Savoir Faire

French culinary know-how, the savoir faire behind one of the world’s greatest cuisines, needs little introduction. If you’re looking to gain a deeper understanding of French culture, there’s no better way than through the country’s food and drink.

Words: ELEANOR ALDRIDGE

Eating well is more than just a passion in France. The French spend longer at the dinner table than almost any other European nation, leisurely meals regularly lasting from an early-evening aperitif long into the night. Paris, perhaps unsurprisingly, has more than a hundred Michelin-star restaurants.

Away from the capital, French food culture remains deeply regional and traditional. Coq au Riesling, a local variant of the traditional chicken stew coq au vin, has been made much in the same way in Alsace for centuries. Wheels of raclette have sizzled by the fire in parts of the Alps far longer than skiers have raced down the mountain slopes. The integrity of some recipes, such as the humble baguette, baked only from flour, water, yeast and salt, are fiercely protected by law.

Dusty bottles of wine age in cool, damp cellars. Cheeses slowly mature on ancient stone-built farms set amid rolling countryside. Garlic is gradually dried by the warmth of the Mediterranean wind as it sweeps inland.

Time is the shared secret behind their exceptional flavour.

The rhythm of great ingredients

No matter where you are in France, seasons dictate the menu. Glossy strawberry tarts herald the arrival of summer; truffles mark the first cooler days in November. Oysters, farmed in the tidal waters off the Atlantic coast, are shucked with abandon from September to January. Only a few specialities are perennial. Bresse chickens, famously praised by King Henri IV, must be raised for at least four months – a life four times longer than many birds that find themselves on supermarket shelves. The cured ham, jambon de Bayonne, is required to be dried in the region for more than seven months to bear the name.

Cheese courses to savour

Cheeses, of course, are France’s oozing, pungent and crowning glory. There are a dizzying number to try: some 1200 in all. Camembert and Brie are essential to sample, but few show the magical effects of the passing of time like Comté, matured from the milk of the Montbéliard cows that graze the Jura mountains. Try a piece from a wheel aged for just nine months and it’s supple, sweet and fruity. At 30 months, the cheese becomes nutty, dry and crystalline, almost closer to Parmesan.

Uncorking the finest vintages

With great wine comes great patience. Patience for the buds to burst each spring and the leaves of the vines to unfurl. Patience for the grapes to grow, colour and ripen. Patience for oak barrels to slowly impart their tannin and flavour to a final blend. Once bottled, Burgundy’s elegant reds, made exclusively from Pinot Noir, have among the longest ageing potential. The best can easily lay in the cellar of a tile-roofed chateau on the Côte de Nuits for ten years. Those from the hallowed “DRC”, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, for twenty.

In Champagne, the story goes back further. Chalk caves, hewn by the Romans beneath the modern-day city of Reims, turn out to be the perfect temperature and humidity for ageing Champagne, which must rest on its lees (the sediment that forms after fermentation) for fifteen months, although most houses leave their bottles for three years. It’s these lees that give Champagne its rich, creamy and nutty notes.

Spirited away

Outside France, you’re most likely to see French liqueurs and spirits in a cocktail. Perhaps Lillet in a vesper martini, Cointreau in a margarita, or absinthe in a sazerac. Dining in France, expect to be offered spirits served neat as a digestif after a meal. None are more loved than Cognac, the golden and aromatic brandy produced in Charente-Maritime. It’s the ultimate expression of France’s time-honoured traditions, each sip some hundred years in the making.

The oak trees felled to make the barrels in which Cognac matures grow for around 150 years before finding themselves in the hands of a tonnelier (barrel maker), who will carve them into staves that go on to dry for another 36 months. Once distilled, the cognac itself must age for at least four years to be classified as VSOP, very superior old pale. Cognacs that are denoted XO, extraold, age for at least ten.

Tours and tastings

Join us for a private visit and tasting at a family-run biodynamic Champagne estate on the Côte des Blancs, learning about their philosophy for sustainable winemaking.

At Cognac Delamain, specialised exclusively in the production of old cognacs, you’re invited to uncover the secrets of the 18th-century stone cellars with the Cellar Master, followed by a tasting.

In Provence we go behind the scenes of the hunt for “black gold”, learning how elusive black truffles are cultivated and truffle dogs trained, before a class in truffle cookery.