The Food and Drink Of The Loire
Fish from the river features on most restaurant menus. Favourites are filet de sandre (pickerel), salmon (often flavoured with sorrel), stuffed bream and eels softened in mature red wine, and little smelt-like fishes served deep-fried ( la friture de la Loire ). The favoured meat of the eastern Loire is game . Pheasant, guinea fowl, pigeon, duck, quails, young rabbit, venison and even wild boar are all hunted in the Sologne. They are served in rich sauces made from the wild mushrooms of the region's forests or the common champignon de Paris , cultivated on a huge scale in caves cut out of the limestone rock along the Loire and its tributaries. Both Tours and Le Mans specialize in rillettes , or potted pork; in Touraine charcuteries you'll also find pate au biquion , made from pork, veal and young goat's meat. The Loire valley is also great fruit - and vegetable- growing country. There are greengages from orchards in Anjou, called Reine Claudes after Francois I's queen. Market stalls overflow with summer fruits, and old varieties of apples and pears can still be found. Tarte tatin , an upside-down apple tart, is said to have originated from Lamotte-Beuvron in the Sologne. Tours is famous for its French beans, and Saumur for its potatoes. Asparagus (the best from Vineuil) appears in souffles, omelettes and other egg dishes as well as on its own, accompanied by vinaigrette made (if you're lucky) with local walnut oil. Finally, from Berry, comes the humble lentil, whose green variety often accompanies salmon or trout. Though not as famous as the produce of Bordeaux and Burgundy, the Loire valley has some of the finest wines in France, and there are well over twenty different appellations to discover. Sancerre, halfway along the river, produces some well-known flinty, very dry white wines made from the Sauvignon grape, as well as some good reds and a rose . There are the mellow whites and roses of the Anjou vineyards in the west , the fruity sparkling methode champenoise wines around Saumur , and the sweet, still wines of Vouvray . The Cabernet grape is used to produce the rich, ruby reds of Chinon and Bourgueil ; these are some of the best Touraine wines, and many are capable of maturing over decades. To go with the wine, Touraine has some of the best soft goat's cheese : Ste-Maure, shaped into a long cylinder with a piece of straw running through the middle; the small, round crottin de Chavignol goat's cheese from Sancerre, eaten fresh or matured, when it becomes hard with a very sharp flavour; the pyramid-shaped Pouligny-St-Pierre and Valencay; and the flat, round Selles-sur-Cher.
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