A foodie in France

Good girl Bilo, now please drop it." Bilo wagged her tail with the velocity of a supercharged windscreen wiper, feinted left to confuse Jean-Sebastian Pousse, her master and then scurried away to the right. In her mouth she held a gastronomic delicacy that is often worth its weight in gold - a Burgundy truffle. But Jean-Sebastian was not too worried. "She's just having a little game with me. She loves teasing me like this. But, if she wasn't a dog and a pig instead, I would have been very worried." Traditionally, pigs were used to sniff out and dig up truffles. But pigs consider truffles to be a tasty snack. Try snatching one from a pig's mouth and you might not only lose the truffle but a finger or two as well. Dogs on the other hand are trained to find truffles, drop them into the hands of the truffle hunter and then wait expectantly for a reward with their tongues hanging out. And, that is what Bilo eventually did. I was in the village of Boncourtsur-Meuse in the Lorraine province in north eastern France where Jean runs the House of Truffles and Trufficulture. The truffle that Bilo eventually plonked into Jean's hand was a small black lump that looked disturbingly similar to what comes out of the other end of a dog. But when I presented the same to the lady of the house at Hotel restaurant du Lac de Madine, my night stay at the little village of Heudicourt, she swooned at one sniff of it. The French simply love the delicate flavouring truffles bring to food. Loire valley I picked up my Avis hire car at the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris two weeks ago and had started a drive through eastern France that had soon turned into a culinary cruise. My stays were at small Bedand-Breakfasts where the owners were almost always very passionate about what they put on the table. As was the case with Didier Merlin, master chef and vintage bike lover. He runs a B&B (La Ferme des Les Saules) in a village called Les Saules close to Cheverny in the Loire Valley which is peppered with beautiful chateaus. When I arrived, half the village was in Didier's huge kitchen and he was giving them an impromptu lesson on how to cook crayfish and serve it like a work of art along with liver and greens. Burgundy From the Loire Valley, I drove into Burgundy. In the quaint city of Beaune, I did a wine appreciation course at Sensation Vin. The knowledgeable (and astoundingly pretty) girl there encouraged me to listen to what my eyes, nose and mouth were saying about colour, bouquet and finish of the wine we tasted. Wine is big in Burgundy, as is mustard or to say it right moutarde. At the Moutarderie Fallot in Beaune, visitors are told the story of mustard and how vinegar, tarragon, Chablis, and white wine is used to make different kinds of mustards. Neighbouring Dijon takes it to the next level and you can go mustard tasting in shops selling the much loved pungent condiment. Dijon Dijon is also where I first tried my hand at French cooking at L'atelier des Chefs Dijon. Chef Oliver explained that food has to look as good as it tastes and hence was very particular about dicing and trimming. The caramelised pear we made had to have the fruit cut in equal sizes and the caramel burned to just the right hue of brown. It turned out that I was a better chef than I thought I'd be and my co-chefs were nodding appreciatively while chewing on my chicken ragu stuffed with chorizo. Alsace The next morning I left the dry reds of Burgundy and drove into Alsace, the French Province on the Franco-German border famed for its fruity Pinot Gris wine. Because of its location, Alsace and even the Province of Lorraine that sits on top of Alsace, have food that is greatly influenced by their neighbour, Germany. I tried my hand at making the revered chicken liver pate that the French simply love to spread over a slice of fresh crispy baguette and relish as a snack. My teacher Mireille Oster, who runs a famous gingerbread shop called Pain d'epices in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, showed me how it was very important to prep everything beforehand because if you lose time finding or chopping stuff, even half a minute more on the flame can ruin your dish. The pate made with liver, eggs, chives, butter, onions and garlic was fantastic. I have made it at home in Mumbai and was almost as good. Lorraine From the eastern most part of France, I drove back to Paris through Metz in Lorraine. Here Chef Patrick Grumberg runs a speciality soup bar at the Metz covered market opposite the cathedral. I also stopped for a night in Commercy and sampled Mandelines - those famed delicious cookies that were first baked here in 1755 as a hasty desert for Stanislaus, the king of Lorraine. Hautvilliers And my final stop before Paris was Hautvilliers where the grand daddy of bubbly perfected the art of the fizz in wine to give the world Champagne - Hautvilliers is where Dom Perignon dwelled. An afternoon sampling champagnes from the numerous wineries in this unassuming little village just 10 minutes from glitzy Epernay, the unofficial capital of Champagne, was a suitable finale to my three weeks of driving around Eastern and North-eastern France. Info - Wine Tasting in Beaune is at Sensation Vin and they have an array of appreciation courses. Go to www.sensation-vin.com - For the cooking class in Dijon log on to www.atelierdeschefs.com - To know more about mandelines in Commercy go to www.madeleinecommercy.com - For a cooking class in Strasbourg go to www.mireille-oster.com - To stay at Didier Merlin's place - La » Ferme des Saules go to www.fermedessaules.com - For more on the regions of France go to www.franceguide.com Rishad Saam Mehta leisure.mirror@indiatimes.com