Behind the French Menu

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

A lamb’s lettuce salad.

Photograph courtesy of Isabelle Hurbain-Palatin

www.flickr.com/photos/ipalatin/4160325485/

Mâche - Lamb’s lettuce or corn salad. France’s tastiest contribution to a mixed salad. Mâche leaves are nutty, juicy, with just a tinge of spice, and a texture that expands when tasted with other salad greens.

The name lamb’s lettuce comes from the spoon-shape of the leaves said to resemble a lamb’s tongue. The name corn salad is associated with the plant growing like a weed in wheat fields. Lamb’s lettuce grows wild all over Europe as well as in Egypt, North Africa, and North America. While it has been cultivated in Europe since the 16th century, it was mostly looked down upon as food for the peasantry until the 19^th century.

Nevertheless, mâche reached the tables of the French aristocracy through Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie (1626 – 1688). Jean-Baptiste earned famed as the kitchen gardener in Nicolas Fouquet’s beautiful Chateau Le Vaux-le-Vicomte in the department of Seine-et-Marne 52 km (33 miles) from Paris. The Sun King, King Louis XIV, used Fouquet's Chateau Le Vaux-le-Vicomte as his inspiration for the Château de Versailles.

Chateau Le Vaux-le-Vicomte

Photograph courtesy of Olga Khomitsevich

www.flickr.com/photos/zemzina/5827595209/

Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie would become world famous as the creator of King Louis’s Potager du Roi, the King’s kitchen garden. From here he would bring hundreds of new fruits and vegetables to the king’s and France's tables. By the time of Napoleon III, lamb’s lettuce was on France’s restaurant menus.

Today, the Potager du Roi is a vital reservoir of heirloom plants and is a working agricultural school. When visiting the Château de Versailles and you have an hour to wait for a tour then visit these gardens which are just behind the Chateau.

The Potager du Roi has a French language website, but it is easily understood with the Bing and Google translate apps:

http://www.potager-du-roi.fr/site/potager/index.htm

The Potager du Roi.

Photograph courtesy of Baptiste Lafontaine

www.flickr.com/photos/magn3tik/33900450421/

Mâche on French menus:

Mesclun des Maraîchers Nantais – A mesclun salad from the market gardeners of Nantes. From around city of Nantes comes 80% of France's lamb's lettuce. A salad mesclun should have at least five types of young salad greens. A well-balanced salad mesclun will include lettuce (sweet and crunchy), Treviso radicchio (bitter), mache (sweet, nutty), escarole (crispy and bitter), rocket (spicy), etc. The ingredients will change with the seasons. A salad mesclun will be served with a vinaigrette sauce.

Noix de Saint Jacques Rôties, Salade de Mâche aux Agrumes – The roasted meat of King scallops served with a lamb’s lettuce salad with citrus fruits.

The meat of seared king scallops with a mâche salad.

Photograph courtesy of Steve Ganz

www.flickr.com/photos/steveganz/4731228885/

Salade d'Avocat, Mâche, Roquette, Feta, Menthe Fraîche – An avocado salad with lamb’s lettuce, rocket, feta cheese and fresh mint.

Salade De Mâche, Tomates Séchées et Copeaux De Parmesan – Lamb’s lettuce salad, dried tomatoes and shavings of Parmesan cheese.

Velouté de Mâche – A veloute, a velvety lamb’s lettuce soup. Only the lamb’s lettuce leaves are used.

Velouté de Mâche

Photograph courtesy of Marmiton

Local names for mâche include blanchette, boursette, clairette, doulcéta, doucette, gallinette, oreillette, oreille-de-lièvre, raiponce and valérianelle. Mache salad is also known as Salade de Prêtre, a priest’s salad and Salade de Chanoine, a canon’s salad. Both belong to the Christian tradition of Lent when traditionally meat was not eaten.

Now mâche is available everywhere, but twenty years ago that was not true. Then, just before returning home from a trip to France on the morning I left, mâche would be added to my last minute purchases. It weighed nothing and took no room, being practically unsquashable.

Mâche is just as essential to a French green or mixed salad as the French think it is, and 80% of Europe's supply comes from the area around the city of Nantes in the Pay de Loire. The same area produces nearly 50% of all of Western Europe’s supply. There are several varieties, with the critics making much of their differences, but I enjoy them all.

Early 20th-century drawing of

Valeriana locusta var. olitoria, lamb’s lettuce.

Photograph courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library

www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/26830591044/

Mâche in the languages of France's neighbors:

(Catalan - canonges), (Dutch - veldsla), (German – feldsalat, Rapunzel), (Italian - dolcetta), (Spanish - canónigo), (Switzerland - nüsslisalat or nüssler)

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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 over 400 articles that include over 2,500 French dishes with English translations and explanations. 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
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Os à Moelle Pain Grillé

Roasted marrow bones, with the marrow, served with toast.

Photograph courtesy of Pierre LANNES

www.flickr.com/photos/titounet/4528072362/

Dishes cooked with the bones in slowly roasted chicken or baked fish, taste better than the same dish prepared bone free. That special taste comes from the marrow in the bones. In French cuisine beef and veal marrow are behind the flavor and texture of many French dishes.

The two most famous French dishes where marrow bones play a special part are:

Jarret de Veau - Jarret de Veau is the dish called Osso Buco in Italian. The jarret de veau is a cut across the bone from a veal shank. The bone in the center of this cut is a marrow bone. It is the heart of the flavor and texture in the dish. All that will be left after enjoying a well-prepared jarret de veau is a hole with a bone around it! The words for a bone with a hole in it in Italian are osso buco.

Jarret de Veau

Photograph courtesy of stu_spivak

Pot-au-Feu - Pot-au-Feu is France’s traditional and most famous, beef stew. Along with the beef will come poireaux, leeks; navets, turnips; carrots, carrots; chou, cabbage ; pomme de terre, potatoes and os à moelle, marrow bones.

The words os and moelle on French Menus:

Á la Moelle – Dishes served or flavored with bone marrow.

À la Os - On the bone.

Moelle – Bone marrow.

Os – Bone.

Os à Moelle - Marrow bones.

Dishes with added bone marrow on French menus:

Entrecôte Marchand de Vin à la Moelle – An entrecote, a rib-eye steak, prepared in the manner of a wine merchant. In French cuisine, a wine merchant rates a red wine sauce made with beef stock. The words à la moelle notes the addition of bone marrow, and that means a richer and velvety sauce. In this dish slices of bone marrow may also be placed decoratively on top of the steak. (The same cut with the bone left in is a Côte de Bœuf in French, a bone-in rib-eye, or rib steak. The steak with the bone may look great but the short cooking time does not permit any flavor from the bone to reach the steak. Besides, rib bones are not marrow bones).

Entrecote Bordelaise a la Moelle.

Note the slices of bone marrow on the steak.

Photograph by Monkey Business through Yay Micro.com

Filet de Bœuf Cuit au Sautoir, Os à Moelle Rôti, Betterave Confite à la Badiane – A beef fillet, a cut from the beef tenderloin, cooked in a sautoir frying pan and served with a roast marrow bone and a beetroot jam flavored with star anise.

French kitchens are filled with many different pots and pans and the sautoir is a wide shallow pan with straight sides. French culinary tradition encourages the inclusion of the name of the equipment used in a menu listing. (Outside of the kitchen a sautoir is a long necklace).

A sautoir.

Photograph courtesy of smartkitchen.com

Os à Moelle à la Fleur de Sel, Pain Grillé – Marrow bones served with fleur de sel, and toast. Use the spoon provided, scoop the marrow from the bones, spread it on the toast, add a few grains of fleur de sel salt and then enjoy the classic way to enjoy bone marrow. (Fleur de sel, the flower of salt, is the mineral-rich salt crystals taken from the top of dried sea-salt pans).

Marrow bones and toast.

Photograph courtesy of Cory Doctorow

www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/2804793503/

Onglet de Bœuf, Echalotes au Vin et Os à Moelle - A hanger steak, a UK skirt steak, prepared with a shallot, wine and bone marrow sauce.

Steak Haché à la Moelle – A chopped steak flavored with bone marrow. Chopped steak is prepared in a manner similar to a hamburger; here with the added flavor and texture of bone marrow.

Bone marrow is high in monounsaturated fats which are considered good for you. They certainly are far better than trans or saturated fats. However, fat is fat, and French diners know to order these dishes sparingly.

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