The view across the old harbour was delightful but unfortunately the buckwheat pancakes we had for lunch at one of Honfleur’s quayside restaurants overlooking the Vieux Bassin were disappointingly dry, boring and expensive for what was offered.
That meal apart, however, we ate exceedingly well on our short break to Honfleur.
We very much enjoyed our evening meals at La Grenouille, L’Absinthe and Les Deux Ponts all on quai de la Quarantaine, and the Auberge du Vieux Clocher on rue de l’Homme de Bois. But after a 20-minute wait we walked out of Entre Terre et Mer the service was so bad.
However, the restaurant that scored most points was La Tortue in rue de l’Homme de Bois where we lunched before making our return journey to Caen (Ouistreham), Brittany Ferries and home. The service, cooking and presentation were excellent and the meal very good value. The menu listed many tempting dishes including several vegetarian options.
Norman Specialities
With its miles of coastline and fertile soil producing a wide range of rich and varied produce Normandy has gained a justified reputation for its gastronomy. A cuisine is very much governed by the ingredients to hand hence apples, cider, cream, butter, cheese and fish play a major role in recipes from Normandy.
Fish and Meat
Early morning visits to Honfleur’s quayside reveal fishermen doing a brisk trade selling that night’s catch to housewives and restaurants alike. Look out for oysters, wonderful scallops (coquilles St-Jacques) and mussels, to say nothing of lagoustine, lobsters and shrimps. A wide variety of cold water fish is available too – sole are very popular as are turbot, John Dory, mackerel and herring. Fish dishes often feature apples or cider: try mussels cooked in cider as an alternative to white wine. And do try a steaming bowl of Marmite Dieppoise – Normandy fish stew.
Beef from the non-dairy cows does appear on some menus but diners are more likely to be offered veal in various guises such as cutlets, escalopes and kidneys. Tripe is also popular: look out for tripes a la mode de Caen.
The lamb can be especially good – try the AOC (Appellation d’origine controlee – quality of origin label) salt marsh lamb (Agneau de Pré-salé). Salt marsh lamb is considered to be the finest lamb in the world noted for its unique, delicate flavour and tenderness. One of the best regions in France for pré-salé lamb is the area near Mont-St-Michel where sheep have grazed since the 11th century.
Andouille – chitterling sausage – made from a pig’s small intestine containing smoked pork offal is a speciality from Vire. Look out for the label Véritable andouille de Vire .
Butter
Isigny butter comes from the small coastal village of Isigny-sur-Mer where the attractively marked brown and white cows graze on grass nurtured by the mild climate and enriched with the iodine, beta carotene and trace elements from the local saltmarshes. The butter, golden in colour with a slightly sweet, nutty taste, has been enjoyed since the 16th century. It was granted AOC status in 1986.
Apples and pears
Apple orchards have flourished in the mild Normandy climate resulting in some amazing ciders and Calvados, the local apple brandy. It is also worth trying Pommeau a blend of unfermented cider and apple brandy.
Calvados is often taken as a digestif at the end of the meal. But it can also be served as an aperitif, or served between courses to improve the appetite for the next course (trou normand). Cider can be transformed into a Kir Normand – take a measure of crème de cassis and top it up with cider.
Devotees of cider and calvados, or anybody just interested in exploring the beautiful Normandy countryside, should follow the 40km Route du Cidre that winds its way through the Pays d’Auge.
Along with the apples there are also pear orchards; the pears used to make perry – a cider-like drink. Another route to follow is La Route de Poiré, a 75km circuit running through the pear orchards of Lower Normandy.
Cheese Board
Normandy is famous for its four local and very special cheeses Camembert, Pont l’Évêque, Livarot and Neufchatel.
Camembert
Most of us are familiar with Camembert – a soft, somewhat creamy cow’s milk cheese with a whitish, edible rind. As the cheese ripens it develops an oozing interior, its colour deepens, and it takes on a stronger smell and flavour.
Cheese has been made in the town of Camembert since at least 1680 and even then was noted for its quality. But credit for the cheese we recognise today as Camembert is credited to Marie Harel. The story goes that in 1791 during the French Revolution she was told a way of improving the cheese by the Abbe Bonvoust, a priest from Brie, who had sought refuge on the farm. The fame of the cheese spread, aided in part by Napoleon III, to Europe and beyond. It was included in the rations of French soldiers fighting in World War I. A statue dedicated to Marie Harel stands in Camembert.
The process of turning the milk into an AOC protected Camembert (ie, produced in the Pays d’Auge region of Normandy) involves several stages. First the whole milk has to be turned into curds which are carefully transferred into round moulds where the whey is left to drain off. It takes at least five ladles of curd (about two litres of milk) to make the cheese. The cheese is then removed from the moulds and covered with a thin layer of salt and the special bacteria that creates the mould. The cheese is then left to ‘rest’ before being packed into small round wooden boxes. After 21 days it has become ‘refined’ and can be sold. Camembert was awarded its AOC in 1983.
Livarot
Livarot, with its distinctive brown-orange rind and banding, takes its name from the village of Livarot near Lisieux in Calvados, Pays d’Auge. Sometimes it is referred to by its nickname ‘the colonel’ because its five bands are said to resemble the five stripes on a colonel’s uniform.
Its origin is lost in the annals of time but it certainly dates back to the middle ages and appears to have also descended from the group of cheeses from Normandy known as Angelots.
Five litres of cows’ milk are needed to make the cheese which is at least 40% fat. The milk is treated to form curds which are put into moulds and left for the whey to drain off. The cheeses are then turned several times and washed in brine over a period of about a month before the bands (laîches) are applied. Originally these would have been made from willow and were to hold the cheese together, but today reeds or paper are used and more for aesthetic reasons. One of the washes used is likely to contain the natural dye annatto (roucou) which gives the cheese its distinctive colour. Livarot, which people either love or hate, for it is an exceedingly pungent cheese has been protected by an AOC since 1975.
Pont l’évêque
Pont l’évêque was originally produced by monks in the 12th century, making it one of the oldest Norman cheeses still in production. At one time it was called Augelot, a name probably derived from its region of origin the Pays d’Auge. However, a century later it was being referred to as Pont l’évîque after the village of the same name located between Deauville and Lisieux.
It is a soft, washed or brushed rind cheese made from three litres of cow’s milk and contains at least 45% fat. It is square shaped and has a light orange to straw colour rind that deepens as it matures. The milk is heated to a maximum temperature of 40˚C and by the addition of rennet allowed to curdle. The curds are cut and turned to allow the whey to drain before being moulded. The cheese, frequently turned to remove any excess whey, is left to mature at 21.9˚C before being transferred to a cooler temperature for a few days before having its rind salted and washed. It needs approximately 40 – 45 days to mature. Pont l’évêque was awarded an AOC quality of origin label in 1976.
Neufchatel
The debate continues as to whether Neufchatel is the oldest cheese of Normandy. One thought is that it dates back to 1035 as a text of that year mentions the production of cheese in the Neufchatel region. However, other sources consider that it dates from 1543 because it is mentioned by name in a ledger of the Rouen St-Aman Abbey. (It takes its name from the village of Neufchâtel-en-Brayon.)
It comes in a number of shapes and sizes, but the most famous is the heart shape. Legend has it that the heart shape came about when local lasses during the Hundred Years War were trying to capture the attention and hearts of the British soldiers stationed in the area.
The traditional way of making Neufchatel differs from that of the other main Norman cheeses. Fresh milk is heated then rennet added. After the curds are formed and cut, they are put into cotton bags and left to drain under their own weight for several hours. The bags are then pressed to extract as much whey as possible. This pressing process produces a cheese that is thicker and grainier than a cheese such as Camembert. The cheese is salted and bacteria introduced to activate the development of the white rind before being left to mature in a temperature controlled environment. The flavour intensifies as it ages and the texture becomes softer. Neufchatel was granted AOC status in 1969.
Sweet Treats
Caramels d’Isigny
Caramels d’Isigny are the wonderful creamy toffees made from the salted butter from Isigny-sur-Mer.
Once upon a time in the 1930s, or so the story goes, there were two companies experimenting with ways of using the local butter. Galliot, in 1932 was the first company to come up with a recipe for a sweet naming it Isicrem, but seven years later in 1939 their competitor Dupont d’Isigny was producing their sweet called the Dupont-Crème. The Isigny Cooperative decided to purchase the companies in the latter part of the 20th century and took over the production of the popular caramels, salted butter toffees and biscuits, so as to ensure their recognition as genuine Caramels d’Isigny. Today they produce some 70 different varieties of toffees and caramels.
They have competition however, for in 2006 the Cidrerie Viard and Normandie Caramel companies of Bayeux joined forces and created Caramel de Bayeux from caramel, apple puree, butter and cider.
Biscuits – Sablé
Norman sablé biscuits have a softish, crumbly texture – not dissimilar to shortbread – and are made from butter, eggs, flour, sugar and flavourings. The word sablé means sand – the biscuits so named perhaps because of their texture and their golden colour. Some sablé manufacturers provide tours for visitors.
Teurgoule
Teurgoule is a Norman dessert made from rice, milk, sugar and cinnamon. All four ingredients are cooked together in the oven for several hours by which time a rich crust has formed on the top.
Confiture de lait
Confiture de lait, a speciality of Normandy, is a sweet caramel-like sauce prepared from milk and sugar, similar to dulce de leche. It is made by simmering whole milk and sugar together for several hours. It needs constant stirring. As the mixture thickens so it turns creamy, a rich gold colour and sinfully delicious.
Salt Marshes
The bay of Mont-St-Michel covers a vast area with strong tides resulting in the surrounding land frequently submerged by the sea. Consequently the plants that grow there have had to adapt themselves to life above and below the salty water. The sheep graze on them (agneau de pré-salé) giving their meat a subtle, but not salty, flavour and tenderness, which has earned it its AOC designation.
The Camembert Box
Originally Camembertwas sold in local markets on beds of straw. As the demand for the cheese spread so it had to be transported further afield. Various methods of transporting the fragile cheese were not entirely satisfactory and it was not until the beginnings of industrialisation that the solution was found. About 1890 an engineer, Eugène Ridel fashioned a strong, lightweight, circular box out of poplar wood. The boxes enabled Camembert to be shipped safely round the world. The Leroy sawmill, who made the boxes, grew to become the biggest producer of Camembert boxes in Normandy.
There can be few people today who have not enjoyed an oozing Camembert cheese, its wrapper removed, cooked for 10 minutes and served from its wooden box along with some crusty bread.
Annatto
Annatto, a yellow to orange food colouring and flavouring, also known as roucou , produced from seeds of the tropical and subtropical Achiote trees.
Angelots
The word ‘Angelots’ was certainly used by Cistercian monks at an abbey near Caen. It also appears in a text of 1255 – ‘a good table was always graced with a dessert of Angelots’ (Roman de la Rose by de Lorris and de Meun). The word actually means ‘angel’. One of the coins in use at the time depicted the Archangel Michael and was called an angelot. Its usage for cheese probably came about because cheese was used in Normandy as a means of payment for tithes instead of money.
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