The following should be more widely available, beginning immediately.
* Bleu de Brebis. Whole Foods had this cheese once in 2005 for something like a week. Thus, as with Tartufello Pecorino, hope lives.
* Chipirons en encre (squid cooked in ink).
* Gateau Basque. If the Obama Socialist Food Rationing Board can only squeeze in one dessert cake from the Pyrenees, local consensus holds that the cream kind beats the one made with cherries.
* Dorade or similar fish cooked whole.
* Serrano ham. You can actually get American versions of this in specialty markets these days, but here it is as ubiquitous as watery, tasteless sliced ham in the States. I would love for someone with an economics degree to explain how a Serrano jambon beurre here costs less than crappo-brand ham on wonderbread with American cheese and mustard-like processed food product.
I understand better how customs officers keep their eyes on the Spanish and the Basque more than almost anyone else. One can easily imagine how much happiness can be squeezed into the secret(ish) parts of a suitcase, and I’m not even talking about the impressive pot plant that my neighbor has on his balcony.
Visiting the family is uneventful, thank the heavens.
Finally, for whichever readers recommended The Discovery of France in my book thread, many many thanks. The book makes an extremely useful travel guide while touring the stubbornly unassimilated pays.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s not even 6:00 am yet, Tim — I haven’t even thought about coffee yet, let alone actual food — but your post has me yearning for a ham and cheese sandwich. As long as it’s Serrano and bleu de Brebis. Nice post, and I’m glad you’re having such a good (and gustatory) time.
I’ve been fooling around with plans (which right now are only in the pipe-dream stages) for my next vacation. I should say vacationS, as there’s no way I could do all of these in one trip. Basically, I want to visit all the small islands and island groups around the UK: Isle of Wight, Channel Islands, Isles of Scilly, Lundy, Anglesey, Isle of Man, Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shetlands including Fair Isle. Complicated logistics and hideously expensive and time-consuming, but it’s been a far-off dream for years and yesterday while it was pouring rain and dark and thundery here, I put in a couple of good hours with the GB atlas and various ferry schedules just to get an idea.
I love to travel but almost as much, I love the detailed research phase that comes first.
SiubhanDuinne
Wow. Two threads in a row where I have the first post. That’s never happened! Yay me for waking up earlier than anyone and compulsively firing up BJ first thing.
joy
I love France, hope to live there in retirement.
I read The Discovery of France a couple years ago. What a great book! I remember being awed at the shepherds and their stilts on the Landes. Thanks for reminding me of that book.
vacuumslayer
I can’t figure out why I could get Mexican style Chorizo in Florida, but I can’t get it here outside of DC. :( Only kind available here is the hard, cooked stuff, which I don’t find nearly as pungent and appealing as the uncooked stuff.
El Cid
You can get the regular jamon serrano (much tastier than prosciutto in my opinion) as well as the rarer, tastier blackfoot Spanish pig jamon iberico, as well as the special acorn-only fed blackfoot Spanish pig jamon iberico de bellota, from the online Spanish shop La Tienda, as well as from some local specialty stores. The latter two are much pricier. But they have frequent sales.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Gateau Basque and an impressive pot plant on the balcony. Ah, civilization…
SGEW
Yes. Yes! A thousand times yes! I’ve had the italian version (Calamares en su Tinta), and it’s simply brilliant.
A million times yes! Oh bloody hell, now I’m aching for Pyrenees food. Looks like I’ll be checking out El Cid‘s suggestion there (great: more ways to spend all my precious monies).
Also, @SiubhanDuinne: Sounds like a great trip! A friend of mine spent some time on the Orkneys, and loved ’em.
SGEW
@SGEW: Ooo, this quickly googled recipe is gonna haunt me all day . . .
SenyorDave
OT, but I just saw this on Sullivan’s blog (part of the Cheney torture tour:
WALLACE: So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you’re OK with it?
CHENEY: I am.
So any torture is fine with Cheney, no matter how far it went.
Maybe it took a statement like this for me to realize that Dick Cheney is, for all practical purposes, a Nazi. Does anyone doubt for a second that he would have fit in perfectly in Nazi germany? He is evil personified.
My fantasy is that a foreign country will kidnap Cheney and send him off to some godforesaken country for rendition. The thought of Dick Cheney rotting for the rest of his life in an Iranian prison is one of the things that keeps me going.
SGEW
@SenyorDave:
Let’s try and stay somewhat accurate, okay?
SenyorDave
SGEW:
You are correct, but I would have to modify it and say that he is a totalitarian who would fit in perfectly within any totalitarian regime, be it Russia under Stalin, Nazi germany, or Cambodia under Pol Pot.
gnomedad
@SenyorDave:
This is not the entry you meant, but I love this title:
Chris Wallace, A Teenage Girl Interviewing The Jonas Brothers
MikeJ
Not a good analogy. There are things the Jonas brothers could say that would disillusion and unenchant the pre-teen girl.
Aris
Can anyone please explain to me US custom laws? Why the obsession with prohibiting meats and cheese from Europe from coming into the US when there’s no evidence that they cause any disease or damage to those who consume them?
You don’t have to be a libertarian (I’m not) to argue that governments, while they should obviously protect public health, should not be able to dictate that people cannot eat stuff that’s so marginally dangerous (if at all) as to make prohibiting them illogical.
Is this an attempt to protect the US food industry? Stupidity? What?
____________________________________________
eastriver
Glad you had fun.
So, after that great thread with reading suggestions you went with 1 obvious suggestion. How novel.
If you want more exciting food options move to a big city. Like NYC. Or NYC. Or if that’s too pricey, the outer boros of NYC.
scav
Ahh, eastcluelessness.
pixelpusher
Glad you’re enjoying Discovery of France. For me, with French parents, a passion for history and plenty of time in-country, it was still a huge series of revelations. It was all so alien, I felt like I was reading science-fiction.
Also glad you’re enjoying the bouffe. It’s hard to go wrong. And walking through an open-air market — what combination of smells, sights and characters.
Dave
There is entirely too much French in this post. How un-American…
demimondian
Tim, the reason it’s cheap is actually not something you want to reproduce.
French agriculture is a legally propped-up monopoly. Serrano ham is protected from competition by its name, distribution of competing brands is suppressed by law, and, yes, the production of the ham is directly subsidized. Google “beef mountain” and “wine lake” if you want more details.
scav
Or, maybe some would rather prop up foodstuffs rather than banks. It’s all a question of priorities. Les Francais ont fait leur choix, Les Americains ont fait une autre. Healthy people or healthy profits. blah blah blah. ‘Mercans choose to bankroll sugar and corn syrup. Let’s hear more about the existential purity of the American capitalist system. Break out the foam fingers and chant.
eastriver
Ahh, scab
DZ
First, Jamon de Serrano is Spanish not French. I live in SW France 4-5 months a year in Basque country, and, while there is plenty of Serrano to be had, the best local stuff on the French side is just called jambon au fume or smoked ham. There are meats and cheeses in SW France and NW Spain that have never been seen in the U.S.
Steeplejack
I was one of the ones who mentioned The Discovery of France. Would love to hear you riff off that book in terms of what you’re seeing in present-day France that doesn’t jibe with our clichéd, semi-touristy picture of the country.
Are your family members in France blood relatives or in-laws?
Evinfuilt
You want real good pork products here in the US? There is one place I know of that should knock your socks off.
http://www.boccalone.com/
Its Italian, not Spanish, but you’ll live.
Comrade Darkness
There are a couple of Prosciuttos from Canada that rival anything I’ve had in Italy. In Spain, the styles vary too much to compare.
http://www.pingueprosciutto.com/
Shoot, there is at least one more, but I can’t remember the name. I’ll post if the grey matter coughs it up.
Ed Drone
FOOD! Ah, food! It’s a meal in itself!
Ask for it by name; accept no substitutes!
Remember, if you can’t eat it, it’s not food!
Caution. May be habit-forming. Use only as directed. If conditions persist, see your physician. Prices slightly higher in south and west. Contents may settle during shipping. Offer void where prohibited.
Ed
[Rant ©1985 Jonathan Eberhart]
El Cruzado
They have the Campofrio stuff at Wegman’s for about $20 a pound, not all the time but most of the time. It’s not great, but it gets the nostalgia under control for a while.
aimai
Ah, les parents d’aimai sont aussi en france. wish were there. Another book I always recommend to people is “French or Foe?”http://www.pollyplatt.com/pages/frenchfoe.htm by Polly Platt.
aimai
Jay C
“I would love for someone with an economics degree to explain how a Serrano jambon beurre here costs less than crappo-brand ham on wonderbread with American cheese and mustard-like processed food product.”
No degree, but the answer is simple, Tim: In France, unelected and unaccountable dirigiste bureaucrats in Paris or Brussels disdainfully enact corrupt and wasteful regulations which pay pig-farmers 900 euros a kilo for their ham, while fixing the retail price at 89 e-cents.
See? That way everybody’s happy!
Joel
I tried to sneak some Camembert from the cheese shop at rue Cler into the US but it went completely stinky despite my best efforts at refrigeration (it was in the upper 90s around that time of year).
I did manage to sneak some delicious goat cheese whose name eludes me at the moment.
Trollhattan
That French ham is cheap because it’s zocialist ham (take that, moderation!) subsidized on the tears of orphans.
Take your canned Amurikan ham and enjoy it, damnit!
Last year a friend “imported” some Jamon Iberico ham in his bicycle case on return from Spain. Oh…my…Gawd. Spoiled for life, after that.
Origuy
I was in Boise in June. It has a large Basque community and the Basque Museum is worth seeing. Across the street is the Basque Market, which has a small selections of cheeses and other products for sale online. No jamon, though, it appears.
Colette
I have often
smuggledsneakedimported, through my own personal free-trade zone, French cheese (and sausages, dried morels, etc.) using the following nearly foolproof method:1. Wrap the cheese tightly in plastic cling wrap.
2. Wash your hands.
3. Put the wrapped cheese into a tupperware or similar plastic container that seals tightly.
4. Wash your hands and the outside of the container with soap and water.
5. Put the container into a clean, new zip-lock plastic bag that you have not touched prior to washing your hands.
6. Put it in your luggage or wherever you think you’ll have the best chance of it not being visually detected (this is the least controllable part of this method).
Of course, it helps to be a respectable, grey-haired, middle-aged woman who looks like she would be shocked – shocked! to find that smuggling is going on.
Colonel Danite
I’ve purchased both jamon serrano and jamon Iberico de pata negra at Costco. The latter is very expensive but it’s totally worth it. Of course, my goal in life is to open a Museo de Jamon franchise here in the U.S. so I would pay almost anything for a good Spanish ham.
scav
Yup, scab that I, am I actually believe there is life outside of the 5-borough areas. Try again.
Mayur
@Colonel Danite:
Costco has Iberico? That’s awesome. Wonder if they’re carrying bellota by now…
Bleu de Brebis and all sorts of hams are available here in NYC; Murray’s has the Brebis and Despaña, Biellese, and several others have bellota, basic Serrano, et cetera. Those stores do mail order as well.
J Bean
I am reading The Discovery of France too. It’s excellent!