French Seafood Meal in Metz (Lorraine Region, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

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

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Count Baldwin IV of Flanders Game: The Lille, France Touring Game Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Count Baldwin IV of Flanders Game:  The Lille, France Touring Game Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Introduction:

The City of Lille (France) is known as the Capital of Flanders, which has Flemish speakers in both France and Belgium.  Lille is in both France and Belgium.  Lille is in the region of France called the Nord – Pas de Calais.

History:

The Flemish Count Baldwin IV (Baudoin le Barbu in French or Baudewijn met de Bard in Flemish – born c. 980 – May 30, 1035).  Baldwin IV notably defeated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and won the following territories for France:

-Valenciennes (France)

-Ghent (Belgium)

-Zeeland (Netherlands)

Industries:

Today, the Lille-Tourcoing-Roubaix-Villeneuve d’Ascq conurbation produces:

-fruit juices

-freeze-dried coffee

-instant foods

-soybean and cottonseed oil

There are also service industries in Lille linked to trade with the above industries:

-banking

-insurance

-logistics (rail, port, and highway)

How to Get to Lille from Paris, France

Lille is about 1 hour away from Paris by Eurostar TGV, connecting London (UK) and Brussels (Belgium), which makes a weekend trip from Paris a fun option for shopping, dining, and sightseeing.

Festivals in Lille

Check out websites for Lille for tourism information.

Two festivals that might interest tourists visiting Lille for the first time include:

-“Festival Bal” – a Flemish and Belgian-Flemish beer festival

-Christmas Market – runs from the end of November to the end of December.  The Christmas Market sells nativity figurines, Christmas decorations, and Christmas foods

The various websites have maps and city guides you can download.

Tours

The City of Lille is adding tours of breweries, walking tours, and battlefield tours to its website.

One tour that may be of interest to Americans of English and Australian descent is a tour of the Fromelles Battlefield. 

The Germans defeated British and Australian troops on July 19 and July 20, 1916 at Fromelles.  The battleground here did not have trenches.  It used a “breastwork” or temporary fortification instead of trenches.

Notable Flemish Cuisine and Beer

-Carbonnade flamande – Flemish beef and vegetables stewed in beer

-Belgian fish and chips (fries) dunked in mayonnaise

-Belgian-Flemish beer – I tasted one of my favorite Belgian-Flemish beers in Arras (France).  It is called Affligem (Afflighem) and is from the Flemish province of Brabant outside Brussels, Belgium. 

Final Note:

Lille can be a weekend trip from Paris or a detour on the way to Brussels, Belgium on the Eurostar TGV (speed train).

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Pierrefonds and Compiegne: Fortress Towns in the Retz and Compiegne Forests North of Paris by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Pierrefonds and Compiègne (France):  Fortress Towns North of Paris by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On another cold, winter weekend in Paris, my husband Laurent and I drove north to the imposing fortress on the Oise River named Pierrefonds.

Pierrefonds is lit up dramatically at night, but there is not much to visit inside the Château.

The Château at Pierrefonds reminds me of Barbara Tuchman’s book entitled The Proud Tower.  The Tower in the book is medieval and watches over human wars and corruption and loses a few stones here and there, but remains strong due to its solid stone construction – what the French call “vielles pierres – “old stones.”

We drove through the Fôret de Retz and the Fôret de Compiègne for an hour to arrive at Pierrefonds to take photos.

There has always been a château on the Pierrefonds site since the 12^th century.  It is a fortress not a luxury château.  The main purpose of the Château at Pierrefonds is to serve as a barrier against invasion on the Oise River.

To finish the day off, we went to the town of Compiègne to do grocery shopping and visit the town where my husband Laurent did his engineering studies in computer science (hardware, software, and communications and electrical systems between the two).

Compiègne is famous as the place where Louis XVI met Marie-Antoinette in 1770.  She was very beautiful; Louis XVI was said to be “paralyzed with timidity” when he met his Austrian bride-to-be.

Both cities have a spooky air to them when you drive through the forests with hoar frost hanging off of them.

Both of these “vielles pierres” towns might not be on the agenda for a first or second trip to France, but maybe a third.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Langeais and Villandry: Chateaux Hopping in France's Loire Valley with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Langeais and Villandry:  Châteaux Hopping in France’s Loire Valley with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I went to the Loire Valley to do some shopping on one winter weekend as we left Paris for a car trip.

The Loire Valley Château at Langeais beckoned us.  The tall, central dungeon, whose ruins are part of the Château, was built in the 10^th century, making it one of the most ancient dungeons in France. 

The tall dungeon was the most secure place in a castle.  Prisoners, the food stores for 5 years or more, and the women and children were kept in the dungeon in wartime at different levels of the dungeon tower.

Louis XI built the Château between 1465 and 1469 to keep the wily Bretons from coming up the Loire River from Nantes to the Touraine where Langeais is located.  It almost sounds like Langeais was a Hadrian’s Wall to keep the wily Scots from descending down into England.

The Loire River by Langeais Château was not always full of sand bars like it is today.

A royal marriage between Anne de Bretagne and Charles VIII stamped out any future Breton invasions.  Brittany became part of France after this marriage.

Unlike other châteaux, Langeais has many tapestries and many pieces of furniture to give you an idea of how life was lived in the 15^th century in a royal household.

My favorite artworks were the tapestries from Flanders and the Mille Fleurs or “Thousand Flowers” tapestries.  The tapestries served as insulation in damp châteaux.

Our next stop was the Château at Villandry, famous for its reconstruction of a 16^th century French garden.  There are many terraces and canals with hedges shaped into forms symbolizing love.

There was also a vegetable garden whose plants are arranged in a cross-pattern developed in a pre-Columbian monastery gardens similar to those in blueprints for the St. Gall Monastery in Switzerland.

I liked the canal system at Villandry whose different gardens occupy different levels around the Château grounds.

We left the Château and ate cheese and mushroom pizza in Vielle Tours downtown with its half-timbered buildings.

I loved both Langeais and Villandry for being close enough to Paris that you could drive there or take the train or TGV (Speed Train) for a short weekend visit.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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