And now for some wine with that lovely food.........

The Bergerac Wine Stock

White Grapes
A grape which produces a fine, aromatic wine with a good colour. Its importance has increased in making dry white wines.

Le Semillon
This grape takes great pleasure in growing in chalky and clayish soils. It produces a golden coloured wine which is fine, clear and sweet. Due to its ability the famous "noble rot", it is one of the most important grapes for making sweet wines.

La Muscadelle
this is a delicate grape which is sensitive to "noble rot". It produces a highly aromatic wine. Since the 18th century is has had the reputation for being the best grape for eating as well as for making delicious wine.

Red Grapes

Le Cabarnet sauvignon
A grape well known for its consistency in production and its quality. It produces a tannic wine with a rich vibrant colour. With maturity it acquires a certain delicateness and fragrance.

Le Cabarnet franc
Like the sauvignon but with more of a bouquet and a tendency to mature at a faster rate.

Le Merlot
This grape occupies nearly half of the bergerac vineyards. It is perfectly adapted to the local soil and climate. It has an impressive bouquet.

Le Malbec ou cot
This vine stock occupies a mere 3% of the Bergerac vineyards. It produces a light, delicate wine with a nice colour.

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La Chasse : The Hunt

Asterix and Obelix did it. The Kings of France did it. The man next door does it. ---- In an area of France where many of the village schools are disappearing, where village churches seldom hold regular services and where the small boulangeries are fast disappearing, the local Chasse is often the last bastion keeping the community flag flying.

This time of year it is best to take out a good life insurance, check that your last will and testament and affairs are in order, put on your brightest fluorescent clothes - and - to be on the safe side - practise your shrillest whistle - when going into the woods for your daily stroll! The hunters are out and about in the French countryside and anything that moves is a target!

Anything? Well, the fact that at least a few people get shot and even killed every year during the chasse, is not necessarily planned, but, what game is it that the hunters are then actually after?

The generic term "gibier" relates to any wild creature that can be caught and eaten. This is what the solitary huntsman is looking for. Small game, rabbits, hares, pheasant or duck, or perhaps even a large thrush or two. Anything that can be turned into a tasty pot roast or a terrine to enjoy with crusty bread.

Groups of men spread out along a lane, acting as a team, are usually after bigger game, the "chevreuil" or deer, or the "sanglier" or wild boar. The shooting of both these animals is strictly licenced and regulated so hunting for them is a carefully organized joint operation.

With so much game regularly hunted and caught in the Dordogne, it obviously plays a large part in the cooking of the region. The best introduction to local recipes for the bigger game is to attend the local chasse dinners.

Smaller game is more easily available to the shopper and cookery books in both English and French are full of ideas to use.

(See: Rabbit casserole below)

The Ultimate hunting boy's toy:
Apart from the checked shirts, the peaked caps, the orange or red jackets and the dogs, there is also the tree house. High in the trees, reachable only by a rickety ladder, you may spot these big tree houses. Do not be fooled. This is not a Wendy house for big boys, but a hide built for the hunters of the "palombe", or wood pigeon or collar dove. Some of these hides appear to be derelict -- so mucy better for the camouflage! and others are more obviously in use - with a captive pigeon hung outside to tempt its fellows to come closer.

And of course, the beauty of these hides are that even if you never shoot a pigeon, or anything else, you get a precious few hours with your copains and away from the wife and bureaucracy........



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Recipe: Rabbit casserole

(adapted from "Life and Food in the Dordogne" by James Bentley)

1 Jointed rabbit
2 bay leaves
125gr lardons or thick back bacon cut in cubes
3 sprigs of parsley
fat or oil for frying
pinch of thyme
1 chopped shallot
1/2 glass white wine
80gr celeriac cut into small pieces
1/2 glass of chicken stock
salt and pepper

Mix the rabbit pieces with the lardons and gently fry in the oil for twenty minutes until well browned.
Add the shallots, celeriac and herbs, and season.
Pour in the white wine and chicken stock.
Simmer very gently, uncovered, for ten minutes, then cover and cook very slowly for another half hour, stirrng from time to time.
Serve with any winter vegetables, such as carrots and mashed potatoes.
Serves 4.

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Recipe: Scrambled eggs with Truffles

...And a story on truffles cannot be complete without a recipe!

Here is a traditional recipe for scrambled eggs with truffles -- an easy recipe for anyone -- and importantly, if you have never tasted truffles and do not have ready access to fresh truffles, you can use a good truffle oil from your grocer or deli and then you, too, can experience the taste that have made kings and emperors dream since the beginning of time!

SCRAMBLED EGGS WITH TRUFFLES

Ingredients for 4 persons :
8 very fresh eggs
80 g of butter
80 g fresh truffles*
2 spoonfull of thick fresh cream
salt & pepper

Put into a pan whith a thick bottom and well heated before, 50 g of tepid butter, 8 slightly whipped eggs and 80 g of roughly chopped truffles.* Season with salt and pepper.
Cook the eggs on a low fire or in a "bain-marie" and continuosly turn with a wooden spatula. Remove well from the edges of the pan the clotted parts of the eggs. The cooking must be done very slowly.
When the mixture is well homogenized and smooth, slighthy thickened and without lumps, remove the pan from the fire.
While you continue to turn the eggs with the wooden spatula, add 30 g of butter and 2 spoonfull of the thick fresh cream.
Serve with fresh crusty French bread.

* If you do not have fresh truffles, substitute with one large tablespoon of truffle oil.

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The Gastronomy of Truffles

A perfect truffle should be firm, have a good aroma and full of taste. It breathes and absorbs oxygen and rejects carbon dioxide and other gases containing its aroma. After a while it oxidates and loses its aroma. It is this clear that once ripe, it should be eaten as soon as possible, whence the need to buy straight from the market, or from retailers with recent supplies.

The Truffe noire du Périgord fresh and grated improves everything that is in contact with it. It goes very well with celery, shallots, and well reduced sweet onions, artichokes, avocados, jerusalem artichokes.

It is important to trap its aroma, either in fats such as oil, butter, cream, or by infusion in a sauce or it should be added at the end of cooking, or enclosed in puff pastry, brioche, bread, or in slivers under the skin of poultry.

The best Brumales can be used in sauces. Aestivum is only used grated pasta and risotto.


The Varieties Harvested
...and their gastronomic value
Tuber Melanosporum
Called the black truffle of Périgord, it is harvested between November and March.
Epidermis wartish brown with red reflections Soil marbled with white on anthracite base colour. Smells of forest undergrowth and damp earth, roasted dry fruits.
Taste: finely peppered, recalling its aromatic composition, long in the mouth. Only admitted in Grade 1; Ste Alvère.

Tuber Brumale Harvested between November and March, on the same sites as Mélano which it strongly rivals.
Darker epidermis, flaking off easily. Soil less subtly marbled with a grey background. Smells of turnip, nuancée with garlic (suavum version) ethereal, disagreeable (version moschatu).
Taste: Very peppery and characteristically turnipy, relegated to Grade 2 Ste Alvère.


Tuber Aestivum Harvested between May and September sometimes later..
Epidermis dark brown, large pyramid-shaped wartlike deformations, striped in both directions. Soil: finely marbled with branches on a white background, veering towards grey matures well.
Subtle smell of underwood.
Taste of forest mushrooms.


Tuber Uncinatum
Called "Bourgogne", closely related to the previous, quite rare in Dordogne.
The best season is between September and December. Same visual aspect, soil; chocolate, smell and taste more pronounced.

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