Lunch in the Pas de Calais
God it's dark in the UK!
I had business to transact in
France the other day. The channel tunnel
service is up the spout, with a train every 90 minutes, so that option
was simply not available, so it meant clambering on the good old car
ferry.
At six in the morning
everywhere is pitch dark, and altho it tried to
get light the fog kept coming down, and then the clouds did their bit,
and what with one thing and another it was still dark at seven o'clock.
As we pulled out of Dover the
sun made a brave effort, and we looked
set for a fine day. But that was the only performance we got. The
clouds got darker, and by evening it was raining.
Never mind. I did my business
in a warehouse in a small industrial
estate just south of Calais, and then went to look for a nice
restaurant.
One of the pleasures of going
to France is browsing around the shops
for some interesting things to eat, and checking out the wine shelves;
and then finding somewhere with a good menu.
I was recommended a ferme
auberge on the outskirts of Guines. It was a
lovely place, just off the Rue de Verdun. You turn down a private
tree-lined drive and come upon an old-fashioned farm complex.
Many French farms are built
in the old style, with the farmhouse being
one side of a courtyard. An arch leads you into a square surrounded by
barns. The house faces you.
This particular farm had a
double courtyard. The first is surrounded by
barns which had been transformed into a hotel, and through an arch you
could drive into the second courtyard, which sported the farmhouse. The
only snag was that the restaurant was undergoing renovations.
Okay, so what was second on
my list?
Next stop Ardres. This is a
fascinating little town. There is a
charming central area with a large common surrounded by trees. A couple
of summers ago we watched a horse show there, which was only
interesting because some wretched child fell off her pony every time
she went round a particular corner.
On the way in from Guines is
a Logis de France on the left. It had an
interesting menu, including the usual speciality of the Pas de Calais
region, coquilles st jaques. There was also a lot of salmon on the
list, including a duo of soused salmon, and smoked salmon.
Further down the road was
another restaurant that had been recommended,
and they had several menus, from €9.50, €16, €25 and €49, all with wine
included.
Choosing where to eat is a
serious matter, so I decided to check out
one more spot before making my decision. Back into the town, turn right
and along the side of the central common to the Francois Premier.
Somehow that didn't hit the spot. Julie suggested one that we'd just
passed, La Griotte.
The name rather put me off.
It sounded too close to the word grotty.
But apparently it is the French word for morello cherry. There was me
thinking that the French for cherry was cerise.
For those collectors of
pointless information, I looked up Griotte in
Google and found a website called griotte.org. Intrigued, I had a look.
It said:
"This
research effort
investigates the application of a multiphase project management
approach to oral history projects. The identified phases include
research, interviewing, transcribing, editing, as well as analysis --
steps currently practiced by oral historians. The discrete nature of
these steps, introduces the possibility of devising computerized or
digital solutions to produce high quality source materials that may be
utilized by historical researchers and scholars for presentation and
interpretation."
Streuth!! Give me a morello
cherry any day.
Actually I initially misspelt
the word and ended up looking at
something quite different:
"Garot or
galjungi is a variety
of hanbok, Korean traditional clothing, which has been worn by locals
of Jeju Island in Korea as working clothes."
But I digress.
Luckily none of the above
rubbish was available at the time and we
walked in to have a rather fine lunch.
My €25 menu provided me with
a rather nice paté de fois gras
which was accompanied by a glass of wine that was new to me: Coteaux du
Layon. (Excuse me a moment while I get a bottle out of the fridge and
have a quick slurp. Obviously after lunch I went straight down to the
supermarket in St Omer and stocked up.)
The wine had a musty tang to
it and I assumed it was some kind of
sauvignon. But the nose hinted of a much deeper taste and it went
extremely well with the paté.
According to the blurb on the
label there is a river by the name of
Layon, and the vineyards border this. The grape is the chenin, and it
is left on the vines to develop the noble rot, and picked late. Drink
it fresh, to accompany paté or blue cheeses, says the label.
Actually it tastes quite nice on its own for elevenses. (Sorry, I had
to have another slurp to check I'd got the description right.)
The area where the grapes
grow is south of Angers and West of Saumur,
along the Layon river. Apparently the wine will last for ten to twenty
years, altho that is a bit optimistic. I find good quality wine has a
disastrous habit of not lasting very long at all. The aromas are of
honey, fig and acacia, it says here.
Back to the lunch. Julie had
a bright yellow soup that was advertised
as soup of the day (legumes). What else do they put in these soups to
give them that extra something?
For main course I had that
well travelled bird, turkey. What is it
about turkeys? No-one seems to be able to make up their mind where they
come from. I am told they come from south America. That would account
for the Portuguese name for the bird: peru. The English name is
supposed to derive from the name of the boat upon which they first
arrived in the UK, hence Turkey. The French seem to think they come
from India (d'inde).
My turkey was covered in a
delicious sauce, and served with rosti
potatoes and well cooked chicory. The second wine wasn't so stunning as
the layon, but was still good.
For pudding I had an apple
crepe with a flambéed sauce.
What a splendid way to spend
lunch time. A perfect meal, not too
filling, and beautifully crafted. I recommend that you stop for lunch
on your way south next time you roll off the ferry.
|
