One More Croissant for the Road

by Felicity Cloake

  We go through the various forms of this creamy, washed-rind cheese they have on offer: a soft, ripe version made with milk from a single farm, a firmer blend from the co-operative, a silver-medal-winning variety … which does she prefer, I wonder? She makes a face like I’m asking her to choose between her children, so obviously, as someone about to embark upon a long train journey on a warm day, I gamely buy one of each.

  Tartiflette

  A slightly looser, more wine-soaked version of my own recipe – the wine cuts through the potatoes and cheese to give the false impression of lightness. Don’t blame me if you eat more in consequence.

  Serves 6

  1.3kg waxy potatoes, peeled

  2 tbsp butter (about 35g)

  1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced

  150g smoked bacon lardons

  250ml dry white wine

  200ml whipping cream

  1 Reblochon

  1 garlic clove

  Cut any large potatoes into chunks the size of the smallest, so they’re all about the same, then boil in well-salted water until just tender to a fork, but not cooked right through. Drain well and leave to cool.

  Meanwhile, melt half the butter in a frying pan and sauté the onions and bacon until the onions are soft and both are beginning to brown. Tip in the wine, then bring to a simmer and reduce by about half. Take off the heat and stir in the cream.

  Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6. Cut the potatoes into smallish cubes (roughly 1cm). Heat the remaining butter in a frying pan and sauté them until golden. Cut the cheese in half laterally.

  Rub an ovenproof dish with the cut clove of garlic, then cover the base with half the potatoes. Spoon over half the onion and bacon mixture and season well. Top with half the Reblochon, then repeat the layers, with the remaining Reblochon half, rind uppermost, on top.

  Bake for 15 minutes, until browned and bubbling (stick it under the grill for 5 more minutes if you want it really crisp), then serve with a green salad and a glass of dry white wine.

  Km: 93.4

  Croissants: 2 (average 7/10, one celebrity, one old friend)

  High: Reaching the top of the Col de Joux Plane

  Low: The rail replacement bus

  STAGE 14

  Lyon

  Salade Lyonnaise

  Salade lyonnaise is made from pleasantly bitter frisée lettuce, or sometimes dandelion greens, dressed with a sharp vinaigrette and topped with crisply fried bacon lardons, oily croutons and a softly poached egg. Given the relative quantities involved, it’s a salad in the true French sense of the word: 70 per cent animal, 30 per cent vegetable.

  I hit another strike day on my way down from the Alps – though there are only, in fact, two a week, they seem to have been carefully scheduled to cause me maximum stress. Thankfully, however, I’m now sufficiently far north for this not to mean a total shutdown of all services. Instead, I’m gifted three hours in Annecy, which proves long enough for a happy wallow in its beautiful chalky lake as a paraglider soars over the peaks above. On shore, a woman of about my age perches on a rock, fully clothed, taking selfie after selfie as her feet sink into the glacial mud. Gotta get those likes.

  Afterwards, I sit, dripping but elated, on the grass and eat a cold sausage I watched my mum retrieve from the bin for my packed lunch, a slab of Beaufort cheese, and a large and very ripe tomato, and try hard to ignore the increasingly angry smell coming from the bag containing the Reblochon. So aggressive is this odour that I shamefacedly abandon the offending pannier in the bike carriage on the train to Lyon, trusting in its power to deter potential thieves.

  The next stage is as close as I’ll come to a peloton: my friends are, to a woman, greedy people, and Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France, has proved a popular choice. Conveniently situated on the main route between the Mediterranean and the North, the city has punched above its culinary weight for centuries, helped, in part, by a wealth of produce remarkable even in a nation known for its food. The world-famous poulets de Bresse, Charolais beef, the fish of the Rhône and Saône and the bountiful fruit and veg of the South all pour into Lyon’s kitchens, and the wines of nearby Burgundy into its cellars.

  Waiting for me there are my schoolfriend Lucy and her partner, Ned, the man who cycled the amateur stage of the Tour de France last summer, and my university friends Ali, who’s four months pregnant, and Bea, who isn’t. My baking- and barking-mad mate Martha has managed, completely characteristically, to book a flight for tomorrow by mistake, thus ensuring, rather tragically, that she misses out on dinner in the French capital of high-class piggery.

  Like us, Lyon has a high opinion of itself in the greed stakes, the prevailing wisdom being that ‘Parisians taste everything without tasting anything; the Lyonnais eat’. And by God, so do we. The city is known for its bouchons – sometimes, inaccurately to my mind, translated as taverns. They’re rustique rather than rustic; less spit and sawdust and beer-sticky floors, more checked tablecloths and rough wine straight from the barrel, with tablier de sapeur or deep-fried tripe (whose name translates, somewhat mysteriously, as ‘fireman’s apron’) in place of pork scratchings.

  Ned’s friend Julien, who studied in Lyon, has sent a long list of must-try foods (some of which, including the aforementioned apron, are accompanied by the pleading note ‘Just do it!) and must-visit places, most of which are closed on a Monday. I spend most of the journey from Annecy frantically trying to get through to one of the few restaurants on the list that is apparently open, Le Garet – ‘one of the best bouchons lyonnais. They do calf’s head!’ – and the relief when I manage to snag a table for five is such that I end up shouting, ‘MERCI, MADAME, MERCI,’ down the phone after the proprietor sternly informs me she’ll give our spot away if we’re any more than 15 minutes late.

  This warning echoes ominously around my skull a little later as I sit in rush-hour traffic with Lucy and Ned, having spent rather too long gossiping in the apartment near the railway station that the three of us are renting for the night. I text Ali, who is staying nearer the restaurant, to beg her to go and secure the table. There follows a long and extremely stressful silence, during which I try to pretend everything’s fine when it really isn’t, then, finally, a picture of her posing gleefully next to a large porcelain pig. ‘WE’RE HERE!’ the accompanying message reads. ‘It just made me laugh to think how cross you’d be. Were you worried?’ If it wasn’t for the innocent within, I’d cheerfully strangle her on arrival, but instead I kiss Bea pointedly and sit down. Ali is delighted with herself.

  For once, the stars align; not only are the womb-like wood-panelled surroundings of Le Garet, with its pendant lights and innumerable knick-knacks, very soothing, but its menu contains almost everything on Julien’s hitlist – and, pregnant lady aside, I’ve somehow managed to assemble the perfect crack team of adventurous eaters, allowing us to go completely mad over two courses that feel like ten.

  The first spread comprises the inevitable salade lyonnaise, with its soft poached egg and oily croutons, rich, sticky goose rillettes, a plate of squidgy smoked herring served with cool, waxy potatoes and a salade de cochonnailles, a dish that we only realise belatedly is priced per person for a reason. The table fills with vast bowls of pressed pig snout, soft pink sausage and the best tripe I’ve ever tasted – which, frankly, is a low bar this particular bovine stomach clears with ease, given it tastes of neither bleach nor shit, allowing us to appreciate its intriguingly bouncy, frilly texture without any such unpleasant distractions – plus some lentil vinaigrette as a token nod to fibre.

  Even us gluttons struggle to make a dent in it before the next load arrives: the aforementioned tablier de sapeur, which is simultaneously crunchy and squidgy and surprisingly moreish; some of Julien’s favourite creamily bland boiled calf’s head (rich in ‘suspicious white matter’, as it’s dubbed at the other end of the table), served with a spiky, vinegary sauce ravigote studde
d with chopped egg and pickle, and the two safe options, an intense navarin of lamb and a ragoût of seasonal ceps … plus the thing I’ve been talking up all evening, the andouillette, which is anything but.

  PAUSE-CAFÉ – Andouillette

  Attentive readers may recall the similarly named pressed chitterling sausage I almost enjoyed back in Brittany. This is the full-throttle version, beloved all over France, though claimed by a number of regions as their own special creation.

  Let me give you a sample of the top English-language Google results for this peculiarly French treasure. ‘Andouillette: One of the things you must never try eating in France’ comes in at number two; ‘Andouillette … or the Dish of Death’ at four, closely followed by ‘The offal truth’, ‘Andouillette: French pig-colon sausage’ and my personal favourite, the somewhat mixed message of ‘Where to eat andouillette: France’s stinky, urine-smelling sausage’.

  Studied objectively, preferably with a clothes peg over your nose, the andouillette has a strange and terrible beauty, made up as it is of lengths of pig intestine in various degrees of cleanliness, folded into a colon, or another piece of intestine, much in the manner of a Twirl, but ideally, and for obvious reasons, with less of the chocolate colour.

  They’re a bit of a cult thing in France, and though the most famous examples come from Troyes, in the Grand Est, the official Code des usages de la charcuterie, de la salaison et des conserves de viande (chapitre 10.4, Andouillette supérieure), a document put out by the Institut de Porc (I swear I’m not making this up), lists seven regional versions, including an andouillette provençale, and an andouillette lyonnaise made from veal, rather than, or as well as, pig.

  The AAAAA, or Association amicale des amateurs d’andouillette authentique (the Amicable Association of Authentic Andouillette Appreciators), whose 5A logo denotes a truly ‘authentic’ (a troubling word in this context) product, is currently revising its guidelines on this Lyonnaise sausage, which has only recently reappeared on the market in the wake of BSE, so ‘Watch this space!’ as the website promises intestine fans. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

  In his memoir, Under a Mackerel Sky, Rick Stein, a man no stranger to blood and guts, recalls being warned off the andouillette by a typically dour Parisian waiter: ‘I think maybe you don’t like these … it’s French speciality. No for English.’ For the sake of national pride, however, he ploughed his way through an entire plate of ‘stumpy sausages, which I can only describe as honking, in the sense of a strong blaring smell. They were very powerful – the same order of unsettling aroma as ripe Camembert but also sharp tasting in their intestinal taint’.

  Like Rick, I feel bound to finish the plate, though in fact, for once, this doesn’t prove a problem. I’m not sure whether it’s because veal is less pungent than pig, or because the sharp, mustardy sauce smothers any lingering ‘farmyard’ aromas, or simply because I’ve been in France too long, but, as with the tripe, here the texture, all tubes and fronds, is allowed to shine. And, I find, having looked the realities of textural interest in the face, it’s quite possible to make peace with them, and even enjoy them. As Ned puts it, ‘On the scale of farmyard to actual shit, this is quite mild.’

  I make sure that dish is finished, even if we hardly make a dent in the overall spread. They’re clearing up around us as we finally finish the last of the ‘rustic’ red, make a final trip to the loos to appreciate a display of vintage bloomers and arse-themed art (featuring several sculptures of women playing pétanque with their skirts mysteriously tucked around their waists, having unfortunately forgotten to put on their knickers), and roll home in an offal-induced fug.

  Salade Lyonnaise

  Though tripe, andouillette and calves’ heads may be hard to come by in Britain these days, the ingredients for this bistro classic are not, though you might have to go to a greengrocer’s for a frisée lettuce. (Other bitter leaves like chicory, or indeed the traditional dandelion greens, would also work well, or at a pinch, crunchy mixed salad.) Leave out the lardons if you’d prefer to keep it vegetarian, frying a finely chopped shallot in step 2 instead to flavour the vinaigrette.

  Serves 4

  ½ a slim baguette (ficelle for preference, if you can get it)

  Olive oil, to drizzle

  1 garlic clove, cut in half

  150g smoked bacon lardons

  1 tbsp Dijon mustard

  2 tbsp red wine vinegar

  4 eggs

  2 heads of curly endive/frisée lettuce (see above), washed and dried well

  Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6, and cut the bread into thin slices. Drizzle with oil and arrange on a baking sheet. Bake for about 12–15 minutes, until crisp, then rub with the garlic and set aside.

  Fry the lardons in a dash of oil over a medium high heat until bronzed and crisp. Stir in the mustard and then the vinegar, scraping the pan, and set aside.

  Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Crack the eggs into ramekins, then slide them into the water and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 3 minutes, then scoop out and drain on kitchen paper.

  Rub a salad bowl with garlic and tear in the salad leaves. Add the contents of the pan and toss together. Divide between four bowls and top each with a poached egg.

  I get up early for the sole purpose of hunting down a decent croissant – only to discover there’s a baker a couple of streets away sporting the red, white and blue of the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, a prestigious trade association for ‘craftsmen’ encompassing everyone from barmen to locksmiths, dog groomers and, of course, pâtissiers. Membership is decided by means of a high-stakes competition; if this whets your appetite, I highly recommend the documentary, Kings of Pastry – When Bake Off Goes Bad (and if the filmmakers ever re-release it, they can have that subtitle for free).

  Having passed the test, Philippe Hiriart has earnt the right to sport patriotic stripes on his baker’s whites, and, trusting in their power, I purchase, somewhat against my better judgement, a slab of clementine clafoutis as well as the pastries I’ve come in for – and which I promptly drop face-down on the pavement outside. It doesn’t seem too dirty, so I brush it off and serve it to Lucy and Ned for breakfast. It’s much better than his croissant (4/10, dry, crumbly, dull), all custardy and wobbly, with a vanilla-flecked skin on top and a delicate puff-pastry crust. Quite different from the firm flan that captured my heart in Limoges, but equally enjoyable, especially with its sprinkling of authentic Lyon filth.

  We meet Ali and Bea at the world-famous Halles de Lyon indoor market, renamed after this greedy city’s most famous gastronomic son, the late Paul Bocuse, back in 2006. Now, six months after his death, large posters of the great man with the legend ‘Merci Monsieur Paul’ line the walls, and a five-storey mural of him glares from the side of an apartment building opposite. The plan is to assemble a train picnic, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is rather like going to Fortnum & Mason to buy a sandwich – Les Halles Paul Bocuse are more of a temple to the pleasures of the stomach than anything so base as a mere market.

  Jaws open in wonderment, we pass a stall selling nothing but queues of perfect quenelles, black olive and green spinach alongside the traditional pallid pike versions, and another gaudy with Lyon’s sugary pink almond praline. There are magnificent displays of whole crystallised fruit, a greengrocer offering punnets of strawberries for €10 and even an épicerie with shelves full of Colman’s mustard, Tiptree jam and Waitrose hoi sin sauce.

  Tempting as it is to stock up, I tick off another item from Julien’s list instead: a saucisson brioché, a disconcertingly fleshy, softly textured salami studded with pistachio and baked into a fluffy brioche loaf. Ned and Lucy contribute a mini-Jésus, a pear-shaped saucisson originally prepared in the run-up to Christmas (mini because large versions weigh over 6kg, the same as a small dog). Bea buys some jambon persillade, vivid green and jellied, and Ali bucks the porcine trend with tabbouleh and olives. A
long with a baguette, the by-now powerfully odiferous Reblochon and Martha’s contribution – two EAT sandwiches from Gatwick (‘I wasn’t sure if I’d get hungry,’ she says when we finally track her down at the railway station) – we’re ready to pig out all the way to Chalon-sur-Saône, where we start our Burgundy pilgrimage.

  Km: 0

  Croissant: 1 (4/10, eclipsed by a clementine clafoutis from the same bakery)

  High: Dinner, obviously

  Low: Hyperventilating in a cab because I thought we were going to miss dinner

  STAGE 15

  Chalon-sur-Saône to Dijon

  Boeuf Bourguignon

  Despite the name, this wine-rich stew actually seems to be a Parisian invention. According to food historian James Chevallier, though boeuf bourguignon does not appear on lists of Burgundian specialities until well into the 20th century, it pops up in an 1878 guide to the capital, which lasciviously describes the plump waitresses at one restaurant as good enough to even make ‘boeuf bourguignon acceptable’. This suggests the dish had a bad reputation and was perhaps, as one early recipe recommends, commonly prepared with leftover meat. These days, it’s the region’s star culinary turn, and deservedly so.

  The pig-nic, which gets laid out across two tables as soon as we board the train, does not make us the most popular people in the carriage – not only are we loud with excitement and sausage jokes, but the Reblochon has reached peak maturity in the morning sunshine, and, with my antennae now finely tuned to the exact pitch of Gallic disapproval, I notice lips being pursed all around us. My companions are happily oblivious, garrulous in their holiday freedom, busy discovering they went to the same Leeds club nights at the same time, merrily reminding each other of favourite happy hardcore tracks, and no way, you must work with my brother?