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Explore France Holiday Guides Charente-Maritime 2008-2009 The joys of the table
| The joys of the table |
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In the Charente-Maritime you’ll find your favourite dishes from all over the southwest, spiced up with exotic influences from the Caribbean. The Charente-Maritime has no particular culinary heritage but you will find plenty of seafood and all the country dishes of the southwest here, sometimes enhanced with tropical tastes from the area’s long association with the Caribbean. Expect the extra zing to your tastebuds of spanking fresh produce: poultry, meat and game, seafood of course, but also freshwater fish, mushrooms, melons and other fruit and vegetables, gathered, grown or raised locally, or from nearby. Bought in season at the market, they are often combined with larder staples and spices from the ports, or simmered for long periods in pineau or cognac. Seafood, being plentiful, is often combined with meat dishes.  La mouclade is probably the bestknown local dish, stuffed curryflavoured mussels. Mussels can also be barbecued over the campfire in a chestnut roaster – basically a frying pan with holes in the bottom to let the liquid out. When they open they are cooked – if they don’t open don’t eat them. A more decorative, traditional method requires a special tray on which the mussels are carefully stacked. A fire of pine cones is lit below the tray and, if all goes well, the mussels are cooked by the time the flare dies down. Mougettes are an old country favourite, dried white beans cooked in a rich, tomato sauce. Goat cheese is a regional speciality so will feature on cheese platters, in salads and on toast as cabécou. The Île de Ré is famous for its new potatoes, its special salt (fleur de sel) and its salty caramels. The old colonial ties are remembered in the ti’punch, rum punch with lime, often served at beachside cafés. 
Fisherman’s hotpot
Ingredients for 6:
Wash and peel the vegetables.
Cod steaks with Île de Ré new potato crisps
Ingrédients for 4:
Preheat the oven to 200°C. |
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