Cognac has been a tourist town for centuries not for its eponymous distilled spirits, but for its location. It’s on one of the ancient pilgrimage routes to Santiago (St. James) de Compostella in northwest Spain. For centuries, religious travelers have stopped in France to rest or pray at Cognac’s churches on the way to Galicia. The Tours Saint-Jacques (St. James Towers) along France’s Charente River, dates from this time.

Cognac

Lately, though, the town of 20,000 has fallen off the tourism radar. I was there by chance on a weekend getaway, and found this out-of-the-way part of France steeped in history and tradition. For starters, King François was born there two years after Christopher Columbus first set sail in search of a route to Asia.

I was familiar with his name – Anglicized to Francis I, this first Renaissance monarch of France, a man who gave his name to a Reed & Barton sterling silver pattern, one that’s unaccountably popular among my friends. A contemporary of Henry VIII of England, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Suleiman the Magnificent, he was the architect of many cultural advances for his country.

He was born in the Château de Cognac in 1494, and its current owners are delighted to show you the exact room. The château is now the home of Otard, one of the premiere brands of eau de vie (or, brandy) produced in Cognac.

Spirits, however, weren’t the first produit de gastronomie created in the region of Poitou-Charentes. Back in 1215, Jean Sans Terre – better known to the rest of us as John Lackland (who became the English King John of Magna Carta fame) – issued the town a charter for the salt trade. The marshy Atlantic coast of Charente is the perfect place to produce evaporated sea salt, which was a valuable commodity in a time when salt was the only food preservation.

Salt trade was the start of the town’s prosperity. The Old Town, the medieval quarter called Vieux Cognac, still contains many unusual old buildings along its narrow, cobbled streets. The 17^th century’s brandy production began when it was discovered that distilled alcohol survived transit by ship to northern Europe — and so much better than wine.

My tour guide pointed out gargoyles and other figures on the richly decorated wooden façades. There were lots of salamanders. This amphibian, more in its mythic incarnation as a relative of the dragon than its lowly existence as a lizard, was Francis I’s symbol. In an era when towns and castles regularly burned to the ground, the salamander was said to thrive amidst the flames.

Vieux Cognac runs from the river up to the Saint-Léger church, founded in the 11^th century. It’s noted for an unusual 18^th century portal decorated with the signs of the zodiac.

Cognac’s main square is, of course, named for Francis I, and a statue of the king on horseback towering over his enemies is found at the center, right on the spot where a bastion once stood as part of the town’s defenses during the Hundred Years’ War.

According to French law, only brandy made in certain areas around the town of Cognac during particular times of the year can be called “cognac.” (There are some good eaux de vie produced outside this Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, but they aren’t cognac.) Not surprisingly, the economy revolves around this particular form of brandy.

Almost everyone I spoke to had some connection to the dominant industry – whether it was in the distillation process itself, or producing the aging  barrels, bottles and corks, printing  labels, or distribution and shipping. I was told that 95 percent of the production was exported.

The very air of cognac seemed redolent with eau de vie due to the ubiquitous black mold. If you look around town, you’ll sniff out buildings old and new, all shaded with the distinctive fungus. Called the “angel’s share,” this is the evidence of cognac evaporating from its oak barrels to the sky and the angels.

I took the Otard cognac tour because I wanted to see inside the historic chateau (owned by the Otards since the end of the 18^th century), but there are lots of others. Tours of Hennessy, Camus, Martell also are in Cognac, with Louis Royer and Courvoisier just down the River Charente in Jarnac.

I stayed in the absolutely fabulous Logis du Fresne in the village of Juillac le Coq. Inside, the rustic guestrooms have every luxury, and outside is the restful quiet of the countryside. Great restaurants were everywhere in the region. A few of my favorites are Le Coq d’Or in Cognac (try the Moules marinières au Pineau des Charentes), Château de l’Yeuse in Chateaubernard and La Ribaudière in Bourg-Charente.

I met some friends in Cognac who had a special treat lined up for us: a visit to the Grey Goose factory. Although the complex is not yet open for public tours, it is part of the company’s future plan.

Who knew that this premium vodka was made in Cognac – but, of course, it makes sense. Grey Goose is distilled from French wheat, and Cognac has a long history of making spirits. After a sneak peek of the inner sanctum (where cameras and notebooks were forbidden) we ended up in the elegant tasting room for some sipping and demonstrations.

François Thibaut, the maître de chai for Grey Goose, explained the genesis of the brand. The intention was to produce a premium vodka, so the owners searched for the perfect combination of ingredients and tradition. The answers turned out to be soft wheat grown in the “breadbasket of France,” which is just south of Paris, with natural spring water filtered through limestone as it flows underground from the Massif Central and the tradition of distillation present in Cognac.

Dimitri Cezinska, Grey Goose’s Global Brand Ambassador, showed us how to make the perfect martini – stirred, not shaken, James Bond’s preference not withstanding. “Shaking just adds ice shards that dilute the drink,” he explained. Martinis are, of course, made with unflavored vodka, but flavored varieties are popular in other mixed drinks.

Grey Goose!

Details:

Cognac Otard, Château de Cognac, 127, Boulevard Denfert Rochereau, BP 3
16100 Cognac; +33 (0)5 45 36 88 86; http://www.otard.com.

Official site of the city of Cognac (in English): http://www.ville-cognac.fr/welcome.php3

Logis du Fresne, 16130 Juillac le Coq; + 33 (0) 545 322 874; http://www.logisdufresne.com

Château de l’Yeuse, 65 rue de Bellevue, Chateaubernard; +33 (0)5 45 36 82 60; http://www.yeuse.fr/uk/accueil_uk.html

La Ribaudière, Place du Port, Bourg-Charente; +33 (0)5 45 81 30 54; http://www.laribaudiere.com/

Grey Goose: http://www.greygoosevodka.com/

Susan can be reached at: Susan@SusanMcKee.com.

Take six to a dozen different people, from all kinds of backgrounds and varied cooking abilities. Add a French master chef, a skilled sous-chef, one who is also a wine expert, and her husband, who is another wine expert. Blend together in a modernised 200-year-old farmhouse in France’s Languedoc district, serve with walking, cycling, tennis and swimming on the side, and you have the French House Party.

St. Raymond's Gastro Acadamy where we learn to cook.

The French House Party offers a wide range of courses, ranging from video and movie making, through drama and artwork to creative writing. But, their signature dish is probably the Gastro Academy.

There are three cookery courses to choose from; the 7-day Cook au Vin;, the 6-day Gourmet Explorer; and the 3-day Cuisine in Brief, which I attended. But, please be advised, they aren’t intended to turn you into a gourmet cook overnight. It’s a pity experience is the only appropriate word I can think of.

Chef Robert Abraham ready to teach us some of what he knows.

Chopping and creating our masterpieces.

But, before I get carried away by the relaxing Art Deco atmosphere of the dining-room, sitting room and bedrooms, I’d better talk about the kitchen which, of course, would be the main focus of our business. After lunch on the first day, we were briefly introduced to it, to help to make amuses-bouche, which sounds a lot nicer than nibbles,  to go with our pre-dinner apéritif.

The kitchen is long, with a central table running down the middle, with provisions  for taller (or shorter) people to take part without too much discomfort. It was only recently refurbished, and gasps of admiration and envy greeted it. And, I have an idea that some of those features might shortly be adopted in the kitchens of the participants.

Before dinner, the chef de cuisine, Robert Abraham, introduced himself. He would, he said, be overseeing our cooking on the morrow, but first, we needed ingredients. In the morning, we would accompany him to the market in Revel to buy them.

The chef manages to find the market's best.

Up to a year ago, I thought that the idea of the chef going to the market and personally selecting ingredients was a fiction put about by the makers of TV food programmes. But, in the last twelve months, I’ve met two chefs who did just that, so I’m happy to stand corrected.

Unfortunately, my French isn’t good enough to understand the discussion — maybe even haggling — that went on between Chef Robert and the stallholders, but we came away with basketfuls of provisions that could have been entered in a competition in any County Show at home in the UK.

So, with all the people and ingredients assembled, we were ready to begin cooking. We had three sessions, prepared three meals and, for the sake of brevity, I’ll just talk about the main courses. Under the eye of Chef Robert, we all took part; some to a greater extent than others. I thought back to basic training days, when I’d sit down to a meal, and think, with pride, “I peeled those potatoes!”

For lunch on the first day, we had duck breasts with apples reinette. The apples were baked with lemon juice, honey, butter, pepper and cinnamon; the duck cooked in Noilly Prat and served in slices. It was covered with a sauce made from apple juice and the juiced the duck was cooked in.

Our plated duck and apple slices with Noilly Prat and sauce.

Dinner was St. Jacques scallops served with orange butter sauce and parsnips. I used to think I didn’t like parsnips, but I changed my mind when I tasted these. The main learning point, though, was getting the edible bit out of the scallop. Weretained the shells, to serve a seafood starter for the the following lunch.

The main course on that occasion was monkfish rouelle, served with new potatoes and a tartine of a slice of fried aubergine (that’s eggplant, to my transatlantic readers) topped with a sauce of mussels and shallots.

We also helped to make starters and sweets too numerous to mention here, except that everyone enthused about the crême brulée and the madeleines.

No French meal would be complete without the wine, and here, wine expert Carl Hargreaves came to the fore. He selected wines he thought would go best with each course and he and his wife, sous-chef Debbie, held a wine-tasting just prior to our departure.

My favourite was the Muscat served before the first dinner. It’s said that Dom Perignon visited the area, and refined the recipe for Muscat into champagne.

We all enjoy a little wine talk -- and the wine.

And, a misconception about French cooking was also corrected. I’d missed it, but it wasn’t till the end, on the way back to the airport, that director Moira Martingale pointed out that, at no point in the weekend did Robert use garlic.

In 2008, the French House Party was named ‘Top Learning Retreat’ in the National Geographic book “100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life.” Cooking is by no means all that goes on there. Find out much more at

www.frenchhouseparty.co.uk

I Met A Man Who Loved His Bread
By Richard Frisbie

M. Boizard is a lifelong baker who collected bread related items as he baked his way into semi-retirement. Now, M. Boizard tends his collection at the Musee du pain; but I think of it as the Bread Museum.

We met on a bridge near his home in Fismes, France. I’d stopped to photograph the blossoming crabapple trees that stood next to a picturesque little mill along the La Vesle River.  When he learned I was American he pointed said that our 28th Division took the bridge in 1918, after a weeklong firefight. “Hundreds of Americans were killed to liberate my village,” he said. Then he invited me to his home – or so I thought.

This occurred all over France. Two Thousand and eight was the 90th anniversary of World War I’s end. France had been commemorating the anniversaries of various battles for the previous four years until the culmination of ceremonies on November 11th. I was walking in French and American soldier’s footsteps. Everywhere I went the French people treated me as if I’d been in the Verdun trenches with them.

Forget what you might have heard about the French. They remember the World Wars better than we do. After all, the fighting happened in their back yards. They haven’t forgotten America’s help winning, either. I was received warmly wherever I went. And so, I accepted Mr. Boizard’s invitation.

With his little English and my nonexistent French it is no wonder I misunderstood. It wasn’t to his home we went, but down an alley next to the bridge, where I found myself in his bread museum. Outside he had a large German wood-burning oven on wheels, which is still towed and used at events. There were also two antique tractors, one French, circa 1957, and the other a 1955 English version. Both were once used to harvest wheat, and both still run.

It’s far more difficult to describe the inside of the museum. There was so much stuff packed into one large room that, at first, my eyes couldn’t focus on just one object. Gradually, though, I discerned a path, beginning with early bread making implements and eventually leading up to the present time.

Everything related to bread and bread-making art

was under this one roof. There were tools and machines for mixing, shaping, baking, twisting, rising, even for harvesting and reaping the wheat. I even watched an English video that showed how French bread was made. With floor to ceiling displays it was obvious that bread was truly his passion.

There were some models and images of local windmills where the grain was ground. He told me that in World War I the Germans machine-gunned the blades off the windmills because the French Resistance used them to as a landmark to locate enemy bunkers and stored munitions. That meant the French were often without flour for bread until the American liberation. That explained why he also had three flour sacks on display labeled “US FLOUR.” The soldiers who saved the village brought the ingredients for the French (and every other cultures’) staff of life. And, there’s nothing more important to a Frenchman or woman than bread. It’s no wonder the Americans were treated like heroes!

Over flutes of champagne he showed off his proudest memento. It was the newspaper account of his induction into La Commanderie de France des Talmeliers Bon Pain, the organization of French bread lovers. His homage to bread, his museum, earned him an honorary membership in this prestigious fraternity of bakers. It also earned him mention there as a man who followed his passion to create an incredible bread monument.

For more information:
Musee du pain:  03 26 48 00 13
Admission: 3.5 Euros

Official French Government Tourist Office: www.franceguide.com

Air France:  www.airfrance.us

Meuse Department of Tourism: www.tourisme-meuse.com

La Marne Tourism Office: www.tourisme-en-champagne.com

Tourist Office of Reims: www.reims-tourisme.com

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I Met A Man Who Loved His Willows … and Helped Save a Rose

By Richard Frisbie

France’s Champagne region is known for its baskets woven from willow branches. In fact, the French National School of Basket Weaving is located in Champagne. So, the next time you think of Champagne, think baskets, not bubbly, and you’ll win the admiration of Dominique Brochet-Lanvin.

Dominique Brochet-Lanvin, along with his wife, son, dog and a few rascally puppies, calls Botanique de la Presle their home. It is an arboretum, nursery and a labor of love in the French countryside outside of Epernay in Montagne de reims.

Dominique is a salixophile, or lover of willows.  “There are 500 to 600 varieties of salix” he told me. “No one knows for sure. I’m trying to collect them all here.”

When I told him that I only knew of the weeping willow, he said: “As we say in France, that is the one that hides the rest.” Then he told me a charming story so typical of the French.

“Before he died, Napoleon requested that a weeping willow be planted on his grave. It became the custom for everyone who visited his tomb to take a cutting home to plant. His weeping willow spread around the world. Now, what he couldn’t conquer in life he has dominion over through his millions of willows.”

The bread, the wine and now the willows are the reason I love the French.

Willows have many other uses. During World War I the French lined their trenches with woven willow panels to hold back the earthen ramparts. Near St. Mihiel I actually got into some of the trenches. The German trenches were original, with walls and bunkers made from huge blocks of stone. The French trenches were reconstructed with fresh willow walls, illustrating the impermanence of their battlements. What they built for temporary protection from the barrage of enemy shells often became semi-permanent as the trench warfare dragged on for years. And all those years their willows kept them company.

Back in the arboretum, as a light rain fell, Dominique walked me through his willow collection. It was perfect gardener’s weather for admiring the various black, yellow, green, and contorted stems, each with their different size and shape catkins, or flowers. Tall, short, multi- and single-trunk bushes and trees, all willows, competed for my attention. When I recognized the pussy willow I realized that where I used to know only two types of willows, now I knew two hundred! And still the collection went on.

We toured over 1000 feet of perennial beds bordered with short woven willow fences before finishing our walk in the old fashioned rose garden. Here Dominique showed me a prized specimen of the La Marne rose he and his wife rescued from extinction. Originally named in 1915 for the Battle of La Marne, this blood-red beauty was nearly lost until they discovered a “forgotten” specimen in a relative’s garden and propagated it. Today, the Botanique de la Presle proudly sells descendants of this noble antique. While the last French veteran of the Great War has been laid to rest, the La Marne rose lives on, a testament to the hardy French stock and the toils of two gardeners of Champagne.

For more information:

Botanique de la Presle: www.jardin-brochetlanvin.com
Official French Government Tourist Office: www.franceguide.com
Meuse Department of Tourism: www.tourisme-meuse.com
La Marne Tourism Office: www.tourisme-en-champagne.com
Tourist Office of Reims: www.reims-tourisme.com
Air France: www.airfrance.us

Richard Frisbie is a food wine and travel writer; a bookseller and publisher of New York centric books; and a newspaper columnist who resides in New York’s Hudson Valley. Online, his articles appear here, on Gather.com, GoNomad.com, travellady.com and the many websites of EDGE Publications. He also writes for regional New York magazines such as Adirondack Life, Life in the Finger Lakes, and Kaatskill Life. Richard can be reached at Richard@globalfoodie.com.

by Keith Kellett

I like cheese.

There’s nothing like a cheese-board to round out a good meal. One of the best ones I’ve had in a long time is produced by John Crompton, the chef at the Hotel Aravis Lodge in France’s mountainous Haut Savoie district.

There were only two cheeses on the board, the local Reblochon and, from further afield, Tome de Bauge. But, they were enough, especially accompanied by glasses of red wine and bowls of dried apricots and walnuts.

The previous day, we sat in an upland pasture and feasted on crusty batons, stuffed with the Reblochon and Tome. Looking down the verdant and lush valley, one surrounded by lofty mountainous peaks, made the “cheese sandwich” description sound inadequate.

We hadn’t come here to taste the cheese, though. We’d come to walk in those mountain pastures, but, cheese was everywhere and couldn’t be avoided.

Our daily path led us past mountain chalets, or upland farms. In winter, the farmer and his family live in the valley, where the herds are kept while snow lies on those high fields. In spring, the cows are led up the hill, and the family move back into the chalet.

France is noted for its wide variety of cheeses, and also has the AOC, or Appelation d’Origine Contrôlée. This means that the names of locally-produced cheeses are protected by law. You cannot do as they do in England, where “cheddar” cheese is sold – and it wasn’t produced in England, let alone Cheddar.

Reblochon has been made in the Thones valley since the 13^th Century. It ust be produced within that area and made from milk from only three breeds of cows.

Reblochon means second milking from the product of which the cheese was originally made. It is sometimes said that farmers used to be taxed according to the milk yield of the herd. But, to avoid paying tax on unsold milk, they only partially milked the cows, taking just what they estimated they could sell. Then, they turned the cows back out to pasture, to milk them again when the inspector had gone. This milk had a sweeter taste than the first official milking

They couldn’t, however, sell the milk obtained by this method, so they made cheese instead.

These days there are two kinds of Reblochon. Some farmers take the milk to a co-operative, where the cheese is made; this is marked with an edible red disc, or pastille in the cheese’s rind. If the farmer makes the cheese himself, it gets the green disc and is called ‘Reblochon Fermier. It is made from the milk of a single herd and held to be superior.

One important note: you mustn’t call your cheese farmhouse cheese unless it was made on a farm.

If a farmer doesn’t actually make cheese, but sends it to a milk to a co-operative, it’s blended with milk from other herds, and is distinguished from Reblochon Fermier by being marked with a red pastille in the rind.

A close relative of Reblochon is Tome, a name which comes from a dialect word ‘Toma’, which means “cheese from the mountain pastures.” It’s made in much the same way as Reblochon, but cooked at a higher temperature and left to mature for longer.

This results in a harder, nuttier cheese, and the most highly regarded is the already-mentioned Tome de Bauges … distinguished by spelling its name with one “M.”

Walking the Walk

For a lot of people, the phrase ‘Alpine walking’ is a bit of an off-put. It conjures up visions of using a lot of arcane and expensive ironmongery to climb up a gnarly, near-vertical, ice-covered rock face. But, in actual fact, the kind I’m talking about involves good paths through lush meadows, accompanied most of the time by the plangent clangour of cow-bells.

With the minimum of clothing and equipment, maybe you’re marvelling that you are well above the highest point in the British Isles. Even then, you’ll frequently pass a farm where they make and sell cheese.

But, if you don’t fancy that kind of walking, you can go into Annecy on Sunday morning where a market is held in Old Town. Around here, as well as elsewhere in France, the phrase “farmer’s market” is a tautology. Most stalls sell local produce … ham, vegetables, and, of course, cheese.

How to Get there: The nearest airport is Geneva, across the border in Switzerland; approximately one hour’s drive from St. Jean de Sixt. The nearest main rail station is at Annecy, about one half hour away. There’s a bus service from Annecy approximately every two hours; fare is about seven euros.

There is no public transport form Geneva airport, except in winter, when a ski-bus operates.

Where to Stay: We stayed at the Aravis Lodge Hotel in St Jean de Sixt, where there’s an excellent kitchen presided over by chef John Crompton, who also runs cooking holidays, see www.cookinginfrance.biz. The owners of the Aravis Lodge organise ski-ing and walking weekends. You can find the details at www.karibuni.co.uk. If you’re taking part in one of these tours, or just staying there, the owners will arrange a free transfer from Annecy or Geneva for you.

Keith Kellett is globalfoodie’s UK correspondent. He can be reached at: Keith@globalfoodie.com.