1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (19 page)

Because the quality of the butter is so essential to a good brioche, one theory holds that the bread was invented in Normandy, source of the world’s best dairy products, sometime before it arrived in Paris during the seventeenth century. Its name is said to derive from
broyer
, or breaking up, referring to the heavy, steady kneading the dough requires to take in air and so rise to the occasion.

Where:
In many locations in France and in New York
, Ladurée,
laduree.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Oxford Companion to Food
by Alan Davidson (1999);
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2
, by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck (1970).

Young children may wish Christmas came around more often—and the adults who have tasted the
bûche de Noël
will share their sentiments. Surely no one would mind if this wickedly rich and creamy log of a cake showed up at other times, perhaps even at Easter. Why let tradition dictate when we can dig into the tender blond, vanilla-and-rum-scented cake of the lightest, eggiest sponge dough, wrapped jelly roll–style around a thick and delectably oozy butter-cream filling of chocolate or mocha?

But honor its origins we must. Like the European log cakes of England, Norway, and Lithuania, the
bûche
dates back to pre-Christian times when huge Yule logs were burned in fireplaces to honor the winter solstice. To replicate that ancient tree-trunk look, the rolled and filled cake is decorated with more buttercream frosting, scored to resemble bark, and adorned with tinted marzipan formed into tiny mushrooms and woody knots. Other garnishes might be candied cherries, sprigs of holly, and toasted almonds or pistachios, with piping spelling out “Joyeux Noël” or the numbers of the New Year.

In France, the bûche de Noël is traditionally eaten at the
réveillon
supper held after midnight mass on Christmas Eve, though it reappears in patisseries and restaurants throughout the holiday season. Soft and rich when served at room temperature, the bûche can be even more subtle and seductive when half frozen so the buttercream sets to almost ice-cream consistency and the cake’s sweetness becomes less intense.

Where:
In many locations in France and in New York
, Ladurée,
laduree.com
;
in Colmar, France
, Pâtisserie Jean, tel 33/3-89-41-24-63,
mulhaupt.fr
;
in Oakland and Berkeley, CA
, La Farine Boulangerie,
lafarine.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Visions of Sugarplums
by Mimi Sheraton (1986);
The Art of French Pastry
by Jacquy Pfeiffer and Martha Rose Schulman (2013);
saveur.com
(search a slice of christmas).

One of the delights of Au Crocodile, the celebrated restaurant in the Alsatian capital of Strasbourg, is a stunning appetizer that appears in a small, oval terra-cotta terrine, its top glistening with a rich mahogany-brown aspic.

Breaking through that fragrant covering, dotted with sprigs of tarragon and hard-cooked egg white, yields quite a prize: a tenderly braised, boneless quail or squab that is mouth-wateringly scented with Madeira. Cutting through the layers of tender quail meat holds, amazingly enough, further reward in the form of a richly emollient stuffing of truffled foie gras. All the while, the flavorful aspic—the braising gravy, cooked with a calf’s foot for gelatin—slowly melts into a chiffonlike sauce.

With a chunk of bread and a refreshing salad of spiky frisée lettuce, this luxurious compote makes for a sublime lunch or an elegant midnight supper. Though only occasionally available on the menu at Au Crocodile, it is prepared by many graduates of that restaurant’s kitchens.

Where:
In Strasbourg
, Au Crocodile, tel 33/3-88-32-13-02,
au-crocodile.com
.
Further information and recipe:
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2
, by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck (1970), see Volailles en Escabèche and substitute quail.

Cavaillons at a street market in Aix-en-Provence.

We’re beginning to see them from late spring to early fall in upscale restaurants and greengrocers in large cities throughout the United States: those green-and-cream-striped, small round melons of Provence. Labeled Cavaillons or Charentais, they are members of the musk-melon family, with netted rinds much like that of the cantaloupe. As with all muskmelons, ripeness is signaled by a pink blush on the rind, and general quality by a well-rounded form with no bruises or soft, damp spots. The honey-sweet, rose-gold flesh is delicious when the slightly chilled melon is cut into boat-shaped wedges and doused with only a little lime juice, or for purists, served straight up.

For a special-event dessert, one small melon per person can be filled with liquor-flavored
berries. To accomplish this, cut a lid from the top of each melon and scoop out the flesh, taking care not to break through the rind. Discard all seeds, but retain as much of the juice as possible.

Cut the flesh into spoon-size cubes, and combine with a little superfine granulated sugar and small strawberries, preferably
fraises des bois
, or raspberries. Add a splash or two of kirsch or Grand Marnier per melon—or go for broke and mix the two. Pack everything back into the melons and replace the lids. Encase each melon in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about two hours. Unwrap and serve very cold as a sophisticated finale to a warm-weather meal.

Mail order:
In August and September, Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
(search charentais melons).
Special event:
Fête du Melon, Cavaillon, France, June,
melondecavaillon.com

With its sunny ivory hue and unctuously molten texture, authentic camembert cheese is a mushroomy, almost woodsy delight.
Authentic
is the operative word, however, and divining the true
Camembert de Normandie
requires a good eye and a sensitive nose. Like so many great originals, this cheese has many bland imitators; because the ingredients, processing, and point of origin of camembert are not protected by French law, the cheese is not accorded the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) label. But to establish some sort of quality designation, any camembert produced according to the specific laws of Normandy earns the marking V.C.N., Véritable Camembert de Normandie. Any other camembert will be second-rate at best.

Determining a camembert’s ripeness is famously tricky. Cheese mongers advise clients to touch a closed eye with one index finger and the cheese with the other, in the hope of discovering matching textures. Why go to such lengths? Because, as with any cheese, the ripening process ends when your camembert is cut open. The next step is to remove your finger from your eye and make sure that the paste bulges against its wrapper rather than runs, the latter being a sign of overripeness. If the wheel
or wedge meets both of these criteria, hurry home with it.

Generously spread onto a crusty chunk of baguette, it becomes a
casse-croûte
, Normandy’s favorite pick-me-up sandwich. The most serious aficionados eat the rind as well, for an extra belt of calcium and flavor.

Authentic camembert is unavailable in the United States because FDA laws prohibit the import of unpasteurized cheeses not aged for at least sixty days. The best pasteurized imported brand is Le Châtelain.

Where:
In New York and environs
, Fairway Markets,
fairwaymarket.com
.
Further information:
Camembert: A National Myth
by Pierre Boisard (2003);
French Cheeses
by Kazuko Masui and Tomoko Yamada (1996);
Cheese Primer
by Steve Jenkins (1996).

Recipes vary, but all start with beans and sausage.

Any traditional dish composed of many ingredients will spark controversy as to its authenticity. Which elements, seasonings, and techniques are essential and which are verboten? France’s magnificently soul-warming cassoulet is no exception, with three basic versions assigned to three different cities—allowing for constant crossovers that incite argument and unnecessarily confuse the truly delectable issue.

Cassoulet de Castelnaudary is the simplest, based on white beans such as the American Great Northerns, baked with various pork cuts—smoked ham, fresh pork shoulder, salt pork with its rind, and spicy, firm sausage. For Cassoulet de Carcassonne, the cook also throws in boned chunks of lamb or mutton and, in season, a wild game bird such as partridge or quail. For Cassoulet Toulousain, the cook goes for broke, adding not only most of the above but also duck or goose confit, the chunks of fat-preserved poultry that give the final result an unctuously rich finish.

Inevitably, one will come across a stupendous cassoulet with an ingredient that belies its geographical label—say a chunk of duck confit in one called Castelnaudary. As Waverley Root said in his seminal work,
The Food of France
, “Cassoulet is what you find it.” Ultimately the best thing to do is eat up and revel in its deeply satisfying deliciousness.

Controversy aside, some features are the same in all cassoulets, beginning with the
cooking vessel itself. To produce exactly the right softly blended result, with white beans and meats cooking evenly and a nice crisp crust developing on top, you must have a wide, deep, round casserole made of terra-cotta that is glazed inside. The only possible substitute would be a similar shape in enameled cast iron. When all of the ingredients are in, a thick topping of bread crumbs is added. Authenticity demands that this crust be broken and stirred into the other ingredients three to seven times during cooking, each time allowing it to redevelop until at the end it is very crisp and thick, and layered down into the mix.

A feast for the eyes and nose as it is served, this blend of tender beans and meats, aromatic with garlic, onion, cloves, thyme, bay leaves, white wine, and good strong beef stock, requires only one more element for it to be enjoyed at its zenith: a miserably cold, wet, blustery, gray winter evening.

Where:
In Paris
, Benoit, tel 33/1-42-72-25-76,
alain-ducasse.com
;
in Toulouse, France
, Le Colombier, tel 33/5-61-62-40-05,
resaurant-lecolombier.com
;
in New York
, Quatorze Bis, tel 212-535-1414.
Further information and recipes:
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1
, by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck (1961);
The Food of France
by Waverley Root (1992);
saveur.com
(search hearty cassoulet).
Special events:
Fête du Cassoulet, Toulouse, France, August,
fete-du-cassoulet.com
; Back Forty Cassoulet Festival, New York, February/March,
backfortynyc.com
.

Humble celeriac (
Apium graveolens rapaceum
, also known as celery root or knob celery) is a bit like the Cinderella of celery. The bulbous, tangled knob grows underground while its better-known stalk sister is a favorite for salads and seasonings. But with a little attention and the proper dressing—in this case, the mustard seed–based mayonnaise known as rémoulade—celeriac becomes a star. Frugal French cooks long ago figured out that the creamy, soothing rémoulade made a perfect foil for the root, maximizing its clean and earthy flavor and toothsome texture.