Fortunately, just before I give in, Gemma spots some promising-looking parasols, which turn out to belong to an Italian restaurant of the French school: melon and clammy cured ham with bouncy, bland olives and spaghetti carbonara that comes with more cheese and bacon than noodles. Having resigned myself to un grand veggie burger et frites, I’m delighted.
We drink a bottle of wine from the South, admiring the spectacular sunset over streets that look more Mediterranean than I’ve seen in a week, and finish with some powerfully alcoholic ‘sundaes’ so liquid with booze that they’re served with straws. I wake up the next morning to find I’ve inadvertently used the bag of madeleines as a pillow.
Km: 78
Croissants: 0 (must try harder)
High: Those ‘sundaes’
Low: The horse-fly bite, still going strong in Paris
STAGE 19
Bar-le-Duc to Reims
Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée
The French may not have invented onion soup, but they certainly perfected it – there’s little more comforting than a bowl of intensely savoury broth, thick with sweetly caramelised onions and topped with a bubbling raft of cheesy croutons. Often credited to the bars and cafés clustered around Paris’s old Les Halles market, where it was served as a pick-me-up for traders up early and revellers out late, or to the bouchons of Lyon, Champagne also has a good claim to have popularised the dish, even if it doesn’t shout quite so loudly about it. Interestingly, onion soup has a reputation in France as being an excellent way of masking the smell of booze, and is thus frequently cited as a good thing to have the morning after the night before – the idea of which, much as I love it, makes me feel a bit queasy.
While I’m engaged in chatting to yet another bronzed couple of retirees at the campsite, Brits riding to Lake Constance in no particular hurry (‘The only place we wouldn’t cycle again is Texas – the guard dogs are something else’), Gemma trots off to the boulangerie and returns with four croissants whose various flavourings (almond, chocolate, butter and margarine) fail to disguise the fact that they’re all rubbish (4/10 generously, very bready and bland).
Never mind, Bar-le-Duc has been good to us, and we even fit in a brief visit to the McDonald’s we spurned last night on the way out for a cup of coffee and some free Wi-Fi.
PAUSE-CAFÉ – Coffee Break
If you’re still not quite sure what a flat white is, France is the land for you. Coffee culture here doesn’t seem to have moved on in the last 50 years, which makes ordering the stuff far less of a palaver – and believe me, if you’re on two wheels, you will be ordering a lot of it.
Coffee and cycling go together like hillwalking and Kendal Mint Cake – while I wouldn’t recommend it, six double espressos a day are not uncommon among the pro peloton, who tend to travel with their own equipment, because, in the absence of any other sustenance to get excited about, they take their coffee very seriously indeed. I think French coffee is fine – just don’t expect to get take-away; it’s not really a thing. If you’re in a hurry, ask to have it ‘au comptoir’ or at the counter.
‘Un café’ is generally taken to mean a small, black coffee – if you want a normal British measure, ask for ‘un café allongé’. ‘Un déca’ is a decaf if you must.
First thing, you might prefer ‘un café crème’ with your croissant, which, despite the name, may contain either milk or cream – a ‘café au lait’ suggests a big homely bowl of milky coffee, which you won’t get in a café – or perhaps a cappuccino if you’re feeling brave. Many French like to dunk their croissants in their coffee, but personally I think that’s a heresy you can only get away with if you were born into it.
The later it gets, the smaller the servings become – ‘un petit café’ and ‘un espresso’ are used fairly interchangeably. My favourite order is a ‘noisette’, literally a hazelnut, which is an espresso with a dash of milk. Actually, I lie. My favourite is a ‘café gourmand’: coffee with bonus cake (usually two or three tiny pieces of patisserie), though, McDonald’s aside, even the smallest coffee generally comes with a complimentary biscuit balanced on the saucer. Take that, Starbucks.
Once again, our route this morning rolls through a floodplain between two waterways; this time the River Ornain, on our right, and the Canal de la Marne au Rhin to our left, which connects Paris and Normandy with the mighty Rhine at Strasbourg, and to Switzerland and the North Sea beyond. The villages are gradually beginning to look less Germanically Gothic and more northern French, with as many shutters and plain facades as tall gables and half timbers, while the landscape has flattened into great plains of just-cut straw fringed with fluttering poppies. A rare hill near the village of Charmont is marked with a great wooden cross, and many of the smaller settlements, with their collections of long, low barns with sides made out of what appears to be giant sheets of wicker, have something of the Old American West about them – an impression reinforced by the white dust that hangs in the air behind every car.
I’m excited to spot, in the one-horse town of Possesse, a sign for Sainte-Menehould, which enables me to regale Gemma with a bitter anecdote about how, years ago, on the recommendation of one Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I ordered the famous ‘pied de cochon à la Sainte-Menehould’ in a restaurant nearby. The dreadful memory of these slow-cooked trotters, deep-fried and eaten whole, lives with me still, in particular the bones, which, I tell her several times, had the exact crumbly consistency of a mint left to rot in a damp coat pocket all summer, but sadly none of the flavour.
While I’m still wittering on about old Polos, we cross into the département of the Marne, and the ancient region of Champagne. The roadside trees are gone, replaced by chalky fields, on the horizon is a cluster of 10-storey grain silos, and it’s hot, the morning’s clouds lingering in fluffy cotton puffs above the field crops of white poppies. There’s a surprisingly large amount of heavy traffic thundering along the tracks to either side of us, travelling at speed and throwing up clouds behind them. Maintaining a slightly more leisurely pace, we roll down into Le Fresne, a prosperous-looking little place, which, like many round here, appears to have been recently hit by the apocalypse. Everywhere’s neat, and tidy, and entirely devoid of life; it’s a far cry from the villages of the South, with old men outside every bar, and cars idling outside the bakers as people grab their lunchtime loaf. Indeed, there are no bars to be seen at all, and certainly no bakers. We follow a Google lead to La Boulangerie d’Adrien, only to find it long deserted, the only clue he was ever there a sign decorated with a faded baguette swinging gently in the warm breeze. Where on earth do all these people get their breakfast? I wonder.
I can’t even berate myself for not stocking up earlier. I’m pretty sure we haven’t passed anywhere for at least two hours, which is how we end up dining at the top of someone’s drive on some squashed but still sticky madeleines, the last of the spicy Bayonne chocolate so enjoyed by those snails back in Carcassonne (I knew it would come in handy eventually) and two salted almonds apiece, along with a tot of Alsatian whisky. By the time we get back on the road, we’re both feeling more than a little crazed, and it’s a relief as we crest a long, straight hill outside Longevas to see the towers of Châlons-en-Champagne squatting on the featureless horizon.
Not just an exciting name (changed in 1998 from Châlons-sur-Marne, ostensibly to return it to its medieval roots, although associations with the world’s most famous wine surely can’t have hurt): Châlons is said (by some) to have spawned one of France’s best-loved culinary exports, soupe à l’onion gratinée, a bowl of molten cheese dipped in a homeopathic amount of savoury broth.
I’ve loved this heart attack in soup’s clothing since childhood, so it’s a joy to finally find myself at the (disputed) source, though Châlons itself is strangely quiet about it – far more so, in fact, than boastful rivals to the claim like Paris and Lyon. In this particular version of its creation myth, Louis XV, or perhaps Louis
XIV, returned to his hunting lodge one night, ravenous with royal hunger after a hard day sticking pigs, and found nothing in the cupboard but onions, butter and champagne – and lo, in a 17th-century prequel to Ready Steady Cook, this cosseted monarch, who had been waited on manicured hand and foot his entire life, put them together and came up with culinary perfection.
In an alternative version, Stanislas (him again), who regularly stayed in Châlons en route from Lorraine to Versailles, was so taken by the ‘so delicate and so refined’ soup served at the city’s Pomme d’Or Inn that he insisted on visiting the kitchen in his dressing gown to see how it was made. ‘Neither the smoke nor the smell of onion, which made him weep, could distract his attention,’ explains wikipedia.fr. Just when I thought I couldn’t love him any more.
The quiche debacle in Lorraine has somewhat dashed my hopes of finding a steaming bowl of soup in June, but we’re here now, ravenously hungry, and it’s worth a try. Having checked in to tonight’s apartment, we bundle all of my washing into a pannier, dump it on a laundrette and head straight to a café for refreshments.
I demand blue drinks all round – I don’t feel like I’m on holiday unless I’ve had a cocktail the colour of a swimming pool, and though strictly speaking I’m not on holiday, Gemma is, and no one deserves to drink alone. Having watched me bamboozle bar staff from the Alps to the Balearics with a demand for ‘anything as long as it’s blue’, she knows the drill. Even if they don’t have anything containing blue curaçao on the sticky cocktail menu, there will inevitably be a dusty bottle lurking somewhere behind the bar to spoil a nice gin and tonic with. The girl behind the bar here clearly thinks we’re crackers, but harmlessly so, and plays along gamely (‘Vraiment? Bien sûr, Mesdames!’), even giving us an extra-large bowl of salted peanuts to accompany them. Perhaps she thinks we’re on drugs.
Peanuts finished and laundry folded, I’m unsurprised to find that Châlons is not bubbling over with onion soup at this time of year, but dinner at the Bistrot Les Temps Changent (presided over by the wonderfully named Chef Feck) does at least gift me my first proper French Waiter Experience. The chap prepared to argue for hours over risotto in Morzine proves a mere amateur in comparison with tonight’s titan of hospitality.
After a superb piece of pollock poached in champagne with local favourite white asparagus (the charm of which has always escaped me) and a wild garlic sauce, I order a sablé Breton with strawberries and a mint sorbet. I’m a little surprised when said sorbet arrives looking like vanilla ice cream – but hey ho, I love ice cream. I take a greedy spoonful … and pause.
‘What?’ asks Gemma, sensing a chilly cloud coming to rest over the table.
‘What does this taste of to you?’ I ask, passing a teaspoon across.
Gamely she gives it a go, and nearly chokes. ‘Garlic …?’
I summon the waiter and explain the problem. His face suggests that, au contraire, I am the problem – instead of whisking the dish away immediately, he begins casting around for a spoon. Just as I’m wondering if he expects me to offer up mine, a minion arrives with a fresh one on a silver platter. He samples a smidgen, and, to his great professional credit, manages to keep an entirely straight face. There’s not even the ghost of a gag reflex on his marble countenance.
No, Madame is mistaken.
The manager arrives, and on being brought up to speed insists on speaking to me in slow and very bad English. For sure, he will change it if I do not like it. Struggling to keep a lid on my rage, I explain, in suddenly fluent if not entirely orthodox French, that it is hardly a question of not liking it – it’s not what I ordered, and, perhaps more pertinently, it’s completely vile. He disappears with the dish. I can almost see him rolling his eyes through his back as he stamps into the kitchen.
Five minutes later, when Gemma has tried and failed to placate me with half her dessert, he returns with another scoop on the same plate – explaining that Chef has a garlic ice cream on the starter menu and maybe – perhaps! – they used the wrong spoon.
Gemma, kind as ever, tells him not to worry, it’s not his fault. ‘HE NEVER SAID IT WAS!’ I say loudly as he stalks off. In fact, no one has shown the slightest bit of contrition. This time the sorbet (which is still an ice cream) tastes mildly of toothpaste. The crumble underneath, however, still reeks of garlic. The first waiter glides smugly over to ask how it is. I explain. He shrugs. I give up. We leave, after paying the bill in full. We do not bid them goodbye. That is how angry I am.
Onion Soup à la Stanislas
There are many ways to make French onion soup – red wine, beef stock and more than the odd slug of brandy – but this one, bulked out with stale bread like many old recipes, is based on a ‘soupe à l’oignon à la Stanislas’ from 1831, though with wine and stock rather than the original water, because apparently I have fancier tastes than the King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Lorraine.
Serves 2, generously, or 4, more elegantly
2 tbsp butter
3 fat onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 stale piece of sourdough or other robust bread
Butter, to spread
300ml dry white wine
800ml good chicken stock
For the croutons, if desired (you desire them)
2 thin slices of baguette
Olive oil, to brush
50g grated Gruyère
Melt the butter in a frying pan over a low heat and gently, slowly, fry the onions until soft and golden.
Meanwhile, toast the bread, then butter and cut into small pieces. Cut the crusts off, and cut these into extra-small pieces.
Turn the heat up slightly, add the bread and fry, stirring almost continuously, until the onions brown.
Transfer the onions and bread to a saucepan over a medium heat, add the wine and stock, and leave to simmer gently for 20 minutes.
If you want croutons, in defiance of the Champagne recipe, brush the slices of baguette with oil and toast under a hot grill until golden, then turn over and repeat. Once the soup is ready, divide between ovenproof bowls and put one in each. Pile with cheese and grill until golden and bubbling.
I’m still cross enough the next morning to eat half a packet of butter on the brown seedy bread I buy for lunch, which looks so good I can’t resist it after a disappointingly flabby 7/10 croissant from the same baker’s. This leaves only a modest amount to melt into my freshly washed kit as we pedal through the dead flatness of the Marne, the villages now pale stone and red brick. Gradually a wooded ridge shows itself on the horizon and, after we come off the road and on to the Canal de la Marne, suddenly we’re back in wine-making country, with vineyards sloping down almost to the luminous chalky green water.
It’s a long time since I was last in this region; not just because of that unfortunate experience with the pig’s trotter, but because, after spending several damp spring holidays here in search of cheap champagne, I felt like I’d had enough of winds that seemed to come straight from Siberia – there are, after all, many warmer places in the world to get drunk. These days, of course, I’m well aware that there is at least one set of mountains between Russia and Champagne, because I’ve just cycled over the bastards, but at the time, it seemed highly plausible that this vast flatness might stretch on for ever.
One of my fondest memories of Épernay, where we stop for lunch, concerns a little tourist train that took us round some champagne cellars one April long ago – I text my ex in the hope his memory is better than mine, and he responds immediately: ‘Mercier is the one with the train. Beware of the gross trotters,’ so I book us in for an afternoon tour. There is a time and place for visiting one-man-band winemakers in their garden sheds, and that place and time is not right now, on a bike, unless I want to throw out my tent to make space for the bottles I’d be all but obliged to buy having taken up an hour of their afternoon and drunk them ou
t of house and home. (Which, I’ll be honest, I kind of do.)
In the meantime, we forage for lunch. Épernay’s global reputation means that it’s home to any number of smart restaurants who would no doubt fall over themselves to welcome two such elegant ladies, but the sun is irresistible, and we end up in the lovely formal gardens of the town hall, which, unusually for France, seems to positively encourage picnickers (I’ve been chased out of them from Aix-en-Provence to the Alps before I’ve so much as shed a crumb). We eat jambon beurre sandwiches made from the leftovers from breakfast and so many cherries they threaten to give me a stomach ache, and drink warm champagne straight from the miniature bottle. In short, the kind of sophisticated pleasures no Michelin palace could have hoped to live up to.
After an hour of gentle snoozing in the shade of a plane tree (it strikes me sadly that this may well be the first impromptu snooze I’ve had since my early-morning train out of Nice), we head up the Avenue de Champagne, lined with the solidly prosperous-looking mansions of all the big names – cycling over, a sign informs us, 100km of storage tunnels full of fizz. Moët & Chandon’s HQ looks like an art-nouveau Parisian townhouse, while across the road Martell Mumm Perrier-Jouët has the appearance of a provincial chateau and a few doors down Pol Roger boasts a vast building fortified like the Bastille. I’m amused to note that the street signs at either end are marked ‘Propriété de la Ville d’Épernay’; clearly a fair few have ended up as drinking trophies.
One More Croissant for the Road Page 26
