Camembert, crustacea and cocktails
Columbus may have discovered America, but Team Smith recently made a world-altering find of our own: cheese macaroons. And not just any old common as muck cheese - these were Camembert- and Pont-l’Evêque-flavoured puffs of pleasure. It’s difficult to comprehend the majesty of a cheese macaroon unless you’ve eaten one, but for the uninitiated, they are an unholy trinity of creamy, crispy and chewy – savoury and sweet, and so good, we had to wangle an entire box for the office.
The scene of this culinary revelation was a Normandy food-focused press event, appropriately entitled Taste of Normandy - an excuse for greed and debauchery if there ever was one. Kate and I flew the Smith flag, turning up at Sway bar in Holborn with empty bellies and business cards aplenty. In order to educate the crowd of media types that showed up, the organisers had shipped in some real live Normandy food pros, including fishmongers, bakers and barmen, with Alan Coxon as the evening’s amiable host.
From my notes, I calculate that in the several hours we spent there, we worked our way through more than 17 delectable dishes, including: oysters (four varieties, including wild and rock), king prawns, king crab, sea urchins, freshly churned butter, nettle soup, foie gras with apple chutney, mushroom mousse, goat’s cheese wrapped in tomato and topped with black mushrooms, creamed parsnip with white carrot and cumin, sea bass with butter and lemon, tomato mousse with cream, lobster in crab jelly, terrine de coquilles St. Jacques and caramel and pistachio macaroons. These treats were washed down with Calvados- and Cointreau-loaded cocktails, and warming glugs of pommeau, a sweet and moreish apple brandy.
Learnings from our gobblings include the following:
a) NEVER eat sea urchins - the ones we tasted were like rotten cabbage boiled in ditch water.
b) French men wielding plates of goodies are dangerously irresistible and utterly seductive, especially when they utter phrases such as ‘It’s good to be curious’ while offering up their (edible) wares.
c) Normandy is all about the nettles. We sampled freshly fried sweet nettle fritters, nettle gazpacho with a sprinkling of nasturtiums, and borage butter slathered on hunks of bread. Not only are nettles tasty (much more mild and creamy than you’d expect), they also pack an iron-rich punch.
So, as if you needed any more reason to visit picturesque Normandy, there you have it - the amazing and surprising food, and the knowledgeable and creative people who produce it. And after indulging in little almond cakes stuffed with juicy cherries, rounds of creamy cheese and heaped plates of succulent seafood, you’ll need a big bed with a strong, firm mattress. It gives us pleasure to point you in the direction of two more-than-capable establishments: Château de Saint Paterne, a chic, stately retreat in the lush lands of the Loire, or La Petite Folie, a grand and gregarious guesthouse in historic Honfleur. Just watch out for those sea urchins - those spikes are there for a reason.
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