Panhard-Levassor X-17-SS, 1912.
From the Valençay Car Museum
Photograph courtesy of Daniel Jolivet
www.flickr.com/photos/sybarite48/20254895704/
 
 
The Chateau de Valençay.

The Chateau de Valençay is one of the most beautiful Chateaus in France. It was made famous by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754 – 1838), France’s first consummate politician.

The Chateau de Valençay.
Photograph courtesy of Patrick 
www.flickr.com/photos/morio60/7271645878/

Under King Philippe XVI Talleyrand, the last king before the French Revolution was a deputy of the National Assembly. Then, after the French Revolution in 1789, France was ruled by a new National Assembly. Talleyrand participated in writing the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The writers of that French declaration included some famous American citizens led by Thomas Jefferson as well as Thomas Payne and Benjamin Franklin. 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were passed by France's National Constituent Assembly the 26 August 1789.  The United States Bill of Rights that comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution were proposed on September 25, 1789 and ratified on December 15, 1791.  Without faxes or email, these very similar laws were proposed 30 days and 6200 kilometers (3900 miles) apart.

Five years later on, the 2nd November 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor Napoléon 1 and his wife, Josephine Empress. The new Emperor’s first appointment as Foreign Minister was…. Talleyrand. In 1804, Talleyrand bought a monetary gift from Napoleon, the beautiful Château de Valençay. In this Château, Talleyrand employed the man who would become the most famous chef of the 19th century, Antonin Carême. Talleyrand believed in a well-set table along with excellent wines to win over politicians and prominent visitors to France. Carême and his cuisine brought the power behind the thrones of foreign rulers to Talleyrand’s table.  

Talleyrand served all masters and promoted at varying times opposing ideas. Talleyrand was also an ordained Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, but turned against the Church with the revolution’s anti-clerical bias. He became the Foreign Minister of Emperor Napoleon 1 and would later serve in the same post for King Louis XVIII after the monarchy was restored when the combined armies of Europe overthrew Napoleon. Talleyrand made tens of millions for a politician in the 18th and 19th centuries; today, that would be billions. Talleyrand, essential as he was at the time, would today be in jail for insider trading, bribery, breach of trust, accepting bribes, demanding bribes, along with money laundering, and much more!

The Chateau is open from the beginning of April until the first few days of January and even on France’s sacred museum Mondays. However, French dates and hours occasionally move around, so do check the dates and times with the Chateau’s English language website:

https://www.chateau-valencay.fr/en 

The gardens of the Chateau de Valençay.
Photograph courtesy of stephane333
www.flickr.com/photos/stephaneollivier/30053769558/

Talleyrand resigned his post of foreign minister in 1807, and then with time on his hands and money in his pockets in 1812, Talleyrand bought a permanent home in Paris on the Place de Concorde, Paris. That was a town palace that became known as the Hôtel de Talleyrand. After WWII, that palace was the headquarters of the Marshall Plan, and the United States still owns the building.

The building is now fully restored to the former glory seen under Talleyrand and may be visited; just ask directions to the Hôtel de Talleyrand on the Place de Concorde, Paris.

 With Napoléon’s defeat in 1814, Talleyrand once again changed sides as well as political philosophies; this time, he supported the return of the French Bourbon Kings. The first French King after Emperor Napoleon I was Louis XVIII (1814-1824), and he made Talleyrand the chief French negotiator at the Congress of Vienna in 1814. When Napoleon I returned in February 1815 and reached Paris in March 1815, Talleyrand remained a private citizen. Then in 1830, a new King from the Orleans branch of the royal family King Louis-Philippe (1830 - 1848), came to power, and Talleyrand, now aged 76, became the French Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1830-1834). Talleyrand died aged 84. On his deathbed, he changed sides again and repented for all his sins and received absolution from the Roman Catholic Church. Talleyrand is buried in the grounds of the Château de Valençay.

For those seeking a quieter vacation near Valençay:

For those seeking a quieter vacation near Valençay, the River Naon south-east of the town is a favorite site for amateur anglers and picnics. Fishing permits cost some 12 Euros per day, and all the equipment for an angler, from worms to rods, are available close by.  

-------------------------------- 

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

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.  Behind the French Menu’s links, include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 450 posts that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

---------- 

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
Copyright 2010, 2015, 2021, 2023.
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com 

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

Connected Posts:

AOP, IGP and Vin de France. The Labels on French Wines.
    
Á la Moelle – Dishes Served With or Flavored With Bone Marrow. Á la Moelle on French Menus.
 
Anjou and Angevines – Dining in the Maine et Loire, France.
 
Antonin Carême: The Most Influential Chef in the History of French Cuisine.
 
Bacon in France. Bacon and Salted Pork on French Menus. Lard in French Means Bacon in English.
 
Basil - Basilic or Herbe Royal. Basil in French Cuisine.
 
Berry, One of France’s historic Provinces, Enjoy its excellent Berrichonne Cuisine. Savor its wines. Taste its outstanding cheeses and much more.
 
Bio or Biologique. Aliments Biologiques, Produits Biologiques AB - Organic Food and Wine in France.
 
Boudins and Black Puddings on French Menus. The Sausages of France II.
 
Buying Cheese in France. Bringing French Cheese Home and a Lexicon for buying French Cheese.
 
Champagne the Most Famous Sparkling Wine in the World. Choosing the Champagne that Meets your Sweetness Preferences.
 
Cremants are the best value in French sparkling wines .
 
Crottin de Chavignol AOP. One of France’s outstanding goats’ milk cheeses.
 
Entrecôte (Entrecote). Ordering a Perfect Entrecote Steak in France.
 
Frites or Pommes Frites - French Fries in the USA and Chips in the UK. French Fries on French Menus.
 
Lapin and Lièvre – Rabbits and Hares. Rabbit and Hares in French Cuisine.
 
Lentilles – Lentils. Lentils are all over French Menus. The Lentil in French Cuisine. 
Ordering a Steak in France, Cooked the Way you Like it.
 
Ordering a Steak in France, Cooked the Way you Like it.
 
Quiche Lorraine - The Origin of all Quiches is the Lorraine in North-Eastern France.
 
Sainte-Maure de Touraine AOC. The Sainte-Maure de Touraine Cheese. Sainte-Maure de Touraine is One of France's Finest Goat's milk cheeses
 
Sancerre Wines and Sancerrois. Choosing and Tasting Sancerre Wines. Sancerre Wines on French Menus.
 
Soupe - Soup. The Treasures to be Found in in French Soups. A Lexicon of French Soups.
 
 Tournedos Rossini, after 150 years still the most famous of all steak dishes. Tournedos Rossini and Gioacchino Rossini.
 
 
 

 

Kiwi or Kiwi de Sibérie - The Kiwi Fruit or Siberian Gooseberry. The Kiwi Fruit in French Cuisine

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

The Kiwi Fruit

Photograph courtesy of jl071077

www.flickr.com/photos/addicted-to-ornaments/37339520801/

   

The Kiwi Fruit in France.
  

I had always assumed that the Kiwi fruit was native to New Zealand until I started seeing them in French markets and restaurants under the name Kiwi de Sibérie and then I began asking questions.  Those were the early days for the Kiwi Fruit, and now France is the third-largest producer of Kiwi Fruit in Europe and the sixth-largest in the world. When visiting France, you'll be enjoying French Kiwi fruit from November through April, and after that, it will be mostly replaced by New Zealand and Chinese imports.
  

How the Kiwi Fruit got its name

From 1914 New Zealand soldiers were fighting in WWI in Europe with their unique Kiwi bird on many of the soldiers' flashes. Following on, the soldiers began to be called Kiwis, a name that was transferred to and accepted by all New Zealanders. The Kiwi is a flightless bird and the country's national bird. The Kiwi had received its name from the Maori people who had settled in New Zealand in the 1300s.  (More about Kiwi birds at the end of this post).
  

Beware Kiwis Wandering Sign

The Kiwi is a protected bird in New Zealand.

If you hit one you're in big trouble.
  

New Zealand farmers began growing the fruits in the early 20th century, which originated close to China's Siberian borders and had been brought to New Zealand by returning missionaries. Then they were called the Chinese Gooseberry. After WWI, with the people of New Zealand labeled Kiwis, the Siberian Gooseberry became the Kiwi Fruit. (A little more about real gooseberries at the end of this article).

  

Now to the fruit
  

Inside its rough-looking exterior, the fruit has a uniquely flavored, sweet to tart (depending on when they are picked), soft, green, or golden-green flesh inside along with rows of minuscule, black, edible seeds. A slice of the fruit on your tongue can continue to send out flavor pops whenever you tongue applies pressure for up to a minute. That being said, most of us want to eat the next slice, so much of the real enjoyment of texture and taste is missed.

  

Kiwi fruit in a market in France.

Photograph courtesy of Nico Paix

www.flickr.com/photos/aerosolhalos/4766323908/

   

What about the Kiwi fruit’s skin?

The surrounding skin is initially off-putting, with most varieties having a seemingly dirty green skin covered with what looks like brown hair. That skin is edible but sour, and so most of us are happy to leave it. Still, on your travels, you may also encounter hairless Kiwi fruits that can be enjoyed smooth skin and all.
  

The source of French Kiwi fruits.
  

While New Zealand was the first country to put this fruit on the map, it's the Chinese who are again the world's largest producers. Back in France, a large proportion of Kiwi fruits are produced at home, with a center in the departments of Lot and Lot-et-Garonne in the new super region of Occitanie.   
  

Kiwi fruits on French menus:
  

Coupe Kiwi Sauce Menthe-Chocolat -   A bowl (usually two scoops) of Kiwi fruit ice cream dessert served with a chocolate-mint sauce.
  

Crème Brûlée à la Kiwi - Crème Brulee flavored with Kiwi fruit.

   

Vanilla Tofu Creme Crepe with Kiwi

Photograph courtesy of Janet Hudson

www.flickr.com/photos/veganfeast/3535354588/
  

Filet Mignon de Veau en Brioche Sauce Kiwi – A veal filet mignon cooked En Croûte inside a brioche bread and served with a Kiwi flavored sauce. The fillet mignon referred to in North America comes from the thickest end of the fillet, In France the filet mignon (and they gave the cut its name(with one l), comes from the thinner end of the fillet, the short loin. N.B. The French Filet Mignon is usually a cut of pork or veal, very rarely beef; read the menu carefully.  
  

Sablé aux Fruits Rouges et sa Sauce Kiwi – A shortcake pastry pie served with red fruits, which depending on the season will include strawberries, red currants, plums, and raspberries and other red fruits served with a Kiwi flavored sauce.
  

Seared tuna with a kiwi/jalapeno sauce.

Photograph courtesy of Nikchick

www.flickr.com/photos/nikchick/304300952/
  
  

Tartare de Daurade au Kiwi  - Blue Spotted Sea Bream, the fish. A  fish Tatar is made with small cubes of the raw fish, spiced, and here it flavored with Kiwi fruit.  There are a number of fish with Daurade or Dorade in their names; all are very tasty. For this menu listing, I have chosen the Daurade Rose or Pagre à Points Bleus – the Bluespotted Seabream as the most likely candidate.

If you ask the server, and it’s another fish with a similar, you can always Google the French name with words "Behind the French Menu" ( with the parentheses   " & ")  in the search for an informed answer when you know the full French name.
  

Kiwi fruits do not grow on trees
  

Kiwi fruit is grown on perennial vines with small leaves and bright red stems; some vines can reach 12 meters (40 feet) in length. The vines need to be trained and pruned, and then they can live, still providing fruit, for up to 50 or more years.
  

Kiwi fruit on the vine.

Photograph courtesy of Megan Young

www.flickr.com/photos/mercylane/8660927529/

     
Kiwi fruits are a big industry
  

For the French farmers, the Kiwi is now a significant local crop, and France is the third-largest producer of Kiwi Fruit in Europe and the sixth in the world. France's production, of which a third is exported, is concentrated in the country's south-west, in the region of Occitanie.  The fruit reaches the market from November through April.

 France has developed its own Kiwi Fruit varieties: the "Oscar® Gold," a yellow Kiwifruit, the early-maturing "SummerKiwi," or the minuscule "Nergi®" baby Kiwi. (However,  the world champion of Kiwi fruits is the Hayward green Kiwifruit, named after the New Zealand nurseryman, who selected it in the 1920s). 
  

Kiwi fruits are a winter fruit par excellence.
  

Just one Kiwi Fruit a day keeps the doctor away with a single fruit providing the recommended daily intake of vitamins C, B1, B2, iron, calcium, and provitamin A.

   

Kiwi fruit flowers

Photograph courtesy of ideatrendz

www.flickr.com/photos/ideatrendz/6456935499/
  

More about Kiwi birds
  

The Kiwi birds are wingless and are unlike penguins, which also cannot fly but do have wings. Without wings or the ability to swim, how they arrived in New Zealand remains a mystery.  My suggestion that Kiwi Birds may have arrived on the backs of pterodactyls was turned down.

The Kiwi Bird

Photograph courtesy of Critter Science

   
Kiwis are nocturnal, with deafening, piercing calls in the forest air at dusk and dawn. The Kiwi Bird's feathers look like hair, and to add to its strangeness while the Kiwi bird is only the size of a chicken, it lays the largest egg, comparative to its size, of any bird in the world; even when compared with an ostrich. The little spotted Kiwi female weighing only 1.3 kilograms, lays an egg weighing 300 grams, (10.5 oz) which is practically 25% of its body weight.  Compare that to an average chicken’s egg where a large XL egg weighs 64 grams (2.25 oz). Q.E.D. The Kiwi egg is close to five times that of an extra-large chicken’s egg. During its lifetime a Kiwi bird can lay 100 eggs.

   

  The Kiwi bird before photography

London: Trübner and Co., Bernard Quaritch, R.H. Porter,1876-1878

Photograph courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/5981514417/

Kiwi bids are omnivores. Discover more about Kiwi birds and what foods they find with their unusual beak at the Kiwi bird link below:
  

https://www.KiwisforKiwi.org/about-Kiwi/Kiwi-facts-characteristics/enormous-egg/

  
Gooseberries

Growing up in the Lake District in northern England we grew in our kitchen garden about ten or 12 gooseberry bushes. The bushes produced, sweet to tart, firm, round, to mostly oval berries. Inside each berry with its edible, slightly hairy skin was a sweet jelly much like a Kiwi fruit's, filled with tiny edible seeds.  Most berries were between 1cm (0.4”) to 2.5 cm (1”)  in diameter and varied in color from green to green with a mauve tinge like the picture below. They grew on stumpy thorny bushes and we feasted on them when they were ripe. When my brother and I were sent out to bring a bowl of the fruit for the kitchen another bowlful ended up our stomachs. There's room for a separate story of fruit scrumping in the vegetable gardens and orchards, ours and others, and not getting caught, but that would need a separate blog as it's not related to France. Now, gooseberries are out of fashion in the UK and while the occasional farmers’ market in the North of England and Scotland may have them they will not be found in the supermarkets.
  

Gooseberries

Photograph courtesy of 46137

www.flickr.com/photos/wolfworld/184807954/

 

The Kiwi fruit in the languages of France’s neighbors:

(Catalan -  Kiwi, Kiwi raïm), (Dutch – Kiwi, Kiwibes),(German – kivi, scharfzähnige, strahlengriffel), (Italian - kiwai, Kiwi de Sibérie), (Spanish – Kiwiño, Kiwi), (Latin - actinidia arguta)

   

--------------------------------   

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Copyright 2010, 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" (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 470 posts that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.
  

Connected Posts:
  

Chocolate and France. Visiting a Chocolatier, a real chocolate maker.

Crème Brulée on French Menus. The History of Crème Brulee.

Daurade Rose or Pagre à Points Bleus - Bluespotted Seabream, the fish, on French Menus.

Dorade Grise or Griset - Black Seabream. Black Seabream in French Cuisine.

En Croûte (En Croute) - Cooked and Served Inside a Pastry or Herbal Casing. En Croûte in French Cuisine.

Filet Mignon on French Menus and Filet de Bœuf in French Cuisine.

French Bread - Different Types of French Bread. Ordering Bread in France.

Fraises - Strawberries. The Wild Strawberry and the Story of the French Strawberries From Plougastel.

Glace – Ice-cream. Ice-cream on French Menus. Glacé and Glacée are Desserts That are Frozen, Iced, Chilled or Glazed.

Menthe – Mint. Mint, Garden Mint, in French Cuisine.

Regions - France’s Mainland Regions and Their Borders Have Changed. France's New Super regions. Keep This List With Your GPS and Map.

Tartare - Tartar on French Menus. Steak Tartar, Fish Tartar and Vegetable Tartar.