, a delightful new book by food writer Carolyn Boyd, will have you salivating – and plotting your next trip to France…These are perhaps the most famous words ever written about what we choose to put o
n our plates. Yet give the renowned 19th-century gastronome’s words a slight tweak – tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell youyou are – and they could equally apply to France. For wherever you are in this great gastronomic nation, you can be sure there is a food that tells you a story about the place you are in.
I have loved France for as long as I can remember: family camping holidays opened my eyes to the joy of the croissant slathered in cool creamy butter and sweet strawberry jam, and the sting of the salt on my lips when eating a poolside. Discovering France, with its buzzing local markets and the whirl of black-clad waiters serving busy café terraces, implanted an early sense of wanderlust which led to a career writing about exploring France and its food.
Even after visiting countless times, I still feel a frisson of excitement each time I arrive on French soil; my heart swells at seeing its varied landscape, at stepping into its shuttered, or a bite of salt-flecked Breton butter on bread.
Of course, in the intervening century, as globalisation has seen menus and eating habits become widely homogenised, many dishes have fallen out of favour in kitchens and many unique products are no longer grown.
Since the ‘Gastronomic French Meal’ was inscribed into the Unesco list of intangible heritage in 2010, regional French tourism authorities have been even more keen to champion their local cuisines and food cultures, making them easier to find. Though there have long been various, whether it’s walnuts in the Dordogne Valley; cheese in the Pyrenees, Auvergne or Alps; or cider and apples in Normandy. Most of France’s star chefs are great champions of their region’s producers and ingredients.
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