Free French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David

the lamb reared in the salt marshes, at the Nantais ducklings served with the tiny green peas or the baby turnips of the district. From Le Mans and La Flêche come chickens which rival those of Bresse, from the Prévalaye butter which has been famous at least since Madame de Sévigné’s day, from Angers and Saumur the delicious fresh cream cheeses called crémets which are eaten with sugar and fresh cream, from Touraine the rillettes de porc which figure in every local hors-d’œuvre, and which you can see piled up in gigantic earthenware bowls and jars in all the market places and in the charcuteries.
    At restaurants in Nantes, Tours, Angers, Vouvray, Langeais, Amboise and many other places along the banks of the Loire is to be found the unique speciality of this country, the famous beurre blanc which, starting off as a sauce to counteract the dryness of freshwater fish such as pike and shad, has become so popular that any excuse to eat it is good enough. Made solely from a reduction of shallots, which are to Angevin cooking what garlic is to Provence, and wine vinegar whisked up with the finest butter, the beurre blanc is Anjou’s great contribution (although the Nantais also claim it as their own) to the regional cookery of France.
    From Touraine comes another interesting recipe, a dish of pork garnished with the enormous, rich, juicy prunes which are a speciality of the Tours district.
    This remarkable dish is to be found on the menus of at least two restaurants in Tours, and the recipe, given to me by one of them, is on page 362.
    In Tours also, as well as in many Breton restaurants, are to be found palourdes farcies which are clams served in the shell with a lovely gratiné stuffing; then there are various versions of chicken cooked with tarragon, and a dodine de canard which is not the stewed duck in red wine usually associated with this name, but a very rich cold duck galantine served as a first course. Here, too, I remember wonderful wine-dark matelotes of eel, and a very excellent dish of alose à l’oseille, shad grilled and served with a sorrel sauce. It is only for a short spell during the early summer that one comes across this dish locally, for it is then that the shad—which, incidentally, is not nearly such an uncomfortably bony fish as it is advertised to be—comes up the estuary of the Loire. But on the whole I think it is less for the food, delicious as it is, than for the lovely white wines of Anjou and Touraine, particularly those of Sancerre, Pouilly and Vouvray, that one remembers meals in this part of the country. It always seems to me that while one can drink just as superb Burgundies and Bordeaux in England as in France (and, nowadays, not very much more expensively), these Loire wines have, when drunk on the spot, a lyrical quality which often seems to be missing when one drinks them in England. But the experts would probably say that this is just a question of mood and surroundings.

The Savoie
    The following account, which originally appeared, in French, in a professional catering magazine, seems to me of great interest as a record both of French country-house hospitality before the 1914 war and of the impression left by this kind of cooking upon the most celebrated chef of his day.
ESCOFFIER’S SHOOTING WEEK-END FIFTY YEARS AGO
    ‘Although it is already a good long time ago, I well remember a shooting party given by one of my friends who owned a vast property in an exquisite valley of the Haute-Savoie. My friend had chosen this domain so that he could go there to rest from time to time, far from the irritations of a too active life. It was the beginning of November, a period when the shooting offers particularly attractive sport, especially in these rather wild districts. About ten guests were assembled on the Thursday evening, and it was decided that at dawn the following morning we should all set out, dispersing as chance directed, in search of a few coveys of partridge.
    ‘Our meal,