Traditional instruments
CENTRAL FRANCE
The hurdy gurdy (La Vielle à Roue)
The hurdy gurdy or hurdy-gurdy (also known as a wheel fiddle) is a stringed musical instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents (small wedges, usually made of wood) against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic string instruments, it has a sound board to make the vibration of the strings audible.
Most hurdy gurdies have multiple "drone strings," which provide a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy gurdy is often used interchangeably with or along with bagpipes, particularly in French and contemporary Hungarian folk music.
The French bagpipe (La Cornemuse)
French bagpipes cover a wide range and variety of styles of bagpipes and piping, from the Celtic piping and music of Brittany to the Northern Occitan's cabreta.
The Center-France bagpipes (called in French cornemuse du centre or musette du centre) are of many different types, some mouth blown, some bellows blown; some names for these instruments include chevrette (which means "little goat," referring to the use of a goatskin for its bag), chabrette, chabretta, chabreta, cabreta, bodega, and boha. It can be found in the Bourbonnais, Nivernais, and Morvan regions of France.
A distinguishing factor of most French bagpipes is the placement of the tenor drone alongside the chanter rather than in the same stock as the bass drone.
In the northern regions of Occitania:Auvergne, we find the (generally) bellows blown cabreta, and in Limousin the mouth blown chabreta. The cabrette is much played in areas of Paris where Auvergnats tended to settle; this bagpipe is in most cases played without a drone, and together with an accordion. The chabrette, while having a similar name, is a quite different pipe, with a triple-bored bass drone played across the player's arm rather than over the shoulder. The form of the chabrette chanter appears similar to early oboes, including a swallow-tail key for the lowest note which is placed under a fontenelle.
The Occitan names also refer to the goat. In the Occitan region of Languedoc, and especially in the Montanha negre (Black Mountain) area, the bodega is played. This is a very large mouth blown pipe made from the skin of an entire goat. In Gascony, a small mouth blown bagpipe called boha (from bohar meaning "to blow") is used.
There are a number of piping schools. One of the most important is the Conservatoire Occitan, located in the city of Toulouse (Occitania) but there are also important schools in Limoges, Aurillac, Belin, Mazamet, and other towns. There is also a school of cabrette playing in Paris, with around 50 pupils. Although Central French pipes are generally used to play traditional music, some Occitan pop groups use them as well. Such groups include La Talvera, Familha Artus, and Tenareze.
BASQUE COUNTRY
The xirula (Le Xirula)
The xirula (Basque pronunciation: [ʃiɾula], spelled chiroula in French, also pronounced txirula, (t)xülüla in Zuberoan Basque; Gascon: flabuta; French: galoubet) is a small three hole flute usually made of wood akin to the Basque txistu or three-hole pipe, but more high pitched and strident, tuned to C and an octave higher than the silbote. The sound that flows from the flute has often been perceived as a metaphor for the tweet cadences of bird songs. Some scholars point out that flutes found in the Caverns of Isturitz and Oxozelaia going back to a period spanning 35.000 to 10.000 years ago bear witness to the early presence of the instrument's forerunner in the region, while this view has been disputed.
The Psalterium (Le ttun-ttun)
Psalterium or tambourin à cordes is a stringed musical instrument, and means the same thing as psaltery. In specific usage, this name denotes a form of long psaltery that is tuned to provide drone chords. Sometimes called a string drum, it is usually used as rhythm accompaniment with a form of tabor pipe. It is also known as tambourin de Béarn in French, ttun-ttun (IPA: /cun'cun/, named after the sound emitted) in Basque or chicotén in Aragonese. Some authors have called into question the inclusion of the Pyrenean stringed drum under the name of psalterium.
BRITTANY
The Binioù (Le Biniou)
Binioù means bagpipe in the Breton language. There are two bagpipes called binioù in Brittany: the traditional binioù kozh (kozh means "old" in Breton) and the binioù bras (bras means "big"), which was brought into Brittany from Scotland in the late 19th century. The oldest native bagpipe in Brittany is the veuze, from which the binioù kozh is thought to be derived. The binioù bras is essentially the same as the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe; sets are manufactured by Breton makers or imported from Scotland or elsewhere. The binioù kozh has a one octave scale, and is very high-pitched; it is tuned to play one octave higher than the bombard which it accompanies. More traditional forms have a single drone, while modern instruments sometimes have two. In the old days the leather used for the bag was usually from a dog's skin, but this is nowadays replaced by synthetic materials or other leathers which are easier to procure, like cow or sheep.
Famous french artists
Edith Piaf (19 décembre 1915-11 october 1963)
Legend has it that Edith Piaf was born (as Edith Giovanna Gassion) on a Parisian street corner. Edith’s mother was an alcoholic Italian street singer and part-time prostitute who neglected her for all of two months and then abandoned her to her father. Ediths father, Jean Gassion, was a famous acrobat who hadnt the time nor the skills to nurture an infant. He dropped the child off with his mother, the owner of a bordello, and she raised Edith through the toddler years.
When Edith was school-aged, her father reclaimed her and made her part of his act, performing in circuses and nightclubs. Although her fathers life was not a stable one, he truly loved Edith and did his best to care for her. By the age of fifteen, though, Edith had had enough of circus life and went back to Paris, where she began singing for money in the streets.
In 1935, Edith was discovered by a nightclub owner named Louis Leplee. Leplee’s establishment was called Gernys, and was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike, as many Parisian clubs were in those days. Leplee convinced Edith to sing at Gernys despite her extreme nervousness, and gave her the nickname that would stay with her for the rest of her life: La Môme Piaf (The Little Sparrow). From this she took her stage name.
Edith’s specialty was the poignant ballad, and soon all of Paris was talking about the waif with the heartbreaking voice. She began to make friends with famous people, such as the actor Maurice Chevalier and the poet Jaques Borgeat.
In April of 1936 Edith was devastated when her mentor, Louis Leplee, was found murdered in his apartment. She was appalled to be considered a suspect, but knew that her reputation for associating with unsavory characters wasnt helping her in this situation. It was at this low point that she turned to a businessman named Raymond Asso. Though Asso was married, he helped Edith to straighten things out with the police, and they began a tempestuous affair. She handed the reins of her career over to him, and under his management her star ascended. Soon her shows were selling out and her financial prospects improved dramatically.
In 1939, Edith left Asso for Paul Meurisse, a wealthy singer who offered her a way into sophisticated, upper class Paris. While Edith enjoyed her new lifestyle, the relationship was not a happy one. Both partners were stubborn and temperamental, and their arguments often turned violent. They were befriended by the playwright Jean Cocteau, and he based his play Le Belle Indifferent on their twisted love. Edith starred in the first production of the play, in 1940. By this time, the Germans were threatening invasion. Edith performed in many benefits for the French Army, but knew that hope was slim. Meurisse was called up for duty, and Edith was relieved when he was rejected on medical grounds. The two toured the unoccupied areas of France, but were finally forced back to Paris. All artists under the occupation had to have their material vetted by the Nazis. Some were persecuted more than others, and too many people, Edith wasnt persecuted enough. In fact, she performed many times for Nazi parties and banquets. When she moved into an apartment over a bordello, she befriended and entertained members of the Gestapo in her suite. Later she would claim to be a member of the Resistance, but like her friend Maurice Chevalier, she would always be suspect. We do know, however, that she helped at least one Jewish acquaintance, the composer Michael Emer, escape France and death.
During the war, both of Edith’s parents reentered her life. She was happy to see her father, and supported him until he died a few years later. Her mother was another story. Edith would often be called to bars or the police station to pick up her inebriated mother. Though she had her hands full with family matters, the war years were arguably her most creative, and she wrote her signature song, La Vie en Rose in the middle of the Occupation. The list of men that Edith went through during this rough time looks like a Parisian phone book, but things werent going to get any better.
After the war, Edith toured Europe, the United States, and South America, becoming an internationally known figure. Then, in 1951, tragedy struck. She was in a horrible car accident, breaking an arm and several ribs. The doctors prescribed morphine, and she also began drinking heavily to ease the pain. Soon Edith was recognized cruising the bars of Paris, picking up strange men to assuage her loneliness. In 1952, she settled down a bit when she married songwriter Jaques Pills, but Pills was also an alcoholic, and did nothing to discourage her drinking. He did love her, however, and provided her with the most stable relationship shed ever known.
They were divorced by 1957 however, and in 1960 Piaf recorded “Non, je ne regrette rien” and soon after started a romance with Theo Sarapo, 12 years her junior which led to their marriage in 1962.
In early 1963, Edith recorded her last song, Lhomme de Berlin. She died on October 11 of that year
Georges BRASSENS (October 22, 1921 - October 29, 1981)
"I would like everyone to understand that they can be creators, that they are creators.
The context isn't important, it's to help a world to exist, to be born” G.Brassens
Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France, he grew up in the family home with his mother, Elvira Dagrosa, father, Jean-Louis, half-sister, Simone (daughter of Elvira and her first husband, who was killed in the war), and paternal grandfather, Jules. His mother, who came from Italy (Basilicata province), was a devout Roman Catholic, while his father was an easy-going, generous, openminded, anticlerical man. Brassens grew up between these two starkly contrasting personalities, who nonetheless shared a love for music. His mother—whom Brassens labelled a "missionary for songs" (militante de la chanson), Simone and Jules, were always singing. This environment imparted to Brassens a passion for singing that would come to define his life. At the time he listened constantly to his early idols: Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, and Ray Ventura. He was said to love music above all else: it was his first passion and the path that led him to his career. He told his friend André Sève, "[It is] a kind of internal vibration, something intense, a pleasure that has something of the sensual to it." He hoped to enroll at a music conservatory, but his mother insisted that he could only do so if his grades improved. Consequently, he never learned to read music. A poor student, Brassens performed badly in school. He decided to move to Paris in February 1940, following a short trial as an apprentice mason in his father's business after World War II had already broken out. Now an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his simply orchestrated, harmonically complex, elegant songs and articulate, diverse lyrics; indeed, he is considered one of France's most accomplished postwar poets, one of French pop's most poetic songwriters, Georges Brassens, was also a highly acclaimed and much-beloved performer in his own right. Not only a brilliant manipulator of language and a feted poet in his own right, Brassens was also renowned for his subversive streak, satirizing religion, class, social conformity, and moral hypocrisy with a wicked glee. The famous Nobel Prize for literature 1981, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, will say about him: "A few years ago, in the course of a literary discussion, someone asked who was the best poet at the moment in France. I responded without hesitation: Georges Brassens."
He has also set to music poems by both well-known and relatively obscure poets, including Louis Aragon (Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux), Victor Hugo (La Légende de la Nonne, Gastibelza), Jean Richepin, François Villon (La Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis), and Guillaume Apollinaire, Antoine Pol (Les Passantes). He meticulously studied this great masters. His approach to poetry was almost scientific. Reading, for instance, a poem by Verlaine, he dissected it image by image, attentive to the slightest change in rhythm, analysing the rhymes and the way they alternated. He drew on this enormous literary culture as wrote his first collection of poems, Des coups d’épée dans l’eau, whose conclusion foreshadowed the anarchism of his future songs. His personal politics were forged during the Nazi occupation, and while his views on freedom bordered on anarchism, his songs expressed those convictions more subtly than those of his contemporary, Léo Ferré. During World War II, he was forced by the Germans to work in a labor camp at a BMW aircraft engine plant in Basdorf near Berlin in Germany (March 1943). Here Brassens met some of his future friends, such as Pierre Onténiente, whom he called Gibraltar because he was "steady as a rock." They would later become close friends. After being given ten days' leave in France, he decided not to return to the labour camp. Brassens took refuge in a slum called "Impasse Florimont," in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, where he lived for several years with its owner, Jeanne Planche, a friend of his aunt. Brassens remained hidden there until the end of the war five months later, but ended up staying for 22 years. Planche was the inspiration for Brassens's song Jeanne.
After 1952, Brassens rarely left France. A few trips to Belgium and Switzerland; a month in Canada and another in North Africa were his only trips outside France – except for his concerts in Wales in 1970 and 1973 (Cardiff). His lyrics are difficult to translate, though attempts have been made. He accompanied himself on acoustic guitar. Most of the time the only other accompaniment came from his friend Pierre Nicolas with a double bass, and sometimes a second guitar (Barthélémy Rosso, Joël Favreau).
His friends who heard and liked his songs urged him to go and try them out in a cabaret, café or concert hall. He was shy and had difficulty performing in front of people. At first, he wanted to sell his songs to most-known singers such as "les frères Jacques". The owner of a cafe told him that his songs were not the type he was looking for. But at one point he met the singer Patachou in a very well-known cafe, Les Trois Baudets, and she brought him into the music scene. Several famous singers came into the music industry this way, including Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré. He later on made several appearances at the Paris Olympia under Bruno Coquatrix' management and at the Bobino music hall theater. In 1946, after the war had ended, Brassens published the first of a series of articles in the anarchist journal Le Libertaire. The following year, he also published his first novel, La Lune Écoute Aux Portes, and met Joha Heiman, the woman he would love -- and write about -- for the remainder of his life (oddly, they never married or even cohabited, as Brassens continued to live with the Planches until 1966). Brassens wrote much of his finest early work during the next few years, but found it difficult to place his material with anyone on the Parisian cabaret circuit. His luck started to change in 1951 when he met singer Jacques Grello, who helped him find performers for his songs; however, none proved especially popular with audiences at first. In early 1952, Brassens auditioned a selection of his material for female cabaret star Patachou, giving a late-night performance that dazzled the small audience present. Though Brassens had never considered himself a singer, Patachou convinced him to try his hand at performing himself. A bass player present at the audition, Pierre Nicolas, quickly joined Brassens in support, and would serve in that capacity for the remainder of the singer's career. Brassens was an immediate hit on the cabaret circuit with both audiences and critics, and with Patachou's help, he met Polydor exec Jacques Canetti, and landed a record deal. His first single, "Le Gorille," was released later in 1952, and stirred up controversy with its strong anti-death penalty stance; in fact, it was banned from French radio until 1955. In 1953, Brassens released his first LP, La Mauvaise Réputation, and played his first major concert at the Bobino Theatre, to which he would return often in the years to come; he also published a second novel, La Tour des Miracles. He won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque de l'Academie Charles Cros in 1954 for his EP Le Parapluie, and spent much of the year touring Europe and northern Africa. He released several more LPs over the remainder of the '50s, during which time chronic kidney ailments began to affect his health, resulting in periodic hospitalizations. Nonetheless, he continued to tour regularly, and made his film debut in 1956's Portes des Lilas; he also set some of his friend Paul Fort's poetry to music. Brassens' early-'60s LPs included strong works like “Le Pornographe”, “Le Mécréant”, and “Les Trompettes de la Renommée”. In 1964, he wrote the hit theme "Les Copains d'Abord" for the film Les Copains, and issued an album of the same name. His prolific writing pace of the '50s slowed considerably afterward, due in part to health problems and personal tragedies (both his parents and the Planches had passed away by the end of the decade). These experiences informed his increasingly morbid lyrical outlook, typified by his 1966 LP Supplique pour Être Enterré à la Plage. However, the remainder of the '60s was not all unkind to Brassens; he was awarded the Grand Prix de Poésie de l'Academie Française (the highest national poetry award) in 1967, and took part in a celebrated three-way radio interview with Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré in 1969. Also in 1969, he returned with the new album La Religieuse, which featured his new second guitarist, Joel Favreau, the third musician to hold that chair (the first two were Victor Apicella and Barthelemy Rosso). Brassens spent the early '70s working on several film soundtracks, and performing several well-received concert series at the Bobino Theatre; he also issued a new album, Fernande, in 1972. Weakened by his kidney problems, he embarked on his final tour in 1973. He issued one further LP, Don Juan, in 1976, and gave a series of farewell concerts in early 1977 at the Bobino. Brassens would return to the studio on several other occasions as a star guest for others' recording sessions, but by 1980, his kidney problems had worsened into cancer. He passed away on October 29, 1981, in the village of Saint-Gely-du-Fesc, at his doctor's home, and was buried nearby in his hometown of Sète.
Léo FERRE (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993)
Although little known in English speaking countries, Leo Ferre (1916-1993) is a monument of French chanson, revered throughout the francophone world. A singer, songwriter, author, composer, and even orchestra conductor, he is mostly remembered for songs like "Avec le Temps," "Les Anarchistes," and "Jolie Mome." His career began in the cabaret and took him through four decades and a number of styles, but his best material and his popularity peak happened in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, as the generation of May ‘68 adopted him as an anarchist figure.
Leo Ferre was born and raised in the principality of Monaco, between France and Italy. Throughout his life, the artist would live and work in the two countries alternately, even recording a few songs in Italian. He completed his college studies in 1934 in Rome. Since his father refused to let him go to the music conservatory, he went to Paris for studies in law, earning a diploma in Political Sciences in 1939. The Second World War dragged him into the military and upon Paris' capitulation he fled back to Monaco. He got married for the first time in 1943, began to work at Radio Monte-Carlo, and wrote his first songs.
After the Liberation (1945) Ferre gave his first performances in Parisian cabarets, encouraged by Charles Trenet, Edith Piaf, and Juliette Greco who would sing many of his songs. His first wife divorced him in 1950. Shortly after, he met Madeleine Rabereau, who would become his second wife and have a decisive influence on his career, pushing him constantly forward. He cut his first 78 rpms for Le Chant du Monde and wrote his first piece of "serious" music, the oratorio "La Chanson du Mal-Aime." In 1953, Ferre was signed by the record label Odeon and recorded his first LP which includes "Paris-Canaille."
In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s he recorded a series of albums devoted to French poets, interspersed with LPs of his own songs. His lyrics alternate between love topics and a social commentary that grows more and more bitter: "Thank You Satan," "Mon General" (against Charles De Gaulle), "Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre." When the events of May ‘68 take place, Ferre is at a popular and artistic peak. Now forever associated to the Anarchist movement, he let himself be transported by the younger generation. He abandoned the over-emphatic theatrical style of singing that was also Jacques Brel's trademark, recorded and toured with the rock group Zoo, and included monologues in his concerts. In October 1970 came out the single "Avec le Temps." It became his signature song.
Starting in 1975, Ferre attempted a career in classical music, conducting orchestras for his works and classics (he recorded works by Beethoven and Ravel). For the next decade he continued to release albums and tour, but his prime had passed. His writings and television appearances were feeding his popularity more than his musical production of the time, and by 1985 he had considerably slowed down his activities. He was preparing a come back to the stage when illness struck in 1992. He died in July 1993 at age 77.
RECEIPES from France
Boeuf bourguignon
Region: Burgundy
Prep time / cooking time: 30 minutes / 3 hours
Ingredients:
4 lbs beef shoulder (stewing beef)
6 oz bacon
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 bottle red burgundy wine (young wine)
2 cups of beef bouillon (beef stock)
1 ounce flour
4 tb olive oil
1 ounce butter
1 small bunch parsley
1 sprig thyme
1 clove garlic, mashed
18 small white onions
Salt and black pepper
Boeuf Bourguignon Recipe serve 6
1 - Cut bacon into small strips. Simmer bacon for 10 minutes in water.Dry bacon.
2 - Cook bacon in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan with the olive oil at moderate heat for 2 or 3 minutes. Remove bacon.
3 - Cut the beef in 2-inch cubes. Using the same saucepan, cook the beef in the bacon's fat until browned. Remove the beef.
4 - Still in the same pan, put the onion, carrots, celery and cook for 2 or 3 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Remove the fat from the saucepan.
5 - Mix the butter and the flour to make a paste.
6 - Put again the beef and bacon with the vegetables in the pan. Add salt and pepper. Cover the beef cubes with the butter and flour mixture. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, uncovered, and turn the beef cubes.
7 - Pour in the wine and enough bouillon so that it covers the ingredients. Add small, white onions, garlic and herbs. Bring to a boil.
8 - Cover the pan and simmer for 3 hours on a low heat. Boeuf Bourguignon heat very slowly. The meat is done when the fork slides out easily a beef cube. Remove from heat.
9 - Saute mushrooms in butter. Add mushrooms to Boeuf Bourguignon. Garnish with parsley.
Boeuf Bourguignon is traditionally served with boiled potatoes
Wine suggestion: Young red wine such as Beaujolais Villages, Saint Emilion or a red wine from Burgundy
Bouillabaisse
This is the recipe from one of the most traditional Marseille restaurants, Grand Bar des Goudes on Rue Désirée-Pelleprat:
Ingredients:
4 kilograms of fish and shellfish:
grondin (eng. sea robin)
Rascasse blanche (eng. scorpionfish);
rouget grondin (red gurnard);
congre (eng. conger);
baudroie (lotte, or monkfish);
Saint-Pierre (eng. John Dory);
vive (eng. Weever);
live octopus
10 sea urchins
1 kilogram of potatoes
7 cloves of garlic
3 onions
5 ripe tomatoes
1 cup of olive oil
1 bouquet garni
1 branch of fennel
8 pistils of saffron
10 slices of pain de campagne (country bread)
salt and Cayenne pepper
The Rouille:
1 egg yolk
2 cloves of garlic
1 cup of olive oil
10 pistils of saffron
salt and Cayenne pepper
1 - Clean and scale the fish and wash them, if possible in sea water. Cut them into large slices, leaving the bones. Wash the octopus and cut into pieces.
2 - Put the olive oil in a large casserole. Add the onions, cleaned and sliced; 6 cloves of garlic, crushed; the pieces of octopus, and the tomatoes peeled and quartered, without seeds. Brown at low heat, turning gently for five minutes, for the oil to take in the flavors.
3 - Add the sliced fish, beginning with the thickest to the smallest. Cover with boiling water, and add the salt and the pepper, the fennel, the bouquet garni and the saffron. Boil at a low heat, stirring from time to time so the fish doesn't stick to the casserole. Correct the seasoning. The bouillabaisse is cooked when the juice of the cooking is well blended with the oil and the water. (about twenty minutes).
4 - Prepare the rouille: Remove the stem of the garlic, crush the cloves into a fine paste with a pestle in a mortar. Add the egg yolk and the saffron, then blend in the olive oil little by little to make a mayonnaise, stirring it with the pestle.
5 - Cook the potatoes, peeled and boiled and cut into large slices, in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes. Open the sea urchins with a pair of scissors and remove the Corail with a small spoon.
6 - Arrange the fish on a platter. Add the corail of the sea urchins into the broth and stir.
Serve the bouillon very hot with the rouille in bowls over thick slices of bread rubbed with garlic. Then serve the fish and the potatoes on a separate platter.
Cassoulet
Region: South West
Prep time / Cooking time: 1 hour / 3 hours 30
Ingredients
1lb of dried white beans
1lb of pork sausage
4 “confit” duck legs (preserve)
1 lb pork spareribs
1/2lb unsmoked bacon
1 leek
1 stick of celery
1 onion
1 carrott
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp thyme
Laurel
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Cassoulet Recipe serve 6
1 - Soak the dry beans overnight in cold water.
2 - Cook the saussages.
3 - Remove the duck legs from the fat. Heat in the oven for 3 minutes unti fat has melt off.
4 - Cut the spareribs in 4, add salt and pepper.
5 - Sauté the vegetables with 1 garlic clove, thyme and laurel. Cover with water and cook for 1 hour and a half.
6 - Drain the beans and simmer slowly for 1 hour. Add 1 crushed garlic clove, salt and pepper.
7 - Put the meat, the vegetables and the beans in a baking dish. Cook in ther oven at 325° F / 160° C until there is no more liquid in the dish.
Cassoulet is better when reheated
Wine suggestion: Madiran, Cahors red wine
Cuisses de grenouille/Frog legs
Region: France, Rhône
Prep time / cooking time: 15 min / 4 min
Ingredients:
12 frog legs
2 eggs
1 lemon juice
2 parsley sprigs, chopped
Dried bread crumbs
Salt
Pepper
Oil
Frog Legs recipe (serve 6)
1 - Preheat oven at 375 F.
2 - Remove frog legs skin. Wash and drain.
3 - Add lemon juice, salt and pepper.
4 - Beat eggs in a bowl, add chopped parsley.
5 - Soak frog legs in the eggs.
6 - Crush bread into tiny crumbs.
7 - Roll frog legs into crumbs.
8 - Add oil in a pan. Fry frog legs in the oven for 3 to 4 minutes.
Wine suggestion: Riesling, Sancerre, dry white wine
Quiche lorraine
Region: Lorraine
Prep time / cooking time: 20 minutes / 30 minutes
Ingredients:
Pie pastry
6-8 slices of bacon, diced
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup of whipping heavy cream
1 or 2 tsp of butter
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of pepper
1 pinch of grated nutmeg
Quiche Lorraine Recipe (serve 6)
1 - Preheat oven to 400° F (200° C)
2 - Put bacon dices in boiling water for 1 or 2 minutes. Drain. Put in a pan and heat till brown. Drain again.
3 - Rool out pastry in a pie pan. Pastry should come about 1" up the sides.
4 - Beat eggs, cream and seasoning. Add bacon.
5 - Pour mixture on the pastry, no more than 3/4 of the pie pan.
6 - Reduce heat to 300° F (150°C). Bake for 30 minutes or until pie is cooked. Put a knife in the midle, if it comes clean the quiche is ready.
7 - Let the quiche cool. Do not remove it from the pan. Goes well with a salad.
Suggestion:
Although traditional recipe does not include it, you can add swiss cheese such as Gruyère (in step 4). 1 cup or 4 ounces.
Wine suggestion: White wine from Burgundy, Tokay d'Alsace
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