A flippant expose of the country and people hosting this year’s Paris Olympics. Editor at Large Louise Evans pays homage to French cuisine by creating an end-of-life dinner menu.
We can die happy now that Australia has celebrated it’s most successful day in the history of the Olympics with four gold medals, making Paris its best Games ever.
So my dying wish is … a three-course French feast with matching French wine as my last meal on earth.
To avoid disappointment, and as time will be of the essence, I’ve prepared the menu. Stop reading now if you are vegetarian, vegan, paleo or are on a low carb, low fat, low salt, low calorie or low alcohol diet. Make that any diet.
Entree is controversial – melt-in-your-mouth foie gras, a rich, smooth, earthy pate made from fatty duck or goose liver and served with a dollop of fruit chutney and a crusty baguette.
Overfeeding geese and ducks to fatten their livers is considered farming terrorism by some critics. However foie gras is protected by French law as part of the country’s cultural and gastronomic heritage and consumption is described by the French consumers as traditional, festive and enjoyable.
While the production of about 14,000 tons of foie gras in France annually may be hard to swallow, its consumption is not – especially when a silken, gamey slice spread on crunchy sourdough is accompanied by the soft, berry-driven freshness of vintage Pommery Rose.
Pommery was the first champagne house to become commercially successful in 1874 thanks to the creation of Brut by Madame Louise Pommery (1819-1890). She also pioneered production and marketing techniques and practices for her champagne plus she was one of the first French company directors to create retirement and health funds for her employees. Cheers to you Louise.
Main meal will be confit du canard, pre-cooked duck leg preserved in duck or goose fat and then cooked again to order. Again, it’s a rich dish, often served with sweet carrots to balance the salty duck and a mesclun side salad. As it’s my last night on earth, let’s add a bowl of frites. Well I’m not watching my weight or cholesterol am I?
While it’s everywhere in Paris, confit du canard used to be hard to source in Australia until the descendent of a French refugee started a duck farm in 1968 in a tin shed in Nhill, about 370km northwest of Melbourne.
Art Shoppee’s ancestors were Huguenot Protestants who faced persecution by the French catholic King Louis XIV in the 17th century and fled to England before being lured to Australia by the 1850s gold rush.
Shoppee started with just 20 ducklings in his tin shed and today his family-owned business Luv-A-Duck is Australia’s leading duck producer which grows and supplies 5 million birds annually for the food service and retail markets in Australia and overseas.
What’s even better is that Luv-A-Duck, run by the late Shoppee’s daughters Theresa Sfetkidis and Kim Shoppee-Lynch, sells pre-cooked Confit Duck Legs in distinctive red trays to the leading supermarket chains.
To wash down that delicious duck leg, I’ll have a tantalising light, fruit-driven Grand Cru pinot noir that’s at least 10-years old from the Domaine des Hospices de Beaune in France’s famed Burgundy region.
Pinot noir from Burgundy is one of the most overhyped, overpriced wines in the world. But this wine comes with a great story as well as a great price.
Philip the Good, the third Duke of Burgundy from 1419-67, most likely secured his inappropriate title by permitting his Chancellor Nicholas Rodin to build an architecturally-grand charity hospital in Beaune: the Hôtel-Dieu Hospices – a Palace for the Poor. It was constructed in 1443 by French and Flemish craftsmen and its famous glazed tile roof has become symbolic of Burgundy and replicated throughout the region.
To help fund and supply the not-for-profit hospital, 61 hectares of nearby vineyards were donated and the wine from these plots was sold at an annual auction. This wine auction, now run by Sotheby’s, is the most famous and oldest charity wine auction in the world and is the culmination of an annual three-day festival.
The wine classified Grand and Premier cru sells for record prices and sets the benchmark for bulk wine prices for the vintage from the rest of the region. At the 2022 auction, a 228-litre (300-bottle) lot of Corton Grand Cru sold for a record €810,000 ($A1.33m) or about $A4,500 a bottle. As I don’t have to worry about debt or hangovers, I’ll have a bottle.
Dessert has to be a fresh-out-of-the oven tarte tatin, a famed upside-down apple pastry invented by sister chefs Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin in the 1880s at their Hôtel Tatin, about 30km south of Orlean in a game-hunting area.
Too many overrated, overpriced French restaurants from Calais to Canberra have faked this dessert during my culinary lifetime and served me inferior soggy apple pie instead.
So here’s how I want my final tarte tatin in all its sticky caramelised sliced apple glory on a buttery crispy puff pastry base. Cut the apple into thin slices and bathe them in hot caramel made by boiling butter, sugar and water. Arrange the slices in a fan in a baking pan, pour over the remaining hot caramel and tuck the puff pastry base in over the top. The key is to put the pastry base on top to ensure crispy perfection.
When it’s baked golden brown, turn the tart upside down to serve and plop a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
Tarte tatin’s best friend is a glass of aged Calvados – apple brandy made in Normandy, northwest of France. Floral, fruity and tangy, Calvados has a minimum 40 per cent alcohol content which is probably why it was favoured by the big-drinking American writer Ernest Hemingway.
The literary legend helped make Calvados internationally famous by featuring it in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises as the key ingredient in a Jack Rose cocktail.
It would be remiss of me not to finish this to-die-for French feast with some cheese. But doesn’t that make it a four-course meal? Excusez-moi I’m clearly addled. But who’s counting courses or drinks when it’s five minutes to eternal midnight?
The cheese was a favourite of France’s great military ruler Napoleon – Époisses. It’s a smooth, creamy cow’s milk cheese with a washed orange rind from the village of Époisses in Burgundy, about halfway between Paris and Lyon.
It’s salty, spicy and sweet all at once and also a bit stinky. But who cares if it smells if it’s to-die-for.
NOTE – This is the latest in a series of “Frivolous facts about France for Olympic bon vivants”. You can read other Frivolous Facts stories by clicking on these topics: French Art | French Architecture | French Sportscars | The French Language | French Wine | French hatred of the British | French Heroes | French Bread | French Inventions | French Olympic History | Famous French Athletes | The French Pacific | French Cafe Society.
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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