This online French hands-on cooking class is a fantastic way to have fun with your family and friends living far away from you. Ideal for a birthday!

Specialized French Gastronomy Tour:

After spending the first twenty years of my life in Normandy, I have decided to become your guide and share my passion and culture with you with the help of my hospitable family. Dad is the driver and Mom Director of logistics! You can join me on an unforgettable journey to Normandy and discover this unspoiled part of France with its incredible gastronomy.

We will stop in different villages, try out the local cuisine and walk through lively markets selling a wonderful variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs, fish, and seafood – crabs, lobsters, oysters and prawns. We will also visit local patisseries displaying an array of delectable desserts, cakes, tarts and petit fours and of course, a selection of the inimitable French breads.

During this tour, we will obtain as much food as possible from natural sources and consequently, your experience will differ according to the season and time of the year.

Any other food is from the farms, markets, fine shops and my family home.

The tour is seven days, with an option of extending your time with a trip Paris, or discovering another part of Europe…

We will be accommodated in a beautiful French country house in the Normandy farmland. The size of the group on this tour would be between 2 – 8 people and you will spend your time with like-minded people, sharing a common love for food, culture and travel.

More info: https://www.nadegecuisinetours.com/

Normandy

The Normandy region of France combines a 360-mile dramatic coastline with a verdant interior of lush farm lands and bustling market towns , the historic landmarks include the cities of Caen, Bayeux and Rouen, and the coastline site of the World War II landing beaches  Once part of Britain, there remains a Norman influence which gives the region  a slightly different cultural feel from other parts of France. It is located to the northwest of Paris, along the coast of the English Channel.

Gastronomic delights abound, from fine cheeses to cider and Calvados. It is internationally  known for its apple orchards and fresh dairy products as well as its rolling green landscapes and dramatic seaside cliffs,

Normandy is a mostly agricultural area made up of bocages— a patchwork of fields divided by high hedges. It  also supplies much of France’s dairy  produce. Cattle breeding, cider production and fishing are also important industries that help define this lush and beautiful region.. With temperate weather year-round (rainy and chilly in the winter and relatively sunny and mild in the summer), Normandy is a great place to visit during almost any time of the year. From beaches to countryside, it is well worth taking a  trip to this unique region of France.

A video about Normandy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmrCH0AhbDg&feature=fvsr

Cuisine in Normandy

Norman cuisine is based around the three main products of the region: seafood, apples and dairy products.

These lush natural surrounds provide the most natural and organic ingredients for dishes such as Vallée d’Auge- style veal, Rabbit à la moutarde, Duck à l’orange, every part of the pig (including ears!), fresh seafood (scallops, crabs, Normandy oysters, mussels , cockles, sea snails, and periwinkles for Plateau de fruits de mer), fresh fish (mackerel, Dieppe sole, turbot and sea bass), apple tarts and Calvados. There is also a mouth-watering selection of regional cheeses such as Camembert, livarot, Pont l’Evêque,  quiches and tarts and farm-style fresh cream to name but a few of the gastronomic delights. Last, but certainly not least, there is the Cider and Calvados for which this area is justly famous.

Apples being a major item of produce in the orchards of Normandy, it is not surprising that cider – still or sparkling, dry or sweet, or perry – is a favourite regional tipple. Also derived from Norman apples is the famous Calvados Apple Brandy (the trou normand).

I think anybody who likes cooking, likes doing so with quality ingredients but sometimes it can be a mission to find the right supplier, or to make sure that your producer of vegetables, fruits, and meat respects your own personal requirements (organic, biodynamic, fair trade, etc.)

It can also simply be difficult to find THE product that a recipe calls such as Tonka beans! It just happens to me this week…where in Cape Town can I buy Tonka beans???!

Well, I must say that I spend a great deal of my time looking for those places. And I found many!!

I have listed for you below a few of those. But if you would know other places of interest, I would be really happy to try them if you let me know, and I may add them to this list. MERCI!!

 

MEAT

• Frankie meat merchants, 8 kloof street, Cape Town / 021 424 7204 / www.ffmm.co.za

Whole duck, duck breasts, prosciutto

• Coniglio rabbit meat at Krazy Kiwi, Wellington road, Durbanville /0 21 976 5568 / http://buyrabbitmeat.co.za/?page_id=351 or Stand 37 V&A Market / 071 042 8930 / http://www.marketonthewharf.co.za/market-on-the-wharf1.html

Rabbit-whole, hopper wings, sausages, patties, potjie

• Food from the Karoo, in the Karoo, 0826503506 / http://www.foodfromthekaroo.com/

They deliver whole chicken, beef, game meats, diced bacon, farm butter, camembert, brie

• Idelid, Johannesburg / 0824522845 / www.idelid.com

They deliver quality Polish, Italian, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Hungarian matured meat products,

Here is a list of restaurants and retailers that use pasture reared food: http://www.farmerangus.co.za/2012/03/05/clients/

 

FISH

• Hout Bay Harbour
• Kalk Bay Harbour
• Fish Hoek Fisheries / Main road / 021 782 2314

No where else you’ll have such a quality hake! While waiting for the fish to be filleted the order a fish and chips take away (absolutely divine!)

FRUITS AND VEGS

•  Organic zone / Lakeside close to Total station / 021 788 3133 / http://www.organiczone.co.za/

Organic lemon, oranges, pears, apples, spinach, Jerusalem artichokes, sprouts, candy beetroots, wild garlic, carrots, potatoes…

 

CHOCOLATES

 

• Cocoafair / Old biscuit mill / 0214477355 /  http://www.cocoafair.com/

Raw cocoa nibs, 65%, 75%, 85% chocolates, white chocolates, milk chocolates, praline

•  Saszali/ Cape Town / 0793585250 / http://www.saszali.co.za

Most amazing flavoured individual chocolates (coffee roast, vanilla orchid, authentic rooibos, golden thyme…)