1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (16 page)

French essentials: beret, bike, and baguettes.

It might be France’s most iconic image. That long, slim, gold-crusted baton of bread carried home before each meal, most picturesquely by a small child in a pastel-colored cotton school smock, stands for the best of bourgeois France and its dedication to the things that really count. (Seek out the great Henri Cartier-Bresson’s 1959 photo of a young boy carrying armfuls of baguettes,
Village of Piolenc near Orange
, for a visual reference.)

That old-timey apparition has become less frequent as family schedules and lifestyles have changed, and with bread baking for the most part turned industrial, even in France. Yet, when the artisanal baguette can be found, it still resonates with a sense of place—even though it’s actually a relative newcomer, dating back only to the nineteenth century.

France’s gastronomic history includes many older, more traditional breads, some of which are enjoyed now for their rustic, hard crusts and wheaty textures and flavors. Particularly good are the crackling round peasant loaves turned out by the country’s most famous
boulanger
, Poilâne. But the baguette remains a favorite, with a light texture and flavor that make it a perfect nonintrusive foil for food, and its loose, airy crumb works as an efficient sponge for the country’s most famous sauces. There’s no better base for a dab of supple foie gras or a garlic-and brandy-scented country pâté, and it’s got the stamp of the law on its side: By decree, French baguettes may contain no preservatives. Because their crusts are fairly thin and dry, they become stale rapidly—hence the need for thrice-daily visits to the
boulangerie
in the good old days.

Unlike many lustier breads, the classic baguette is made up of about three times more soft wheat flour than hard wheat flour, and relies on a sourdough starter and a little salt for its subtle flavor. Once the shaped loaves have risen, just
before being baked, they are slashed diagonally in several places across the top with a curved knife blade. As the bread bakes in a steam-filled oven, those cuts expand and open to become the typical flower-petal designs on the top crust. Baguette loaves are most often baked (especially when homemade) in a series of six connected long, fluted pans stamped in thin, shiny aluminum or steel, with lightly embossed patterns that make it easy for the cooled loaves to be snapped out.

Like all overly popularized French foods, the baguette can be found in airports the world over in distressingly chewy, stale, and flavorless iterations that would bring a real
boulanger
to tears. But the real thing abides.

Where:
In Paris and environs
, Poilâne,
poilane.fr
;
in New York
, Sullivan Street Bakery, tel 212-265-5580,
sullivanstreetbakery.com
;
in San Francisco
, Acme Bread Bakery at multiple locations,
acmebread.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Breads of France
by Bernard Clayton Jr. (2004);
The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris
by Patricia Wells (2014);
saveur.com
(search four hour baguette).
Special event:
La Fête du Pain (Festival of Bread), France, mid-May,
lafetedupain.com
.

Currant preserves.

Confiture
, the French word for jam, sounds so much more exotic—and it’s perhaps a more fitting descriptor for one of the world’s most expensive preserves,
confiture de groseilles
. A specialty of Bar-le-Duc, the French town near Lorraine’s capital city of Metz, the translucent spread is made of red or white currants (
groseilles
) and packed in tiny faceted jars with metal lids topped by the handsome black-white-and-gold labels of Dutriez, the best-known producer.

Gently sweet, with a nice, tingly acid bite and a luxurious softness on the tongue, Bar-leDuc makes an elegant topping for morning croissants or scones lightly dabbed with cream cheese or clotted cream (but is far too delicate for plain toast, English muffins, or bagels). It can also add luster to desserts when used as a topping for vanilla ice cream, or vanilla cream-filled crêpes.

What makes Bar-le-Duc so expensive? Not only the increasing rarity of currants (especially white ones) and the high cost of growing them, but also the painstaking manual work required to produce the confiture. In a method that sounds practically medieval, multiple seeds must be removed from each tiny currant by hand, one by one, by de-seeders using sharpened goose quills. (Try it the next time you come across a currant, if you can find a goose quill, and you’ll probably come to the conclusion that store-bought Bar-le-Duc is a bargain.) Only then can the fruit be simmered with sugar into a shimmering, seedless jell.

Mail order:
bienmanger.com
, tel 33/4-66-32-90-80, (search seedless white currant jam).
Further information:
Larousse Gastronomique
(2009).

Though once cheap and used largely in frozen hamburger patties, plump and juicy, flavorful and satisfyingly chewy beef cheeks have become a sought-after ingredient in the contemporary kitchen. The formerly humble cut may receive its most elevated American treatment at Thomas Keller’s legendary Napa Valley restaurant, the French Laundry, where it is featured as “Tongue in Cheek”—braised beef cheeks and veal tongue cooked with baby leeks and horseradish cream. But the celebrated French chef Joël Robuchon is also an advocate, as is Greek-Sicilian chef Michael Symon; on the menu at Symon’s Cleveland restaurant Lola Bistro is a family recipe for beef-cheek pierogies.

Cut from the muscle behind the steer’s cheekbone, the meat is well marbled and succulent, the kind of tough cut that yields a bounty of flavor only after it has been intricately cleaned and trimmed and then gently and lengthily braised over low heat. This is how the old-fashioned French bistro standard
joues de boeuf
achieves its irresistibly rich, beefy essence. Beef cheeks can also help create the most luscious of sauces, act as delectable filling for ravioli or pierogies, or star in the best stews of the world, be they daube, stracotto, or goulash.

Where:
In New York
, Babbo, tel 212-777-0303,
babbonyc.com
;
in Cleveland
, Lola Bistro, tel 216-621-5652,
lolabistro.com
;
in Yountville, CA
, The French Laundry, tel 707-944-2380,
frenchlaundry.com
.
Mail order:
Golden Gate Meat Company, tel 415-983-7800,
goldengatemeatcompany.com
; U.S. Wellness Meats, tel 877-383-0051,
grasslandbeef.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The French Laundry Cookbook
by Thomas Keller (1999);
The Babbo Cookbook
by Mario Batali (2002);
Live to Cook
by Michael Symon (2009).

Vintage ad for a Norman company’s premium butter.

The ultimate in butter, this golden creamy spread from the herb-laden grazing fields of Normandy almost deserves to be eaten as a cheese. Savor a generous pat as it melts on the tongue, and you will experience soft, nutty overtones and a sense of the bracing sea air of the Norman coast. Spread it on a piece of bread if you must, but you will sacrifice the pure sensation of the piquant butter-to-cream transition uncompromised by other textures.

The damp, chalky clay soil surrounding Isigny, where the butter has been produced since the sixteenth century, flavors the local water and gives the grazing cows’ milk a high concentration of trace elements and an
exceptional mineral salt content. The region’s lush grass, rich in iodine and carotene, contributes a distinctive flavor. The heavy sweet cream is ripened with the help of several different strains of bacilli (customary in much of Europe, if not in the U.S.). But the crowning touch is a fat content of 82 percent, higher than the typical 80 percent of regular butters. That 2 percent variable doesn’t sound like much, but it makes a big difference in taste. The resulting butter retains a certain silky creaminess even when melted, making it the perfect choice for the satiny sauce known as beurre blanc.

Although the town of Isigny bestows the most prestigious label a butter could wear, runners-up include nearby Cormeilles and Neufchâtel, as well as the neighboring province of Brittany.

Where:
In New York and environs
, Fairway Markets,
fairwaymarket.com
;
in San Francisco
, Mollie Stone’s Markets, tel 415-255-8959,
molliestones.com
.
Mail order:
gourmetfoodstore.com
(search isigny butter).
Further information:
The Food of France
by Waverley Root (1992).

Among the world’s Christmas breads, this rich, darkly dense Alsatian specialty is one of the least known yet most sustaining and subtle. Although it takes its name from dried pears, it includes prunes, figs, raisins, and nuts, all scented with spices and kirsch for a festive treat best thinly sliced and served with coffee or red wine.

Makes 1 loaf

For the fruit filling

¼ pound (about ⅓ cup) dried pears

¼ pound (about ⅓ cup) pitted prunes

¼ pound (2 tablespoons) dried figs

2 ounces (2 tablespoons) golden raisins

2 ounces (2 tablespoons) black raisins

1 ounce (about ⅓ cup) unblanched hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

1 ounce (about ⅓ cup) blanched almonds, coarsely chopped

1 ounce (about ⅓ cup) walnuts, coarsely chopped

¼ cup sugar