An Alsatian Feast of Epic Proportions

Alsatian cuisine is in a league of its own!  Our valentine dining experience was a fine example of the plentiful and creative preparation of pork, the Alsatian way.  Alsatians are known for their pork sausages, smoked meats, pates, and general usage of just about every cut and piece of the animal.  Cochonnailles is the name of the six course meal that we reserved at the mountaintop monastery Mont Saint Odile.   

A six course meal just about anywhere in the world will fill you up, but a six course Cochonnailles meal will humble you.  We celebrated the occasion with my wife’s parents and brother making it a fun family outing.  The meal started off with a rich soup…a blood sausage soup called Kuttelsupp.  I’ll have to admit that I had never tasted blood sausage or soup until coming to France.  It’s a brown soup that has a smooth, medium consistency.  It’s not something that the America palate is accustomed to eating but it is a rich and tasty dish.  I’m a veteran now and love it.

Course two was called Plat campagnard which consists of both fresh vegetable salads and charcuterie.  The charcuterie is pork prepared in a number of different ways and served cold.  This course included black sausage (saucisse noir), liver sausage (saucisse de foie), head cheese (fromage de tête), black forest ham (jambon de la forêt noir), and country pate (pate de compagne).  The accompanying vegetable salad was a shaved carrot salad with a light vinaigrette dressing, slightly acidic and tangy to balance the fatty, cold pork.  Next up was a lemon sorbet with Marc Gewurztraminer poured overtop.  The Marc Gewurztraminer is the Alsatian version of grappa, a grape based liquor.  The sorbet and little hit of liquor gave us a second wind. 

At this point in the meal, I’ve had two bowls of soup, a full plate of heavy pates and cold cuts, and a sorbet with a little Alsatian love on top.  All of this came before the principal meal, the real star of this meal, choucroute royal.  Choucroute is a royally delicious assortment of pork goodness including:   lewerknepfle, tranches de lard fumé, tranches de lard frais, saucisses de Morteau, petits jambonneaux salés crus, saucisses de Strasbourg, boudin noir, and knack d’Alsace.  I’ll rely on the picture to translate the ingredients.  I tasted every type of pork and some of the mild sauerkraut that comes with it. 

We’re all stuffed to the gills but there are still two more dishes to come.  Fortunately we had several hours of time over which we could enjoy the meal.  A meal of this sort would not be French if there was not a cheese plate.  Our servers brought a three foot wide wicker tray with numerous wheels and blocks of cheese.  The final dish was desert.  I had a slice of apple pie and my wife had a sorbet with cherries and real whipped cream on top.  A nice finish to a thoroughly enjoyable meal.  

French Holiday Eats

Joyeux Noël!!  Awh, the holiday eating season is here.  This is the time of the year when there is always room for one more bite.  Below are a couple of the plates and treats that I was able to enjoy over the last few days here in Alsace.

One of my wife’s family’s traditions for their appetizer is to eat Apericubes amongst other munchies with their Champagne.  Apericubes are little cubes of flavored cheeses that are wrapped in tin foil with trivia questions written on them.  The questions cover a range of topics but primarily focusing on European topics with the occasional question about the U.S.  The easiest question for me to date was, “In what sport does Tiger Woods play?”        

What would a Christmas meal be without les escargots.  I’m a snail veteran of many years now and look forward to this buttery, rich dish.  Don’t let all of the childhood images of those slimy mollusks fill your mind.  These edible delights are tiny, have an unrecognizable shape and are each baked in individual baths of butter and parsley.  Once you've taken care of the little tasty snails, the butter-parsley liquid is sopped up with a crunchy baguette.  It is almost a meal in itself.

Foie gras, goose liver, is another one of those unique French treats that you should not pass judgment on until you try it.  This is nothing like beef liver and onions.  It resembles a pate but it is so rich and creamy that it is in a category of its own.  It is usually accompanied by a salty jello and a sweet fruit jelly such as fig or strawberry jelly.  In the U.S., I always said that just about any food would taste better with bacon on it, foie gras would be the French equivalent of bacon.

For my birthday, my wife treated me to a raclette meal.  This meal is one of those active eating meals where you are preparing your food as you go.  We went to a restaurant where cheese is the featured ingredient.  I thoroughly enjoyed this meal as you grill cheese and dip prosciutto, salami, and other cold cuts in the melted cheese and eat.  The meal was accompanied by fresh carrot and cabbage salads.    

Plenty of good food to discover here in France especially during the holiday season when the French pull out all of the punches.  There always seems to be one more course coming and a wine pairing with each course.   

Bredeles, The Little Alsatian Cookies

A family family tradition has been to bake Christmas cookies together.  It gives everyone a reason to get together prior to the holidays.  Each family will bring two or three of their favorite cookie recipes and then everyone gives a hand mixing the batter and baking.  Sampling is permitted.  We usually bake more than our appetites can sustain over the holidays…except for M&M cookies, which are my favorite.  

My wife and I decided to continue the tradition here in France with of course French Christmas cookies.  Her region of Alsace has a strong Christmas tradition that includes a wide variety of delicious cookies.  My wife's aunt was the queen of bredeles.  She set a high standard, baking a wide variety of cookies and quantities that you think could only be produced by a commercial bakery.  I had the opportunity to try her cookies a few years ago when I visited my wife’s family over Christmas.  Prior to returning to the U.S., my wife's aunt gave me a bag of her cookies that lasted no more than two days. 

Needlesstosay, I was stoked when my wife suggested that we bake bredeles.  My wife has a couple bredele cookbooks so we choose 9 different types of cookies to bake.  The cookbooks are in French with Alsatian names like Schkola Schpirale, Labkierchle Zengle, and Schwobebredle.  Fortunately, correct pronunciation was not a prerequisite to baking them.  We baked coconut, gingerbread, sugar, jelly, and other cookies.  It took us almost an entire day but we finished with a nice variety and plenty of cookies.  Now the best part begins…sharing and eating them!               

Thanksgiving in Paris

My wife and I decided to travel to Paris this weekend to spend some time with her friends.  It was Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S. and I was really craving turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie.  Although I was not able to partake in an American style feast nor watch football in the turkey induced food-coma state of mind, I was able to partake in some delicious French food in the City of Lights and visit a number of the city’s neighborhoods.   

We had an exceptional time visiting a number of popular Paris neighborhoods, Eiffel Tower, famous Christmas displays at the massive Printemps store, and plenty of other sites.  The first evening, we were able to visit the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, a stunning roman church that is perched on top of one of the tallest hills in Paris providing a panoramic view of the evening lights of Paris.  The name of the church means the Sacred Heart of Christ and was placed on the Mount of Martyrs (Montmartre).  It had served as a place of worship dating back to the 4^th century and a large number of Christians were martyred on the hilltop in the 9^th century.    The architecture of the basilica is rather unique for a roman catholic church.  The bulbous-shaped domes of the basilica resemble those of the Taj Mahal as opposed to the more linear shaped design that you find in Notre Dame with its square shaped towers.  It took 44 years to build the basilica, 17 years just to install all of the stained glass windows.  The basilica is dedicated to prayer and has a banner hanging on the front of the church stating, “For 125 years, Here, Day and Night, Somebody has been praying to the Lord.” 

We left the Basilica and returned to our friends’ apartment, which is located in an immigrant neighborhood in the 18^th arrondissement.  Paris is divided into 20 different arrondissements or districts.  The numbering starts at 1 in the center of the city and spirals outwards in a clockwise direction.  The 18^th arrondissement has a tarnished reputation due to high poverty and crime rates; however, it boasts one of the most diverse food scenes that I have seen in Paris.  Part of the food attraction was the number of West African restaurants although I saw French, Asian, Turkish, and Algerian restaurants as well.  Just on the few streets that we explored, I saw close to a dozen West African restaurants and plenty more specialty food stores supporting this local food niche.  One small grocery store that we entered, offered several varieties of dried and smoked fish that are popular in West African sauces.  I also spotted the Ivorian specialty of attiéké.  Attiéké is a sort of couscous that is made from cassava, a starchy root vegetable.  The smoked fish smell was a little pungent but the exhaust from several of the restaurants that wafted up the street reminded me of spicy peanut sauces and deep fried plantains.  My mind was flooded with images of dusty road-side cafes, sitting on rickety wooden chairs, and eating hot meals in the oppressively hot-humid climate.

Although we did not sample any of West Africa’s delicious cuisine, we did visit a small French restaurant in the neighborhood serving heavy, old country style French food.  It was below freezing outside so we were pleased to be seated in the corner of the small restaurant next to the large cast iron radiator.  Our waiter brought the menu over to our table which listed appetizers, deserts, and six entrees on a small chalkboard.  I chose a cheese fondue dish while my wife opted for the lamb shank with a rich brown sauce.  While our food was being prepared, we enjoyed an appetizer of different pâtés, salamis, other cold cuts, and cornichon (small French pickles).  The cheese fondue came served in a large cast iron bowl with a gel fire placed underneath and a pile of sliced French bread.  Each time I dipped a piece of the crusty baguette in the fondue I had to raise my fork above my head and turn it a dozen times before the string of cheese would snap.  Cheese paradise!  My wife was gracious enough to share her savory lamb and the carrot and potato accompaniments.  We also cleared out palates with a Chinon red wine from the Loire region.  Dessert was out of the question, we were stuffed.

The following evening, we celebrated the birthday of one of our friends.  They had invited several other couples to their apartment to celebrate together.  To get to their apartment from the street, we passed through massive wooden doors that gave you the impression of entering a castle.  They lived in a building built prior to the dawn of elevators.  We climbed up five flights of spiral stairs to arrive at their 4^th floor apartment.  Not sure why, but the French call the 1^st floor the zero floor.  Parisian apartments are quite compact, like something you would find in New York City, with no wasted space.  The fireplaces with their marble mantels and wooden plank floors gave the apartment character.  That night, they had invited over several other couples and had laid out a spread of more than a dozen different types of cold cuts.  As the hosts originated from the north of France, they provided a few of the regional specialties including andouillette, which is a pork tripe sausage.  They also shared pâté campagne, rillettes (finely shredded pork in a pate form), dried sausages, smoked ham, boudin noir (blood sausage), boudin blanc, and knack (pink pork sausage).   The conversation was lively and fun.  For desert, we had crepes topped with nutella. 

It was a great trip to Paris.  I enjoyed hanging out with her friends and sampling the delicious food.  It was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and although I missed being with my family, I was thankful to be able to be with my wife and spend some time with her friends.

Alsace: France's Beer Region and Home of Kronenbourg

When one thinks of popular French beverages, the first thing that comes to mind are a host of wines, spirits, and champagnes.  Beer does not come to mind.  The country does not have a strong reputation for producing beer, partly because they do such an incredible job with the other categories of beverages.  Beer in France is like soccer in the U.S.  There are just too many other competitors that overshadow their long beer heritage.

Despite the competition, France has a long history of producing beer especially in the Alsace region.  I set out today to visit Kronenbourg brewery, France's largest brewery, which is 45 minutes away from Ottrott in the suburbs of Strasbourg.  The old brewery buildings have mostly been demolished and brewing activities moved to the modern manufacturing site near Ottrott.  But, they did preserve the former brewing room with its massive copper kettles and the catacombs where beer was aged in 1,000 gallon oak barrels.

The tour started with a brief description of the four primary ingredients in beer:  hops, barley, yeast, and good quality water.  We were able to taste some of the barley used in their brewing process, ranging in color from golden to dark brown.  The higher the temperature that they roast the barley, the darker the beer and the more the caramel, chocolate, and other rich flavors are imparted in the beer.  The hops that are used in Kronenbourg's beers are locally grown Alsacian hops called Strisselspalt.  Stisselspalt hops provide some of the aroma and bitter flavor in the beer to balance out the sweetness from the barley malt.  A jar full of dried Strisselspalt hops was passed around the room so that we could touch and smell them.  It had a strong, herbal aroma.  More than 70 percent of the Strisselspalt hops grown in Alsace is exported to the U.S.  The yeasts used in Kronenbourg's beers are of course top secret and also give each of their beers their unique flavor. 

After the introduction, we watched a short video describing the evolution of beer from it's first conception in Egypt to modern mass production.  The video also highlighted a legend from medieval times about how brewmasters tested the quality of their beer.  Instead of tasting or other scientific analysis, the story told that brewmasters poured some of their beer on a wooden bench and sat in.  If the brewmater's pants stuck to the bench after the beer had dried, then it was considered to be no good and having too much sugar content.  If the pants did not stick then the beer was good to drink.  Fortunately I did not have to sit in any beer to determine its quality.  However, I was able to sample two of their beers at the end of the tour, the 1664 and the Kronenbourg. 

Kronenbourg was founded in 1664 which happens to be the name of the flagship beer brewed by Kronenbourg.  Kronenbourg is currently owned by the Carlsberg group and brews more than 20 beers including four versions of the 1664 and four versions of Kronenbourg.  The French call the 1664 blond a seize which is French for the number 16.  So if you want to show that you know a little something about French beers, tell your waiter that you want a seize (pronounced sayz).  At home, the French sometimes mix-in sweet syrups such as Picon with their light beers. Picon has a sweet orange and caramel flavor.

Additional Information
Websites:  Kronenbourg and Beer Selection
Tours: 6 euros for adults, Mon.-Sat.
           Tel:  +33 (0)3 88 27 44 88
           Brasserie Kronenbourg, 68 route d'Oberhausbergen, 67200 Strasbourg