The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization does a lot of things, including set international standards, disseminate new ideas, and "help build human and industrial capacities in diverse fields." One of the organization's most important functions, in my opinion, is to set and protect cultural heritages, which are determined by the World Heritage Committee.
The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO has a wide range of criteria they use to determine world heritages, and France wants to add its cuisine to that list. According to AFP, though, not many people think this bid is going to go through, especially after the committee rejected a similar bid from Mexico a few years ago.
I've gathered over time that France is extremely wary of letting in big name, globally available products. Apparently they don't like Coca Cola, and now the Ministry of Health is giving Red Bull a hard time.
It's only been recently that Red Bull was allowed to be sold in France at all. The energy drink maker had to remove taurine, because the health ministry claims that long term effects of the chemical are unknown. So now Red Bull is allowed in France, but it's still on pretty shaky ground. This article in Flexnews makes it pretty clear that French health officials are looking for any excuse to ban sales of Red Bull.
Apparently taurine, in and of itself isn't really a problem. However, there's a lot of questions that come up when it's combined with caffeine and/or alcohol. Are French officials right to try and get rid of the energy drink? That's a tough question. What's your take on this?
Two instances constitute a trend, right? Last night at midnight, I posted a video of my pal Sean's jaunt around a Bangkok sausage counter, and as it happens, today the lovely Jennifer Cooper Ashton sent me glorious food pix from her recent French sojourn. I'm taking this as a divine decree to post images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight witching hour (until I run out), so please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
Proponents of this method say it works because "temperature is a constant 10 degrees, the movement of the current gently rocks the bottles and there is no danger of damage from UV light." They do say, though, that the ocean has more of an effect on white wines than reds.
Recently, the top French champagne maker Louis Roederer is testing ocean storage with some if its bubbly. They're giving the wines a year to age, and if they have an improved taste then this could be the wine storage wave of the future.
However I feel about it, juice box wine is coming. Called Tandem, it'll be introduced in London soon, but there's no word on if we'll see it here in the US. Apparently French wine makers don't like the downward trend in wine consumption. This is an attempt to get "young urbanites" to drink more wine. A spokesman for Tandem says that this is the ideal way to have a bit of wine with lunch, especially if you eat at your work desk.
The wine juice box even has a special straw to ensure that you get a full taste experience. The sensory straw, as it's called, has four holes in it so that the wine is dispersed throughout your mouth. I'm not sure how well that'll work, but, as it's been pointed out by traditionalists, you still can't see or smell the wine before you drink it, which are both important aspects of drinking wine. Do you think this product will take off? Would you buy it?
Said to have aphrodisiac properties, this fragile species is suffering from drought on Southern European farms and will continue to suffer if predicted temperature increases come to fruition.
But as Southern farms are suffering, some Northern plantations are thriving from the increase in temperature (truffles are very sensitive to both frost and drought). But by the end of the century, scientists predict that in Toulose, France, temperatures will exceed 95 degrees F on 25-55 days out of the year (currently, it's only that hot about four days out of the year).
Back in January, when I first started this project to revive the Cookbook of the Day feature, one of the very first books I featured was the Farmhouse Cookbook, by Susan Herrmann Loomis. I had picked it up at a thrift store and fallen in love with the way that the author had captured local, fresh, direct-from-the-farm cooking. Commenters on that post mentioned that she had written other cookbooks and that Loomis also had her own cooking school in France. Intrigued, I started looking around for copies of her other work, picking up the Italian Farmhouse Cookbook (surely to be featured here someday) and her memoir, On Rue Tatin.
It's On Rue Tatin that I want to spotlight here today. It took me several months after buying my copy before I actually found the time to read it, but once I started I became totally engrossed. It combines many of my favorite things: stories of exploring new places, old houses and the challenges of making them livable and lots and lots of food and cooking. Each chapter is followed by three or four or five recipes that were previously mentioned in the text. Reading them is nearly as good as reading the rest of the book, as she always includes a description of where the recipe came from and the situations during which her family has eaten that meal.
As someone who lives in a modern apartment building, in the middle of a big city, where farmers markets don't start until May, and the clerks at the corner convenience market are surly and decidedly unhelpful, I loved the opportunity for interior travel that reading this book allowed me. If you long to exist in a food world different from the one you know, this book will give you a chance to do that, even if it's only for a brief while.
I guess I missed this over the summer, though I can't imagine how something so strange could have slipped through my Google Reader! Apparently, a dairy farm in France offers cheese made from human breast milk.
I'm not entirely sure that I believe this, but a web site for the farm, Le Petit Singly, does exist in French. There's a post about it on Why Travel to France from last June, as well as a mentioning of that post here on Serious Eats -- but neither confirms the existence. According to a Wikipedia post, breast milk was sometimes consumed in the ancient world in fertility cults, and it's thinner and sweeter than milk from other mammals.
So if it does exist, there are certainly some questions to address. Firstly, would you taste it? And how would you eat it -- plain? On crackers? Would it mean an entire line of human breast milk products are on the horizon?
There's a new magazine out of France, and it's kinda cool in that weird, hipster-y PoMo sort of way. It's called Yummy, and its calling itself a "JunkFoodDesignMagazine" (because spaces between words are so passé).
The magazine - and web site - are mostly en Français, but obviously, art transcends language, and all that jazz, so your lack of French-speaking skills will not hinder your appreciation - or revulsion - from the site.
The featured art runs the gambit from Whodonut?, Virginia Barre's slightly disturbing illustrations of people living in a fast food nation, to Show Her, which seems to be a big excuse for the artist to show photos of a half-naked woman in a rainstorm, occasionally holding a soda bottle (hence, the food connection, I suppose).
Go check it out - you might just be inspired to make some food art of your own. Or just be really grossed out.
Yeah, I had to do some searching to find out just what Pears Helene is.
It's sometimes called Pears Belle Helene, and Expert Village has a video that shows you step by step how to make the dessert. It's a popular dessert in France, and includes chocolate, vanilla ice cream, and sometimes almond cookies.
Here's a recipe from RecipeSource, and here's one from My French Cuisine. I think that pears are sometimes the forgotten fruit (competing with apples and oranges and bananas), so it's time to start eating pears again.
Several days ago, I asked you, my beloved Slashfood readers, for help on what to do with about a bazillion cherries I had picked up. One of the overwhelming responses was for a cherry clafouti - the French dessert-t thing that's made with a pancake batter and fruit. I am not yet telling you what I am doing with the cherries -- it may or may not be a cherry clafouti -- but until I post that, here are eight cherry clafoutis from around the food web for your viewing, reading, and perhaps eating, pleasure:
Imperial Exclusive Vodka from Emperor Brands L.L.C., made in France, is 40% abv. / 80 proof. This super premium vodka is made from a secret recipe that has been handed down for generations. This is a very clean and clear vodka made from the finest French grains and ultra pure and smooth Normandy water, then distilled five times. Many vodkas have as much taste as a glass of pure medicinal grade alcohol. In other words, none. They have had every trace of taste filtered out until there is no character left. That is not the case with Imperial Exclusive Vodka.
When I first tried this spirit I immediately noticed the aroma. Faint but very evident hints of butter, sweet caramel or toffee, the slightest trace of vanilla. I was trying to place the exact scent when it struck me. It was like the faintest touch of the best part of the aromas from the gorgeous movie theaters I vaguely remember from my childhood. Not the cookie cutter places that have two dozen tiny theaters crowded under one roof that you find today. Perpetually grimy and lacking soul. No, I mean the grand old places that only played one movie for a week or two before the next came along. The ones that were spotlessly clean, had comfy, red velvet chairs to sink deep into; and ushers to help you to your seats. Walls decorated with hand-painted murals and thick velvet curtains thirty feet high that spread across the walls right before the lights dimmed to soften the acoustics of the room.
It's not unusual to put vegetables, things we normally consider savory, into sweets. We have carrots in carrot cake, zucchini in zucchini bread and muffins, and obviously we have broccoli in broccoli cake.
Wait. What?
I have to say, it has never occurred to me to ever make or eat broccoli cake. However, blog Chic City Rats came across this broccoli cake, perfectly sliced to show off the florets inside, at Rose Bakery in the Parisian rue des Martyrs. Unfortunately, there is no additional information about the cake itself, but just the idea might get our culinary creative juices flowing.
Laubade Floc de Gascogne blanc is 17% and a light yellow gold with an arresting aroma of sharp and bitter notes and alcohol. The taste is tart, sweet and dry at the same time. Quite sharp and fruity tasting, it has tones of pineapple and hints of pine sap, making it very interesting, refreshing and complex. I have tasted the December 2005 and the March 2006 bottlings, each when they were 8-10 months old, and found them quite similar.
Appelltion Floc de Gascogne contrôllée is a style of lightly fortified sweet / tart wine usually served in France chilled, without ice, in a wine glass as an aperitif. It also goes well with foie gras, dessert and chocolates. Floc de Gascogne is meant to be drunk immediately and should be enjoyed within a year or less of of the production. The date of bottling is usually hidden in very small type on the bottom of the back label. Once it gets to around a year or more in age it starts to deteriorate rapidly.
Floc de Gascogne is made from traditional Gascony recipes originating in the 16th century by combining 1/3 fresh, unfermented grape must (juice) with 2/3 of the finest Armagnac. The grapes are grown in Gascony vineyards located in Gers and a few parishes in Lot-et-Garonne and Landes of South West France. The Armagnac must be made from grapes grown, distilled, and aged in the same winery as the unfermented must. After blending, the wine is then stored in barrels for at least ten months for aging.
G'Vine Floraison is a 40% abv. / 80 proof, small batch, numbered bottle, copper pot still, hand crafted gin made in France. Floraison translates roughly into bloom, blossoming, or flowering. Which is the perfect term for this gin.
The base spirits are distilled from grapes as opposed to grain neutral spirits as is common with most other gins. Wine from Ugni blanc grapes growing in the Cognac region of France is distilled four times to produce the neutral grape spirit. Then the botanicals; juniper, nutmeg, coriander seed, cubeb berries, ginger root, liquorice root, green cardamom, cassia bark, and lime are infused for several days with the spirits before distillation. This gin is then blended with infusions of the unique fleur de vigne (green grape flowers), as well as fresh botanicals, and distilled again. It is these blooming, green grape flowers, that lead to the use of Floraison in the name.
I've gathered over time that France is extremely wary of letting in big name, globally available products. Apparently they don't like Coca Cola, and now the Ministry of Health is giving Red Bull a hard time.
I guess I missed this over the summer, though I can't imagine how something so strange could have slipped through my 
Yeah, I had to do some searching to find out just what Pears Helene is.
Laubade Floc de Gascogne blanc is 17% and a light yellow gold with an arresting aroma of sharp and bitter notes and alcohol. The taste is tart, sweet and dry at the same time. Quite sharp and fruity tasting, it has tones of pineapple and hints of pine sap, making it very interesting, refreshing and complex. I have tasted the December 2005 and the March 2006 bottlings, each when they were 8-10 months old, and found them quite similar.
G'Vine Floraison
Cheese Course: Brebis Pardou
A transcendent summer tomato salad
Sliced bread turns 80 today
