The French Journal

Magazine alert: Gourmet goes French bistro (with visits to the Jura and Le Perche)

This month's Gourmet highlights "French Bistro" cooking, a topic which they define broadly enough to take in classic dishes from many regions of France. The emphasis is on recipes and glamour shots of food, but there are a couple of "informational" articles, too. The most enjoyable is about a businessman in Normandy's Le Perche region who has created the baguette du Perche, a loaf using locally grown flour, and about his goal of having it labeled as a "produit du Parc naturel du Perche," something like an A.O.C. recognition. Another piece -- with the awful, punning title of "Jura the Obscure" -- tells of a few of the local specialties: vin jaune, absinthe, and a cows-milk cheese called "Mont d'Or," one of those marvelous, smelly, runny specimens that never make it to the U.S. because they're unpasteurized.

At the moment, those features are not on-line; they may appear in archives after the newsstand date. However, ten of the "bistro" recipes are available, including steak frites, a Provençal fish stew, and a vegetarian (!) cassoulet.

A vin jaune fête in the Jura

I had a chicken dish made with morels, cream, and vin jaune on my first trip to Paris at a restaurant called Chez Maître Paul. It was a delightful meal that I wanted to make back home, but the sherry-like wine, a product of the Jura region, is nearly impossible to find in the U.S. A few years ago, a friend brought a bottle to me from France, which I foolishly used to recreate the chicken recipe -- foolish, because, at the price, which I hadn't realized, this is an elixir to be savored. (With the morels, I won't calculate what it cost per serving, except to say it may be partly responsible for the current turmoil in the world's financial markets.)

The NY Times has a story this week about a yearly celebration of vin jaune that will take place in a few weeks in the Jura region. The fête is called the "Percée du Vin Jaune," which means the piercing of the yellow wine; I presume that refers to breaking into the barrels where the wine has been fermenting. (It takes over six years to produce.) The article has info about the local cheeses (Morbier and Comté), and, of course, about vin jaune and its production. As for the festival itself, it's one of those times when you walk around with a little tasting glass and sip samples of the new vintage made by various vineyards. That is, one of those many times you wish you were in France.

All about Noël

In my imagination I see French students all over the world given assignments to write about holiday traditions in France. So, to help all of those dutiful éleves, I'll direct them to a great resource on Christmas in France: the one compiled by FranceGuide, which is the official tourism site of France. In it you will find articles about how the holidays are celebrated in Burgundy, the Franche-Comté, Normandy, Alsace, and elsewhere. Another page is devoted to the best-known Christmas markets, such as Montélimar, Montbéliard, Chartres, and seven others.

There's a bit more.  The wife of the French ambassador to Trinidad talks to a local newspaper (Trinidad & Tobago's Newsday) about how she and her family recognized the holiday in Provence. It includes this local precept: "Christmas is for family, New Year is for friends.”

For the rest of us, the non-éleves, we get to enjoy the articles without having to regurgitate any of them.

On the cheese trail in the Franche-Comté

Photo of Arbois by Damien Boilley

You can get an edible Comté -- a firm, Gruyere-type cheese -- in the states. This product of the Franche-Comté is popular enough for it to attract tourists to the region, so The Atlanta Journal-Constitution visits a Comté producer and learns about the process that has been used for almost a thousand years to make the cheese. The star of the article is a man who makes the cheese and who is so in love with Tasmania that his friends call him "Taz."

While cheese is a main focus of the article, there's also time for a side trip to a village called Arbois, an early home of Louis Pasteur. Besides a couple of museums dedicated to the scientist, you can find a good chocolatier and some comfy bistros, and it's not too far from spots where you can investigate vin jaune, the sherry-like wine that's made in the region.

Travel articles about the Franche-Comté aren't frequent, so enjoy this one!

Regions of France - Franche Comté

Franche-Comté means "Free Country," in recognition of the region's many attempts to remain independent of outside rule (including that of France). Even so, it is still often tied with the nearby regions of Burgundy or Alsace, but it obviously has distinctions of its own.

Here is the next French Journal rundown of one of the 22 regions of France.