Behind the French Menu

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Green asparagus spears

served with shavings of Parmesan Cheese.

Photograph by MonkeyBusiness through Yaymicro.com

On French menus, the word copeaux will indicate flakes, shavings, slivers, thin cuts or very thin slices from cured ham, foie gras, vegetables, truffles, as well as hard cheeses. For desserts, the shavings may be chocolate added to a cake.

Breakfast in France.

Œufs aux plat aux truffe - Fried eggs with truffle shavings

To see what happened when I ordered œufs aux plat in France click here.

Photograph courtesy of Pierre LANNES

www.flickr.com/photos/titounet/5308884803/

Shavings are an integral part of many recipes and create the contrasting tastes that are at the heart of many dishes.

Copeaux on French menus:

Carpaccio de Boeuf de Fin Gras du Mézenc, Copeaux de Foie Gras – Beef Carpaccio from the Fin Gras du Mézenc, AOP cattle, served with shavings of foie gras, fattened duck's liver.

Ravioles de Shiitake Parfumées à l’Huile de Truffe, Copeaux de Parmesan – Ravioli stuffed with shiitake mushrooms flavored with truffle oil and served with shavings of parmesan cheese.

Dried eye fillet, compressed braised beef cheek,

dashi, bitter orange preserve, and horseradish shavings.

Photograph courtesy of Charles Haynes.

www.flickr.com/photos/haynes/5273200718/

Salade d'Asperges, Œuf Poché, Copeaux de Parmesan – Asparagus salad served with a poached egg and slivers of parmesan cheese.

Salade Mêlée aux Copeaux de Truffes – A mixed salad with shavings or flakes of truffle. When the menu does not note the name of the truffle, will not the most expensive; it will be best when there are plenty of flakes.

A cup of chocolate with whipped cream

and shavings of chocolate on top.

Photograph by elanthewise through Yaymicro.com

Saint-Jacques Snackées, Copeaux de Truffe Noire, Risotto au Jus de Crustacés – Lightly seared king scallop meat served with shavings of black truffle and accompanied by a risotto flavored with the juices from the shells of crustaceans.

Velouté de Butternut, Brisures de Châtaignes et Copeaux de Foie Gras de Canard – A velvety butternut pumpkin soup with small pieces or flakes of chestnuts and slivers of fattened duck's liver. (Brisures de chocolat are chocolate chips).

Beef carpaccio with shavings of Parmesan

Photograph courtesy of Edsel Little

www.flickr.com/photos/edsel_/5583630661/

Truffles can be incredibly flavorsome, and the best will be very expensive. Unfortunately, often too little truffle is used while the cost of the dish offered may still be relatively high. More to the point all truffles are not equal and not all truffles influence flavor in small quantities. Less flavorsome truffles may be unique and special, but then they should be part of dishes where these truffles are the centerpiece and not just a shaving. Ask questions when truffle shavings are on the menu and for expensive truffles chose dishes where the shavings are added in front of the diner.

Connected Posts:

Asperges en La Cuisine Française – Asparagus in French cuisine. The Artists who Painted Asparagus or Lived Near Argenteuil.

Bœuf Fin Gras du Mézenc AOC. Searching for the Finest Beef in France. This is Only on French Menus between February and early June.

Carpaccio - The Tasty, Thinly Sliced, (Ideally Paper Thin) Dish of Meat, Fish, Vegetables or Fruits in French Cuisine.

Châtaignes and Marrons - Chestnuts. Chestnuts in French Cuisine.

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

Coquilles Saint-Jacques and the Vanneaux or Pétoncle. The King Scallop and the Queen Scallop on French Menus. The Coquilles Saint Jacques, and the Vanneaux or Pétoncle in French Cuisine.

Foie Gras in French Cuisine. Foie Gras is Fattened Goose or Duck Liver Foie. Foie Gras on French Menus.

Jambon Sec (Cru) - Air-Cured Ham. The Ten Most Popular Air-Cured Hams on French Menus.

Ordering Eggs for Breakfast in France . My Personal Trials and Tribulations.

Parmesan, the Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano is an Important Ingredient in French Cuisine.

Raifort – Horseradish. Horseradish on French Menus.

Salades - Salads. Forty of the Most Popular (and Simply Made) French Salads. Salads in France.

Shiitake or Lentin du Chêne –The Shiitake Mushroom in French Cuisine. The Mushrooms of France VIII.

Truffe - Trufflles. Truffles on French Menus. Truffles Oils and Truffles Essences.

Velouté Soupe and Sauce Velouté - A Veloute Soup and a Veloute Sauce. - A Velouté is One of France's "Mother" Sauces and one of the Many Styles of Soups and Sauces on French Menus.

Searching for 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" 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 400 articles that include over 3,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Napoleon III and Margarine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

For the visitor to France Emperor Napoléon III’s most well-known works are the rebuilding of the center of Paris. Acting under the orders of Napoléon III a new center of Paris was built under the direction of Georges-Eugène Haussmann; for that incredible work, which remains the Paris center you see today, Georges-Eugène Haussmann would be made Baron Haussmann by Napoléon III.

Photograph by courtesy of Dominique Pipet.

Emperor Napoléon III

Haussmann also directed the creation of Paris’s sewers, a very important work; that made the air of Paris breathable. Today when in Paris you may visit part of those sewers; it is an interesting one hour educational tour and not at all smelly.

Napoléon III and Margarine.

B = Beurre, Butter ,

I prefer butter to margarine, because I trust cows more than I trust chemists.

From: This Organic Life 2001.

Joan Dye Gussow, Organic food guru and author.

Not too well remembered by the French is that Emperor Napoléon III was also responsible for a competition to create a butter substitute, and that competition produced margarine. If you remind a Frenchman or French woman of that disaster they are likely to walk off with a pooff! You may lose friend.

Despite the disagreements that still exist over margarine and butter in those pre-refrigeration days there was a true need for a butter substitute that did not quickly turn rancid like butter. Napoléon III’s armies and navy urgently need a transportable fat, and Napoléon III’s solution was a scientific competition. The competition was won by a French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès (1817-1880). Mège-Mourièss’ invention involved mixing processed beef fat with skimmed milk; the successful chemist patented his invention in 1869. In 1871 the inventor sold his patent to a Dutch company that later would become part of the company Unilever.

Photo courtesy of Meddy Garnet,

White Margarine from Quebec, Canada

Getting margarine to look like butter was another problem. In the beginning many countries passed laws that banned the coloring of margarine. The last law that prohibited the adding of coloring to the originally white margarine was only repealed in the province of Quebec, Canada in 2008. I know of none others.

Napoléon III also gave the order for the rebuilding of Les Halles, then the central Paris food market. Of all Napoléon III's major works Les Halles with its bronze and glass decor is no more; Les Halles was relocated, in 1969, to a much larger area in Rungis to the south of Paris. The Les Halles métro station indicates the general area where the market was, and a number of restaurants that were made famous by the onion soup they served in the Les Halles market have remained there. Some of those original restaurants still offer service 24/7; however from experience, onion soup is not always available 24 hours a day. The modern, huge, food market of Rungis, outside Paris may be visited by bus or metro, and there are multi-lingual guided tours for professionals, as well as tourists.

Photograph courtesy of Mike Fitzpatrick

The Empress Eugenie.

Napoléon III final blunder was not margarine, though if he had not lost a war I believe there is possibility that the French may have exiled him for promoting the invention of margarine.

The final blunder of Napoléon III was being drawn by the Prussian Bismarck into a stupid war; a war that neither Napoléon nor France wanted; that war was a result of what we now call diplomacy . Napoléon III rode to that war on horseback, at the head if his armies, he rode like a story book King; on the 2nd September 1870 Napoléon III was captured by the Prussians and imprisoned in Germany. In Paris, two days later France announced the creation of the third French Republic and deposed Napoléon III and exiled him to England. That Franco-Prussian war, and other events led, eventually, to a single a united German State and onwards to WWI.

In exile in the UK Emperor Napoléon III and the Empress Eugénie was already well accepted by the British Royal family the result of the end of the British-French wars and mutual head-of-state visits from before Napoléon III's exile. Empress Eugénie was a already a favorite of Queen Victoria, and since Napoléon III had spent three years in the United States, when he had then been exiled there, from France, for his early revolutionary activities, he spoke English well. Napoléon III died, in England, in 1873, not from an excess of margarine, but rather from a botched medical operation to remove gall stones. Napoléon III’s crypt, in England, was paid for by Queen Victoria.

Napoléon III is buried in the crypt, behind the high altar, in the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Michael's, Farnborough, Hampshire, England. Here, I am including an correction, much appreciated, from an anonymous reader: Napoléon's only wife, the Empress Eugénie, who died aged 94 in Madrid, Spain, in 1920 is not buried beside her husband, rather behind and above the altar of the chapel in the crypt. Buried in the crypt across from Napoléon lies Napoléon Eugène Bonaparte (1856- 1879), Napoléon's and Eugénie' s only son. Napoléon Eugène is called Napoléon IV or the Prince Imperial by the still active French Bonapartist's. Napoléon Eugène died, at age 23, fighting with the British Army in the Zulu wars in South Africa and is buried in the crypt across from his father.