from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Pot-au-feu
Photograph and recipe Le Journal des Femmes.
The pot-au-feu
rose to fame just after the French Revolution
along with the rise of a robust middle class; simultaneously it was elevated to
the status of a gastronomic masterpiece. Today, this iconic dish holds an
enduring place in the nation's culinary heritage, and chefs who remembered their
mothers' and grandmothers' mouth-watering recipes have brought the pot-au-feu to their bistros, country restaurants and
The traditional pot-au-feu is three different cuts of beef, slowly simmered for hours alongside marrow bones, carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, onions, potatoes, a clove-studded onion, garlic and a bouquet garni. The fragrant steam of a bubbling pot will reveal its secrets.
Some restaurants will make the serving of pot-au-feu into a two-part event with the broth served first as a soup course, followed by the tender beef and vegetables as the main course. But whether enjoyed in one serving or two, the experience will be accompanied by the dish's classic accompaniments, fresh country bread, mustard, cornichons and France's small white pickled onions—essential elements that cut through the richness and complete this quintessential taste of France.
Dishes like this along with other meat or poultry stews were never part of the French peasant's food; the
peasants lived on bread and vegetable soups with the occasional piece of meat
or poultry added on religious holidays.
Pot-au-feu
Photograph courtesy of Times
of India
The most famous chef from the
era of Haute Cuisine was Antonin (Marie-Antoine) Carême, (1784-1833), and
his greatest published work was L'art de la Cuisine Française au XIXe Siècle,
the art of French cuisine in the 19th century published in 1833 (the
last two volumes were published posthumously).
In the first volume on the first page of recipes he begins with pot-au-feu
where Carême refers to it (just years after the French Revolution) as the dish
of the middle classes, a pot-au-feu bourgeoise; he adds the in detail how it is served in
restaurants and addresses its many variations. This list of variations reflects
Carême’s approach to cuisine, where even a simple broth could be adapted to
suit the needs of every condition and class. It's both a culinary and
sociomedical snapshot of 19th-century France.
The art of French cuisine in the 19th
century by Antonin Carême.
Chapter one, page 1
Photograph courtesy of Gallica, the digital library of the French National Library.
Today, the recipe on the menu will depend on the region. The chef may include the traditional beef, or it may be veal or lamb with other versions including chicken, duck, pork or sausages. Many fish restaurant menus will offer a pot au feu de la mer, a stew of sea fish and seafood.
The name Pot-au-Feu.
The pot-au-feu only reached French dictionaries in 1785-1795, according to Dictionary.com. Then the French Revolution had begun, and France’s first restaurants were opening. The words pot-au-feu translate as a pot on the fire, and apart from the stew indicate the traditional earthenware casserole in which the ingredients were cooked. In French homes of the period, these casseroles would have been left to cook slowly on a heated stove all day and night, with ingredients added to and taken out as needed.
Pot-au-feu on French
menus:
Pot-au-feu, Sauce Ravigote
– A beef pot–au–feu served with a Sauce Ravigote.
Sauce Ravigote
is a thick vinaigrette
sauce made with mustard,
eggs, olive oil, shallots,
spring onions, tarragon, chives, capers,
cornichons,
parsley,
and chervil. This
sauce is served with many meat, fish, shellfish and poultry dishes.
Sauce Ravigote.
Photograph
and recipe courtesy of Chef Simon.
Boeuf en Hochepot de Légumes
Printaniers – Oxtail stew with spring
vegetables. Here, a meaty oxtail will be added to or replace the beef in
the pot-au-feu.
Oxtail stew
is a traditional dish in Normandy and parts of the region
of Hauts de France, as well as Belgium, where it will be on the menu as
a Hochepot Flamand. William the Conqueror came to England in 1066
and brought the French connection to the English
(kitchen including the hochepot. A hochepot includes
all the leftovers in the kitchen and gave its name to odds and ends called a
hodgepodge in the English language.
Hochepot.
Photograph
and recipe courtesy of Bourse aux Recettes.
Pot-au-feu Albigeois
- A pot-au-feu from Albi, the
capital of the department of Tarn in Occitanie. Here, the recipe is made with
added goose or duck confit.
There are many regional versions of pot-au-feu, and the name of the
region will point to the difference in the recipes.
Albi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its well-preserved medieval layout
that includes the Old Bridge (Pont-Vieux) and the Saint-Salvi quarter, which
showcase the city's evolution from the 10th century.
Also, in Albi is the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum,
his birthplace, where it houses the world's largest collection of work by
Toulouse-Lautrec, including paintings, lithographs, posters, and drawings.
The museum is located in the magnificent Berbie
Palace, a 13th-century fortified bishop's palace.
AU MOULIN-ROUGE ; PORTRAIT DE MR WARNER 1892
Photograph courtesy of the Albi Office de Tourisme
Pot-au-feu de Canard et Légumes
Anciens – A duck
stew with heirloom vegetables. The heirloom vegetables may
include Jerusalem artichokes,
multi-colored carrots, turnips, parsnips, and kohlrabi.
Pot-au-feu de Fruits de Mer au
Bouillon Safrané – A seafood stew made
with a saffron-flavored broth.
Pot-au-feu de Lapin–
A rabbit stew.
Pot-au-feu de la mer
A fish and seafood pot-au-feu.
Photograph
and recipe courtesy of Femme Actuelle.
Similar dishes with local names:
Azinat Ariégeois - A pot-au-feu
from the department of Ariège.
Ariège is the region
of Occitanie.
Ariège is a very lightly
populated department with only around 10,000
people in its capital Foix. Nevertheless, it's a well-known department with a long
and interesting history including the caves of
Niaux and its famous Prehistoric Park with some of the world’s earliest cave
paintings.
The menus of Ariège's restaurants offer the best local ingredients, including duck confit, duck
foie gras and local cheeses. If
you are lucky, your restaurant's menu may also offer wild
trout or écrivisse,
crayfish from one of the local rivers or streams. Apart from the Azinat Ariégeois,
another famous local stew is their Garbure Ariégeois, a thick duck and cabbage stew.
Baeckeoffe or Potée Alsacienne
- A favorite dish from the Alsace,
part of the region of the Grand Est. This dish includes cuts of beef and pork
or lamb, and possibly goose and Alsatian sausages. The vegetables will include
France's ubiquitous white haricot beans, onions, carrots, leeks, and potatoes.
Baeckeoffe and
similar-sounding names all mean a Baker's Oven in the Alsatian dialect. For
hundreds of years, when a baker had finished baking that day's bread, the
villagers' cooking pots would be placed in the baker's oven, where their
contents cooked while the oven slowly cooled. Each family's cooking pot
contained whatever they had available, and when taken home, they would be kept
hot on the family hearth. The slow cooking allowed all the tastes to mingle and
produce wonderful stews, even with limited ingredients.
Garbure Gasconne - A stew from the old province of Guyenne and Gascony, now included in the regions of Nouvelle Aquitaine and Occitanie.
Garbures began as thick vegetable soups but now include ham, bacon, and duck, or goose confit. Gascony was home to the semi-fictional figures of D'Artagnan from the Three Musketeers (born in the department of Gers) and Cyrano de Bergerac (born in the Dordogne).
Potée Auvergnate - From
the Auvergne,
now part of the new super-region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. These potées will
include duck,
ham, salt pork, and pork sausages.
-----------------------------
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
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2025
