Behind the French Menu

Ami Du Chambertin; the Cheese from Burgundy.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

L'Ami Du Chambertin.

Photograph courtesy of Fromagerie Gaugry

The Ami du Chambertin is a semi-soft cow’s milk cheese with a strong but pleasing taste; it is 45% fat, and made with unpasteurized milk. The pate is ivory colored, and the rind is a pale fawn to light brown. The cheese is aged for nearly two months before sale and while aging is washed in Marc de Bourgogne, a 40% alcohol eau-de-vie. N.B. Marcs are eau de vies, brandies, made in a similar manner to the Italian Grappas. The Marc de Bourgogne may also be on your restaurant’s list of digestifs.

Ami Du Chambertin was named in honor of that full-bodied red Burgundy wine Gevrey-Chambertin AOP. The cheese's name translates into English as the Friend of Chambertin and comes, like the wine from the Bourgogne, Burgundy. (From 1-1-2016 Burgundy became part of the new super region of Bourgogne – Franche-Comte).

Gevrey-Chambertin, the wine that gave the cheese its name.

Photograph courtesy of httpwww.kvins.com.

In the timelines used for French cheeses, Ami Du Chambertin is a new cheese, just touching seventy-years-old. Then, in the 1950’s Raymond Gaugry, a cheese merchant realized the tremendous potential of a new cheese for the Bourgogne, Burgundy. The area was famous for its wines but had few famous cheeses. Today his creation may still not have the cachet of an AOP cheese, but it is very well-known and outsells quite a number of France’s more famous AOP cow's milk cheeses. Raymond Gaugry’s children continue running the dairy he founded and now also produce most of the other well-known Burgundy cheeses.

Ami du Chambertin on French menus :

Burger de Bœuf Charolais, Ami du Chambertin, Lard et Graines de Moutarde –A cheese and bacon burger of Charolais beef seasoned with mustard seeds.

Ecume d’Ami du Chambertin et Mouillettes au Pain d’Épices - A light moose of Ami du Chambertin cheese, served with thin slices of gingerbread.

Entrecôte de Bœuf Charolais Sauce à l'Ami du Chambertin – An entrecôte, a rib-eye steak from France’s AOP Charolais beef cattle prepared with an Ami du Chambertin sauce.

Œufs Pochés à l'Ami du Chambertin - Poached eggs prepared with Ami du Chambertin.

Parmentier d'Agneau Gratiné Avec l'Ami du Chambertin - A mashed potato and minced lamb dish, upon whose recipe England’s shepherd’s pie was made; here it is browned under the grill with added Ami du Chambertin cheese.

Many of France’s potato dishes are named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. Parmentier was a trained pharmacist who devoted his life to foods and popularized potatoes in France in the middle of the 18th century. At that time many French citizens thought potatoes were poisonous but Parmentier persevered and saved many of the poorest peasants from starvation in the process. See the link to: The French connection and the English kitchen.

For more about dining in Burgundy see the post:

Dining in Burgundy. Cuisine Bourguignonne

Discovering L’Ami du Chambertin

I discovered Ami Du Chambertin cheese not long after I had been introduced to the Gevrey-Chambertin wine. Then, for a period of two or three months, I would order the Gevrey-Chambertin wine whenever the opportunity arose. At dinner, while ordering this wine, a French colleague asked if I liked the cheese that had been named in its honor: Ami Du Chambertin. A few days later I bought the cheese. Since then Ami Du Chambertin is on my list of cheeses to take home from France.

Fromagerie Gaugry – The Gaugry dairy.

Raymond Gaugry succeeded with his dream of creating a new cheese for Burgundy, and Ami du Chambertin is now sold all over France. The Gaugry family still own and run the dairy by that name. The dairy is about 10 km (6 miles) from the village of Gevrey-Chambertin in a village called Brochon. Visitors may watch the whole production process without charge.

Watching the cheese production

The dairy is open, every day of the week except Sunday. Still, be careful, while it is open daily from 09:00 to 18:30 the visitors’ section closes for lunch from 12:00- 14:00! Closing for lunch is a time honored tradition in France and small shops, offices and even some Tourist Information Offices close for lunch! Gaugry's closing times may change so see the Gaugry dairy’s English language website:

www.fromageriegaugry.fr/

Cheeses produced by the Fromagerie Gaugry.

Photograph courtesy of Fromagerie Gaugry

If you are in or near the city of Dijon or close to the village of Gevrey-Chambertin consider visiting the dairy in the village of Brochon. The dairy is just a 15-minute drive from Dijon and 10 minutes from the village of Gevrey-Chambertin. From Dijon including traveling time one and a half to two hours is enough to see the dairy in production and return home. If you visit the dairy, you may also taste their cheeses, and for a small contribution to the local economy buy some. Apart from Ami Du Chambertin, the dairy produces nine other cheeses: You may join guided tours via their website and also enjoy special evening cheese centric dinners.

Map from Dijon to Brochon and Gevrey Chambertin

The cheeses produced in the Gaugry dairy:

Ami du Chambertin

Brillat- Savarin (The Cheese named after France’s first philosopher of food).

Brochonnais

Cendre De Vergy

Chaource AOP

Epoisses AOP

Palet De Bourgogne

Petit Gaugry

Plaisir au Chablis ( Like the Ami du Chambertin this cheese is named after a wiine, Chablis).

Soumaintrain IGP

Plaisir au Chablis

Photograph courtesy of Fromagerie Gaugry.

Burgundy is more famous for its wines than its cheeses, but there are over fifty other cheeses made in Burgundy, and four of those cheeses have AOP status:

Chaource, AOP

Époisses, AOP:

Mâconnais, AOP;

Charolais, AOP.

For more about buying cheese in France

and taking it home click here.

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

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

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

Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases

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Behind the French Menu’s links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are nearly 400 articles that include over 2,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations. Add the word, words or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google or Bing.

Chantilly Cream -The Chef Who Created Chantilly Cream was François Vatel.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Chantilly cream with strawberries.

Photograph courtesy of tangi bertin

www.flickr.com/photos/fofie57/2688420718/

Chantilly Cream is forever linked with François Vatel (1631 – 1671), the chef and organizer of elaborate banquets for the French aristocracy. François Vatel was born Fritz Karl Watel in Paris to Swiss parents. He is also remembered as the chef whose standards were so high that he killed himself when his catering efforts did not meet his own standards.

Le Vaux-le-Vicomte

But Vatel is well known in French history from before either of the two episodes above. His fame began when he was the banqueter and chef to the Marquis and Vicomte Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet was the Minister of Finance for King Louis XI, the Sun King and he had built himself an incredible chateau called Le Vaux-le-Vicomte with an artificial lake and fabulous gardens. After the chateau’s completion on August 17, 1661, Nicolas Fouquet invited the king to a banquet.

Le Vaux-le-Vicomte

Photograph courtesy of Marilane Borges

www.flickr.com/photos/marilaneborges/1331514201/

The 22-year-old king was shown his minister's fantastic château, treated to a new play by Molière, an elaborate firework display, and then brought into the banquet. At the banquet, organized by Vatel, the king and his family were served pheasants and roast peacocks on solid gold platters accompanied by France’s finest wines. The chateau, its gardens and all of its splendor was far better than anything the king had and better than the kings planned Chateau de Versailles.

Part of the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte

Photograph courtesy of Olga Khomitsevich

www.flickr.com/photos/zemzina/5827552005/

The King realized, with the help of his friends, that all of the money used to build the chateau came from taxes that were supposed to reach him. The king blew his stack and a few days later ordered Nicolas Fouquet thrown into prison. (Nicolas Fouquet's jailer, in real life, was d’Artagan, the head of the king’s Musketeers. He appears as the dashing musketeer in the book the Three Musketeers written in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas (pere)).

D’Artagnan, the head of the king’s musketeers.

Photograph courtesy of Emily Allen

www.flickr.com/photos/empracht/21940905065/

François Vatel saw what had happened to his employer and took off into self-imposed exile. But the king had been impressed by the banquet as well as the architects, painters, and gardeners that had created this chateau and offered them all jobs at his new Chateau de Versailles.

The architect, Louis Le Vau, the painter and decorator Le Brun, and the landscape gardener Le Nôtre took the jobs offered by the king while Francoise Vatel the banqueter stayed in self-imposed exile.

Part of the Potager de Roi, that Le Nôtre went on to create

The king’s vegetable garden at Versailles.

Today the gardens are a working agricultural school and may be visited all year round.

There are guided tours in English and the tours are as much about history as the chateau itself with heirloom peaches, apricots, cherries, strawberries, and much more.

Photograph courtesy of INRA DIST

www.flickr.com/photos/inra_dist/38468621294/

Vatel returns from exile.

When Vatel returned to France it was not to work for the king; it was to work for the Prince de Condé in the Château de Chantilly. The chateau is in the department of Oise in the new super region of Hauts-de-France, today it is just 60 km (37miles), by car, to the north of Paris.

Chateau de Chantilly by night.

Photograph courtesy of Romain MOREL

www.flickr.com/photos/romainmo/3024172525/

Vatel’s job was the Contrôleur Général de la Bouche, the man responsible for the purchase of the food and Prince’s elaborate banquet displays. At one of the first banquets that Vatel prepared in the Château de Chantilly, he presented the Prince de Condé with a new creation, called Chantilly cream. (It is probable that this creation had previously been offered to Fouquet under another name).

Vanilla in the 1600s

Chantilly cream is freshly whipped cream, sweetened with sugar and flavored with vanilla. At the time whipped cream was not new, but whipped cream sweetened with the expensive sugar and the even more costly vanilla was, in the 1600s was whipped cream born all over again.

Vanilla flavoring is still the most popular flavoring today, it is the world’s most common flavor, though much is synthetic. In the beginning, all the vanilla that reached Europe came from South America and so very little vanilla was available until the 1800s. We know from the discovery of wrecked treasure ships that 300 tons were the maximum weight a ship carried and many ships carried less than 100 tons. With most of the space given over to silver and gold, there was little room left for vanilla.

Vanilla pods

Photograph courtesy of Svetlana

www.flickr.com/photos/svostrova/4615971215/

Vanilla reached France in the early 1500s when Jewish chocolate drink manufacturers who had fled the 1492 expulsion from Spain and Portugal set up shop in Bayonne in the south-west of France. Other than the cakes and chocolate drinks made by these early French chocolate manufacturers the first record we have was of pastries made with vanilla were for the Queen of England in the early 1600s. Vanilla for the masses would have to wait until the 1800s when it was successfully cultivated. Today Vatel may be turning in his grave, but the word Chantilly is often be used for any frothy creation of vegetables or fruits without any connection to cream or vanilla. While there are arguments over who first added vanilla to whipped cream the name Chantilly cannot be taken away from the chateau’s name or their history from the banqueter who worked there,

The Royal Banquets in the Chateau de Chantilly

In 1671 the Prince de Condé invited the whole of the royal court to three huge banquets. The court led by King Louis XIV arrived at the Château on Thursday 23 April 1671. The first banquet was a huge success despite the arrival of more guests than Vatel had been told to plan for. The second banquet was to be on Friday, a day when no meat could be served. There are endless disputes about the fish that was ordered and almost certainly in those days it would not have been saltwater fish for a huge banquet. The Atlantic coast is 240 km (miles) to the East that is ten to twelve days travel by ox-cart. Paris was closer and its markets received fresh fish from the Atlantic within one or two days via boats on the River Seine. Paris was only 50 km (30 miles) away from Chantilly as the crow flies but at least two to three days away by oxcart. This was the 1600s, and France had not yet begun to use ice to keep food fresh. Any saltwater fish for a banquet in Chantilly would have had to come from the Paris market. Oysters and mussels could be brought alive in damp straw but large quantities of saltwater fish in good condition would have been impossible.

None of the records show what fish was ordered for Vatel’s last banquet in Chantilly, but a savvy banquet organizer like Vatel would have ordered pike and trout along with other highly rated freshwater fish and crayfish that could be kept in holding pools and brought fresh whenever ordered. Freshwater fish in vast quantities would have been enough of a problem and saltwater fish would not, in any case, have impressed the king; fresh saltwater fish was part of the daily menu at in the area of Paris; it was brought in Fresh via the river Seine.

You catch your own pike today.

They may reach one meter in length (39”) and weigh over 15 kilos (33lbs).

Photograph courtesy of Jean-François Renaud

www.flickr.com/photos/jefren/3561130117/

As the story goes on the morning of Friday 24 April 1671, the fish delivered was too small a quantity for even for one-quarter of the guests. Vatel, an obsessive-compulsive, was full of remorse and shame; when he looked at the disaster awaiting the banquet for the king that night he fell upon his sword and died. The rest of the fish he had ordered arrived two hours later!

Francoise Vatel and French Haute Cuisine.

In the world of French cuisine, François Vatel is remembered as one of the early creators of truly elaborate banquets. Vatel's skill and creativity influenced the chefs of his time and all the French chefs for the next 100 years. Then, in the early 1800’s Antonin Carême brought order to French Haute Cuisine. Antonin took the works of Vatel and others and with his own additions wrote down for posterity the requirements for French Haute Cuisine. Only with the arrival of Escoffier and his collaborators some 70 years after Careme would any changes be made.

In the year 2,000, the director Roland Joffe made a film on Vatel starring Gerard Depardieu as Vatel. The film opened the Cannes film festival in the year 2000.

Visiting Le Vaux-le-Vicomte today.

When visiting Le Vaux-le-Vicomte today, you will not be offered a banquet; though in the summer they offer Saturday night dinners. Banquets or not, in all of France this is one château that should never be missed. Apart from visiting the magnificent building itself, you may drive yourself around the beautiful gardens and lake in golf carts, and not even King Louis could have done that.

To reach the Vaux-le-Vicomte by train takes about 25 minutes from Paris with a bus or taxi at the end. By car, it is 55 km (34 miles) and takes about one hour. Le Vaux-le-Vicomte is near the village of Maincy in the department Seine-et-Marne in the Île-de-France, southeast of Paris. It is 48 km from EuroDisney and 7 km from Melun home to one of France's top of the line Brie cheeses.

Visit the Vaux-le-Vicomte’s English language website:

http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/en/

The Château de Chantilly today

Photograph courtesy of Patrick Nouhailler

www.flickr.com/photos/patrick_nouhailler/27626854645/

The Château de Chantilly with its enormous grounds today includes the Condé Museum and the recreated Potager des Princes, the vegetable garden of the Princes. The Château (rebuilt in the 1870's) is near the small town of Chantilly in the department of Oise, Picardie now part of the super region of Hauts de France, that borders Belgium. The gardens of Chantilly were designed by le Notre before he created the gardens at Le Vaux-le-Viscomte and the Château de Versailles.

The Chateau is just 54 km (34 miles) north of Paris by train with a 20 minutes bus or taxi ride from the station. By car, the chateau is 45 minutes from central Paris, outside the rush hour!

The Chateau de Chantilly has an English language website:

http://www.domainedechantilly.com/en/

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

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

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

Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases

French menus?

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.

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