Did you know that the quiche is the most popular dish in France ? But there’s a lot more to Lorraine's cuisine! And that means more than just Lorraine’s hotpot or “Potée”, even if that alone is a delight, especially in winter.
Food lovers will adore the variety of Lorraine’s products. Its lakes and rivers abound with carp, pikeperch, pike and trout that are cooked in vin gris [a type of light-coloured rosé wine], or with cream and chopped bacon, or with beer, or with white wine and onions, or poached...
Delicious fare is also obtained from the woods and forests, such as wild boar and red wine stew, venison served with cranberries or various wild mushrooms (Côtes de Meuse truffles, “chanterelle”, “cepe”, “morille” [morel] mushrooms), and rabbit in mirabelle plum aspic.
The region’s farms produce a rich assortment of highly-renowned pork meat products: pies and pâtés, black pudding, suckling pig in aspic, salt-cured pork belly, bacon, saucisson [dried/smoked sausage], hams, and fresh cheeses that are often prepared with herbs or matured to achieve a distinctive taste, among them géromé, brouère and vacherin.
Beer is also much favoured in Lorraine, and is used in a large number of recipes. The Beer Route in Lorraine offers an enticing tour of a number of sites, including the Musée Européen de la Bière [European Beer Museum] in Stenay, which is the biggest beer museum in the world.
At tea time, succumb to some of Lorraine’s sweet delicacies, such as Nancy macaroons (delicious biscuits made of a delicate mixture of egg white, sugar and almonds) or Boulay macaroons (much liked by General de Gaulle), or Bar-le-Duc redcurrant jam de-seeded with a goose quill (nicknamed “Lorraine caviar”), or Nancy bergamot orange – certified to be the genuine article by the Lorraine Label – or cracknel biscuits and “visitandines” from Nancy, or the renowned madeleine de Commercy, or the less well-known but just as tasty Liverdun madeleine, or Verdun sugared almonds, or Plombières ice-cream.
| More local specialities |
Epinal
Spinadors, almond-and-hazelnut-caramel shells filled with chocolate praline (An Epinal chocolate-maker's speciality) - 1st Prize in the Tour de France Specialities Competition, 1st Prize at the International Chocolate Festival
Metz
boulets au chocolat (chocolate balls), The Mirabelle plum in its many forms : jams, tarts, eau-de-vie; Lorraine fumés (smoked meats), Moselle wines
Nancy
bergamot, baba au rhum, bouchée à la reine
Verdun
Sugared sweets, a Verdun speciality, made with almonds, chocolate or nougat: plain, brightly coloured and even silvered, large and small… Just take your pick!
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