A France worth sitting down for: Tous à table!

When I first came up with the idea of the France bike tour series, my mind (via my palate) automatically thought of the dinner table. In an earlier post, I mentioned my goal to praise all the great things going on in France and the reason why you should visit.

This is the first of those lists, and anyone who knows me knows that my heart lies very close to my stomach.

In fact, all Ciclismo Classico’s trips to France (actually, all Ciclismo Classico trips, period.) focus on food. The local cuisine reflects those elements of the country (and/or region) that you just spent the day biking through. We pride ourselves on highlighting the essentials of the local cuisine via the chefs and cuisinier who allow us into their kitchens. If you haven’t taken our Bike Across France trip recently, you haven’t had the opportunity to meet Chef Damien at Comme à la Maison in Castres. He will open your eyes to new flavors and techniques to master in the kitchen. You’ll also discover a few new recipes to call your “favorites.”

So, with no further ado, here are my top five favorites. You may have heard of some, but keep in mind a lot of these recipes depend on seasonal ingredients and where they are made. The flavors change all the time!

• Galettes: The sugary “crêpe” presents its savory sibling. Sure, the crêpe is well known for its banana and chocolate sauce, its ice-cream and caramel toppings as a dessert plate. But change the white flour for buckwheat flour, and you get a salty pancake fit for tomatoes cheese and egg–a cyclist’s delight. Or try the galette du roi, at the Crêperie Les Croquants near the Chateau de Sucino in the Morbihan of Brittany. Brittany is galette country and their blé noir (buckwheat) makes for excellent galette dinners.

• Garbure: When in Gascony look for this hearty vegetable and ham soup (believe it or not, the soup is so popular that they have formed a ‘Garbure Brotherhood’). Originally a “poor” dish, garbure changes depending on seasonal vegetables and duck confit is also added to the stew. The recipe I enjoy most is made with jambon de pays and crispy bits of pancetta (called ventrèche). Make a chabrol at the end of your meal by taking the last of your wine and pouring it into your bowl. Très, très bon!

• Clafoutis: Not really a turnover and not really a flan. But it is delicious! It’s a combination of flan/turnover and resembles a Far Breton (Brittany flan cake) in its texture with one added bonus: fruit! Usually the chef throws in cherries (or apricots at times). After the solidifying process has stopped, you want to eat this when it’s warm but not runny. Chef Michel from the Hostellerie de l’Abbaye de Frigolet baked a number of these for our groups in a wood-fire oven. The smokiness adds a crispy bite to the apricots that I will always remember.

• Tartiflette: Imagine a ride descending in frigid temperatures (and this was July!). Pedaling over 110 km through some of the most rugged alpine passes in the history of professional cycling (Galibier, Tèlègraphe, Montcenis). That evening, we had a feast of tartiflette: potatoes, onions, bacon, and pounds of reblochon cheese. This hearty (and heavy) Alpine dish comes from the Savoy region and fuels the Alpine skiers in the winter. Be forewarned: it is a great meal to have at the end of a long, cold and challenging day. For dessert, pass around a café de l’amité (a huge coffee spiked with grappa, genépy and all kinds of goodies) as Enrico and I did in 1998. Good times!

There you have it, my top five for the week. All this talk about French cuisine is getting me excited for the Bike Across France and Loire departures coming up. OK, so let’s hear it: what are your top five French dishes?

Join us to taste an array of authentic French dishes you’ll remember for a lifetime on this bike tour featuring a deliciously offbeat itinerary.