French Seafood Meal in Metz (Lorraine Region, France)
with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
My
husband Laurent’s cousin’s children invited Laurent, baby Florence, and me for
lunch on our long weekend vacation in Metz, France. We offered them a magnum of Moët and Chandon champagne
that we could all drink as a cocktail.
We
began our meal with a large platter of white asparagus from Hoerdt in Alsace
(France). We ate these with a bright
yellow, homemade mayonnaise that was flecked with freshly chopped Italian
flat-leaf parsley.
Our
next course was a marmite de pêcheur (a seafood casserole). The seafood casserole had items in it like
shrimp, octopus, scallops, mussels, and salmon in a white sauce made with white
wine.
Salmon
and shrimp together have a sweet taste and should be paired up in more recipes
I thought. We drank a pinot blanc from
Alsace (Jérome Lorentz fils 1997) – a dry
and fruity white wine that is typical of Alsatian white wines.
Then,
we had paper-thin slices of prosciutto from Parma, Italy. The other ham we tried was called a San
Daniele from Italy’s Udine region, which also produces Moretti beer. This region used to be part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and is called the Sud Tyrol in German.
We
drank a medium-bodied red wine with the ham called Bergerac (La Caste 1990)
from southwestern France.
For
our cheese course, we ate a perfectly ripe Camembert cheese. Camembert is luscious when it is the real
thing.
For
dessert, we ate strawberry tartlets and slices of currant tart.
Finally,
I drank an espresso as coretto with some Mirabelle (yellow plum) eau-de-vie in
it while Laurent drank a marc de Calvados.
(Marc is the French version of Italian grappa.)
By
Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
 |
| Ruth Paget Selfie |
