French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [18]
For the rest, the meat in Normandy is of high quality. The sheep from the salt marshes of the Cotentin yield delicious mutton and lamb; the veal is tender, the beef well nourished; the favourite local pork dishes include the Andouille de Vire, a lightly smoked chitterling sausage with a black skin, which is a great deal nicer than it looks, and rillettes, that soft, melting kind of potted pork which is to be seen in great pyramids in the charcuteries, and which, with the duck pâté and the andouille, are the mainstays of a Norman hors-d’œuvre.
Then there are the famous duck dishes made with the Caneton Rouennais, which is a very different bird from that of Aylesbury. A cross between a domestic and a wild duck, the breed of Rouen has a flavour, rich and gamey, all its own, due not only to breeding but to the fact that in order to retain their blood they are strangled in a manner which would not be tolerated in this country, where we treat our animals with more consideration than we do our fellow men. Mostly, Rouen ducks are partly roasted, the breast meat carved, and the carcase pressed to extract the blood, which forms an important element in the finished sauce. At Duclair, famous for a breed of duck which is a variation of that of Rouen, the Hôtel de la Poste has no fewer than fourteen ways of presenting duck, including a plain spit-roasted one as well as a very rich canard au sang and a pâté de canard au porto served in the rugged terrine in which it has cooked. It is interesting to compare these Norman duck pâtés with those of Périgord and Alsace, for they have a quite distinct and different flavour.
As for the renowned tripes à la mode de Caen, cooked for about twelve hours with ox feet, cider, Calvados, carrots, onions and herbs, I must confess that nowadays I quail from eating it, let alone from undertaking the cooking of such a dish. It is only at its best when prepared in copious quantities and preferably in a special earthenware pot rather the shape of a flattened-out tea pot, the small opening of which ensures the minimum of evaporation. Formerly, the pot of tripe was carried to the bakery to be cooked in the oven after the bread had been taken out, and nowadays it is more often ordered in a restaurant or bought ready cooked from the butcher or charcutier and heated up at home. Anyone intrepid enough to wish to attempt it at home will find a recipe in Escoffier’s Guide to Modern Cookery.1 His ingredients include 4 lb. of onions, 3 lb. of carrots, 2 lb. of leeks, 2 quarts of cider and pint of Calvados or brandy besides the four feet and practically the whole stomach of the ox. And it is highly advisable, having eaten your tripes à la mode, to follow the Norman custom of drinking a trou Normand, or glass of Calvados, as a digestive before going on to the next course. One might think there wouldn’t be a next course, but one would be mistaken. An important meal in this region, says Curnonsky in a guide to eating in Normandy, is always arranged thus: ‘bouillon and pot-au-feu, after which a glass of wine is taken; then tripe; then leg of mutton. Here a halt is called for the trou Normand. We fall to again with roast veal, then fowl, then the desserts, coffee, and again Calvados.’ This was pre-1939, and a mere snack compared with the lunch described by George Musgrave seventy years earlier in a travel book about Normandy.2 He watched a couple (on their honeymoon, he thought) on board the river steamer at Rouen consuming a midday meal of soup, fried mackerel, beefsteak, French beans and fried potatoes, an omelette fines herbes, a fricandeau of veal with sorrel, a roast chicken garnished with mushrooms, a hock of ham served upon spinach. There followed an apricot tart, three custards, and an endive salad, which were the precursors of a small roast leg of lamb, with chopped onion and nutmeg sprinkled upon it. Then came coffee and two glasses of absinthe, and eau dorée, a Mignon cheese, pears, plums, grapes and cakes. Two bottles of Burgundy and one of