Emily in France 🇫🇷 More Cheese (Even at a Seafood Festival)
A land of cheese.
Right around the same time as I first moved to France, one of my closest childhood friends also moved to England. Our paths have crossed many times since then, on both sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes, we take our coffees (made at home, carried in mugs) for walks along Park Avenue; others, we convene at her home in Edinburgh or mine in Paris. But this year, for the second time in the row, we met in a different part of France for a food festival.
The festival in question was dedicated to seafood – tiny grey shrimp, to be precise – but proved to be a bit lackluster (save a truly excellent visit of a truly excellent restored boat in the harbor). But the next day, on a whim, we decided to head out to Rouen, where a far more consequential food festival was taking place. And not for nothing, but the Fête du Ventre (Feast of the Belly) made good on its name.
Culinary specialties abounded. These fresh scallops, cooked to perfection on a plancha before our very eyes, were seasoned simply with fleur de sel, chive, and lime.
Fresh apple beignets were fried to order and dusted in sugar – a counterpoint to the pleasantly almost unsweetened batter.
Given the season, it would have been impossible to forego a fresh apple, too. This one is a Boskoop, and it's my favorite variety: tart and crisp.
And of course, there was cheese. This was one of four served in a rolled paper cone, a fruity, nutty Meule de Bray with a richness and assertiveness that struck me as being kind of perfect for fall.
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Cheese of the Week
The header photo at the top of this email is a free sample of Camembert that proved so good we ended up snagging a whole wheel to take home. Appropriately dubbed Le 5 Frères for the five Bréant brothers who make it, this artisanal raw milk Camembert is the only one in France made in the Seine-Maritime department. Produced outside of the AOP zone – and with the milk of non-traditional Prim'Holstein cows – this is a prime example of what Paris by Mouth founder Meg Zimbeck recently asserted in her newsletter about Brie: AOPs are indicative of typicity, not quality. This cheese had a rich, briny quality and a lovely creaminess so evocative of the genre, making it a standout, in my opinion, whether made with Normande milk or not.
Camembert is one of four AOP cheeses in Normandy, alongside Neufchâtel, Livarot, and Pont l'Évêque, which some say is Normandy's oldest cheese. Find out more about this lightly washed wonder in this week's YouTube short!
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I'm Eating
The star of my recent trip to Burgundy was unsurprisingly the Michelin-starred restaurant that put Bernard Loiseau on the map. The restaurant is a testament not only to Loiseau’s stalwart pursuit of excellence but to that of his wife and long-time chef Patrick Bertron, who has helmed the kitchens here for four decades.
I hadn’t been sitting at my table, with a silver crab for company, for more than 30 minutes before I was niggled by an intrusive thought that didn’t budge: What if I was currently eating the best meal I’d ever eat in my life? More on the blog.
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france and on the blog.
Where I'm Going
1. To the Saint-Regis, an Ile-Saint-Louis staple I've never visited.
2. To Riv'k, for what promises to be a very special meal indeed.
3. Back to Wales... but more on that next week.
What I'm Writing
1. From the archives: While we're on the subject of Camembert, I thought it was prime time to resurface this exploration I did of the traditional cheese back in 2018 for the BBC.
2. Florida native Jeff McInnis shares his top stone crab spots – and his favorite bubbly pairing – for InsideHook.
3. FDA has finally updated the definition of the word "healthy" to include higher-fat foods like nuts and seeds. More for Organic Authority.
What I'm Saying
Head to a French school and suggest a game of chess, and you may have a bunch of nervous kids before you! Echecs is indeed the term used for the strategic board game, but it's also a word linked to failure – and one that's bandied about far more in the French school system than elsewhere. This week on Navigating the French, I'm discussing the dogmatic rigidity of the system that has unfortunately led to widespread failure among French students with Peter Gumbel, journalist and author of They Shoot School Kids, Don't They?
What I'm Reading
1. I have been reading A Goose in Toulouse since this summer, but if it took me so long to finish, it's not at all for lack of enjoying it. On the contrary, this book by Mort Rosenblum was so dense and filled with factoids – and a unique timeliness, given that it was written just on the precipice of France's entry into the E.U. – that I forced myself to consume it in digestible morsels... and as soon as I finished it, I promptly bought my own copy.
2. Not everyone procrastinates for the same reasons, and getting to the root of yours might be the secret to doing away with this habit once and for all. More in the Washington Post.
3. Is it possible not to love Omar Sy? This profile in the New Yorker casts a new look at the French television star.
A bientôt !