Warning! Do not continue unless you have already eaten!
The State of California has determined that if you are in any way hungry or thirsty it is dangerous to consume this blog and you may suffer irreparable psychological damage.
If you approach the average French person from Normandy and
ask in English “What is the most famous thing about Normandy” you may well get
a blank stare - many of them don't speak English. But if you ask it in French with an English
accent, he will instantly reply “Bien sur, c’est Guillaume Le Conquerant!” (“Of course, it’s William The Conqueror!”)
The best thing, however, about cruising Normandy is the food and wine: the bounty of land
and sea, not forgetting the apple liqueur Calvados.
We must first rave about the oysters, undoubtedly the finest
we have ever tasted!
The huge flat
beaches coupled with a 25 foot tide range make St Vaast a perfect land/seascape
for the French to farm oysters by the millions. These Froggies are quite good
oyster farmers – they have been doing it a long time - and take the oysters
from the seabed and place them on platforms so that at high tide they are
covered, and ..........
.........as the tide goes out they then uncover and sit in the air.
This
makes the French oyster very plump and yummy!
Next comes the wine, and Muscadet wine is not expensive and
goes very well with oysters.......
....and so you can dine like kings for the price of
fish and chips!
Then there are the Pates,
the pastries and confectioneries,
Chocolate sculpted into every fanciful icon of art deco,
the sausages and charcuterie,
and of
course, the hundreds of different cheeses.
All this is superbly complimented by
the baguettes, the olives, and every type of vegetable imaginable.
And perhaps best of all, the process of acquisition is so
much fun, with old fashioned markets in every town, and bakers and pastry
shops, butchers and delicatessen, and every sort of temptation for the taste
buds.
Vive La France Gastronomique!
Jean et Nancie Chevalier
