For one, they’re both staples of the French celebratory and holiday table and of plenty of hospitable tables and cocktail events in between.

For two, they’re both produced with excellence and tradition by Maison Barthouil, a family business located in the small town of Peyrehorade in the Landes department of southwest France, between Béarn and Basque Country.

While Barthouil products (under the J. Barthouil brand) are sold in a handful of luxury grocers throughout France, in some restaurants and online, their only shop outside of their home village is in Paris, in the Upper Marais. That’s where I met with Pauline Barthouil, the company’s sales director and granddaughter of its founder.

Foie Gras

Fattened duck liver (foie gras de canard) and all manner of duck preparations have long graced the table in southwest France. They can thank European explorations in the Americas for returning home with the prime ingredients for foie gras: large ducks and the corn with which to (force-)feed them.

The Barthouil family, however, gets to call their affection for all things duck a truly local affair since their business is based on a traditional model of agriculture. Hatcheries in the area deliver 1-day-old ducklings to five breeders whose farms are located within 25 miles of Peyrehorade. The breeders then raise a safe of about 400 ducks for 16 weeks until slaughter. The breeders also grow their own corn, which represents 50% of the ducks’ diet while being raised and 100% during the 12-13-day fattening period known as gavage. Gavage is the force-feeding that gives such a delicious taste and buttery texture to the fattened liver. It is also the technique that occasionally gets the production of foie gras banned in certain parts of the U.S.. (Pauline Barthouil emphasizes the gentleness of the breeders’ handling during gavage and the calm of the feeding room.)

Some 25,000 ducks are raised and slaughtered each year for their products. J. Barthouil transforms the entire duck, since in addition to producing various types of duck foie gras (different preparations of entier or whole foie gras and of mi-cuit or semi-cooked foie gras), along with mousse and terrine, the company also makes the duck versions of rillettes (pulled duck cooked in duck fat and served cold as an hors d’oeuvre spread), confit (a drool-worthy main course of duck cooked in its own fat), cassoulet (a hearty duck and white bean dish), fresh breast or duck steak (magret), smoked, dried magret, and other preparations. Barthouil also produces some goose foie gras.

I asked Pauline Barthouil two nagging questions:
The first: Is there a difference between whole foie gras in a tin and in a jar? The answer: No.
The second: Several or more years ago I gave to my sister a jar of foie gras that she’s yet to open. The sell-by date has rubbed off and, not knowing how old it is, she’s wonders if it’s safe to eat. Do we dare eat the foie gras inside the next time I visit? Her answer: Absolutely! For me, she said, it gets better with time. So as long as it’s still properly sealed you can consider the suggested sell-by date as simply a legal obligation.

Smoked salmon

Salmon was abundant in western France until about a century ago, when numbers, already dwindling, began falling more dramatically. As they migrate inland from salty seas, some salmon, however, are still found in the rivers and streams of Brittany, in the Loire, and in the Adour and its confluents, i.e. Barthouil territory.

Pauline Barthouil’s grandfather Gaston would have known days of abundance, which is probably why, when he became aware of the novelty of Scandinavian smoking, he might have though, “Hey, I’ve got salmon, I’ve got land, let’s build a smokehouse and start smoking.” Except that he had no experience in smoking salmon. His amateur attempts were likely so smoked that they tasted more like fishy ash than lightly smoked fish.

He therefore sent his production manager to Denmark to learn from European pros of preserving through smoking. Thus the Danish tradition became the tradition of the Bartouil family, which continues to follow much the same method as in the late 1950s, though with indirect smoking rather than the original method of direct smoking. (Pauline’s sister Guillemette Barthouil is the current production manager).

Local Adour wild salmon, which the company considers “the Rolls Royce of its kind,” still appears on the Barthouil menu, where it weighs in at 315€ per kilo in its sliced smoke version. The vast majority of the production, however, is shipped from far north: wild salmon from the Baltic Sea, Norway and Scotland, along with farm-raised salmon from Scotland (organic) and Norway. Smoked and sliced, these salmons range in cost from 107-182€ per kilo.

Plump salmon arrives whole (gutted) and fresh three days after slaughter. The salmon is hand salted with dry salt from Salies de Béarn, 12 miles east. After drying, it is cold smoked (68-75°F) for 20 hours with alder wood, a type of birch, which gives only a slight woody taste. Alder had been used by their Danish “teachers” yet needn’t be imported since it grows abundantly in France, including in the southwest.

Among the eight types of J. Barthouil smoked salmon available, there’s an exquisite wild Scottish salmon (175€/kilo), but I particularly enjoy the subtlety and refinement taste of the wild salmon from Norway’s Namesen Fjord (150€/kilo), whose taste hints at the krill that it feeds on. I also appreciate for its distinctiveness the wild salmon from the Baltic Sea salmon (130€/kilo), which feeds in part on herring, giving it its gray-beige in color and a slight herring taste.

Tarama

A third specialty of the house is tarama, a fish-roe spread that’s frequently served with the aperitif in Paris. Barthouil’s seven tarama recipes all use Islandic cod eggs and rapeseed oil, to which may be added fresh crab or Espelette pepper (two personal favorites), scallops, sea urchin (for those ready to be launched into an iodized coastal fantasy), truffles or algae.

French caviar is also available in the shop. The shop also sells some accompanying wine and spirits, often with an eye to southwestern producers, such as Lactalium vodka distilled in Gers from cow’s milk from Auvergne.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

Maison Barthouil’s Paris boutique, J. Barthouil: 41 rue Charlot, 3rd arr. Tel. 01 42 78 32 88. Metro Temple or Filles du Calvaire. Closed Monday. Nicolas Ferrand, glimpsed in the first video, provides friendly counsel in the Paris shop, which he manages.

The video below, from the Barthouil website, tells of the company history and gives a step-by-step presentation of its production of foie gras and smoked salmon. It is narrated by Jacques Barthouil, son of Gaston, father Pauline and Guillemette. Company president and primary shareholder, he is the J. of J. Barthouil.

The post French Table: J. Barthouil Foie Gras and Smoked Salmon appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

But of course… there’s a lot of duck… and where’s there’s duck, there’s foie gras. You can buy it and bring it home, or you can sink into a comfy chair during lunchtime, order a big glass of Basque wine, and set about devouring a generous 16€ platter of two home-made regional terrines, rillettes au foie gras, duck sausage, and a little magret séché for good measure. Purists opt for a hefty slab of duck or goose liver without any trimmings except for toast.

The Basque region is also known for its seafood, so there’s southwestern style cod-potato brandade, 10€, or smoked-salmon/tarama platter, 20 €, for the non- birdwatcher. But we were there for duck, and although it was difficult to pass up a deep dish of scrambled eggs smothered with cèpe mushrooms, 10€, we chose the old-fashioned duck stew, 12€. After Chef Laurie Cleradin simmers it for two days in a lush broth (with added carrots and onions), the lean meat simply melts in the mouth. It makes boeuf bourguignon seem to taste like yesterday’s news.

All the produce is “imported” from the region and that includes a variety of wines by the glass from 3 to 6 €. We liked the Cuvée Heïta, a golden white from the Domaine de Moncaut in the Pyranées Atlantiques that’s rich enough to stand up to the stew. And of course, there’s Izarra, Armagnac….

But before the digestive save room for dessert. Céline Castellan serves one of southwest France’s truly mythical desserts, the gateau russe cream cake that Adrien Artigarrède invented in the hamlet of Sainte-Marie-Oléron (30 Kilometers south west of Pau) in 1925. She gets the cake directly from that original bakery. (For homesick Basques, this is akin to having a direct line on butter beer for Hogwart’s alums.)

What’s so Russian about gateau russe? One of the key ingredients for the cake’s crust is almond powder which, in the 1920s, it had to be imported from Crimea. The rest of the ingredient list? That’s been a jealously guarded secret for four generations.

Canard & Co. 192 rue de Grenelle, 7th arrondissement. Tel: 01 45 5194 73. Metro Latour Maubourg or Ecole Militaire. Lunch Monday through Friday; grocery open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 7:30 pm and Sunday from 10 am to 2:30 pm.

Note: Canard and Co. will soon be giving classes in preparing foie gras! Call the shop for details.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

The post Canard & Co: Duck Season in Paris, Year-Round appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Even when historians speak of Alsace-Lorraine they’re mainly speaking of the former, since all of Alsace was included in that once-disputed region but only a part of Lorraine.

Furthermore, there isn’t much of the way of distinctive Lorraine cuisine to promote outside of the region. Even in Paris, the only mention of Lorraine that you’ll ever find on a menu is quiche Lorraine.

Unlike L’Alsace, a winning, cliché-heavy restaurant on the Champs-Elysées that does an excellent job of promoting Alsatian cuisine, the brasserie La Lorraine, off the Champs on Place des Ternes, ignores its namesake in favor of brassy, upscale Parisian brasserie fare. And along the street in front of Paris’s Gare de l’Est, the East Station, from where trains to Alsace and Lorraine depart, the brasserie La Strasbourgeoise (named for the capital of Alsace) is another good choice for Alsatian fare while Le Bistro Lorrain is a…. pizzeria.

Truth be told, there isn’t much in the way of Lorraine cuisine even within the region, where the harsh soil has allowed for little culinary fantasy beyond pork dishes, including the pork-and-cabbage stew/potée Lorraine, and the famous, bacon-enhanced quiche Lorraine. There’s a good amount of perch and trout from the rivers but no special fish dish that has left a mark outside of the region. And with all due respect for its wine (vin gris de Toul and Moselle), its local beer-making traditions, and its spring water from Vittel, none of those drinks is cause alone to travel, as satisfying as they may be.

Lorraine as a name remains unevocative in part due to the historical incongruence of its cities: there’s photogenic Nancy, marked by Renaissance flourish, 18th-century refinement, and Art Nouveau curves; there’s Metz, which brings together French classicism and German monumentalism; there’s Verdun, which calls to mind the horror and sacrifice of the trenches of WWI. Each of those worthy destinations (to be explored in future articles in the Northeast France section this site) is easily accessible from Paris. Since 2007 high-speed trains from Paris can rush a traveler to Nancy or Metz in 1:30 or to Verdun in 1:40, but it’s unlikely that the traveler will think of himself as going to Lorraine but rather to Nancy or Metz or Verdun.

Nevertheless, inside Paris’s Gare de l’Est the boutique En passant par la Lorraine… attempts to evoke an unevocative region with what little there is to unify it: the mirabelle plum and a 16th century folk song.

En passant par la Lorraine is the name of that song. It’s a little ditty about a woman passing through Lorraine in her clogs and it has given the shop its name and its kitsch little clogs for sale. The mirabelle plum has given it most everything else.

If visiting France anytime mid-August through September, be sure to put on your list of food experiences a trip to any market to pick up some mirabelles, sweet yellow-golden plums that are likely to come from Lorraine, which assures about 80% of the world production. Also keep an eye out for mirabelle tarts in the bakeries.

Since En passant par la Lorraine… doesn’t sell fresh produce, you won’t find any fresh mirabelles here, or even a mirabelle tart, but you will find most anything else imaginable one can do with mirabelles. You’ll find them in jams, in preserved terrines, in canned stews, in mustard, in soap, in biscuits, in chocolate, in candy, in liqueur, in beer, and in brandy.

Two other traditional dry cakes from the region decorate the colorful shelves in this shop, Madeleines de Commercy and Marcarons des Soeurs, along with regional beer and brandy (eaux-de-vie), jams and preserves made from other regional fruits (particularly blueberries/myrtilles), and various fruit-flavored bon-bons (notably bergamots de Nancy), all with a regional bent.

For heated and/or refrigerated regional fare, you’ll have to go across the street from the train station and one region to the east to the deli-caterer Schmid, which considers itself “The ambassador of Alsatian gastronomy in Paris since 1904.” There you’ll find the staples of Alsatian culinary regional identity: choucroute (sauerkraut, served with potatoes and a choice of sausages, bacon, and/or pork), kuglehopf (a molded cake with raisins), Munster cheese, and strudel. Though 400,000 of Lorraine’s Mirabelle trees are “protected” by the appellation “Mirabelle de Lorraine,” plums don’t stop at the regional border, so Schmid offers the aforementioned mirabelle tarts. Canal Saint-Martin, a 10-minute walk from here, is the place of choice for a picnic in the area.

Both Lorraine and Alsace are known for their Christmas markets, which begin around December 6, the Feast of Saint Nicolas. An alleged relic of Saint Nicolas, his phalanx, was brought from Italy in the late 11th century to the Lorraine town that now goes by the name Saint Nicolas de Port. Eventually Nick was named patron saint of Lorraine. It’s nevertheless neighboring Alsace, evocative as it is, that most highly promotes its Christmas markets. In December stalls selling Alsatian food and products are set up in front of Gare de l’Est, led by sausages, Gewürztraminers, and Rieslings.

Lorraine is far more discreet. So the shop En passant par la Lorraine… is your best bet for information—and at least some bon-bons—if curious about the region or before taking the train east. Chances are 50-50 that you’ll come across manager Jean-Paul Lacroix, himself an excellent ambassador from the region. He can tell you (in English) the history of these various products, such as how candy made from bergamot oranges from Sicily came to be used in a specialty of Nancy. If asked politely, he might even sing a little song, as he did for me: En passant par la Lorraine/Avec mes sabots… oh oh oh, avec mes sabots.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

Practical information

-Boutiques

En passant par la Lorraine… Gare de l’Est, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 40 35 47 80. Open Mon.-Sat. 7am-8pm. En passant… has other shops, all in the Lorraine region.

Schmid 76 boulevard de Strasbourg, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 46 07 89 74. Open Mon.-Fri. 9am-8pm, Sat. 8:30am-8pm.

-Restaurants

La Strasbourgeoise 5 rue du 8 mai 1945, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 42 05 20 02. Open daily noon to midnight.

L’Alsace 39 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th arr. Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tel 01 53 93 97 00.  Open 24/7.

La Lorraine 2 place des Ternes, 8th arr. Metro Ternes. Tel. 01 56 21 22 00. Open 7am-1am.

The post Looking for Lorraine in Paris and Finding Alsace along the Way appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.