TARASCON

The "Chateau du Roi René" is the landmark of Tarascon. . He is considered one of the best preserved castles in France - cityzeum.com -

I bet that only 1 from 1 000 000 Indonesian  have heard that name. Tarascon… what’s that ? it is such a bizarre word, this time I have an opportunity to feel the air of Tarascon. The area is located 3 hours from Lyon.  An amazing journey from Lyon via autoroute A7 with uncertain weather, between sunny and drizzling along the way, finally  we arrived at the Hotel du Viaduc (http://www.hotelduviaduc.com/) at 7 pm in the raining afternoon.

To tell the story long, it was not easy to find that hidden hotel, but the soft, peaceful colour of the buildings around the area, made the rainy afternoon suddenly forgotten, the excitement of discovering the Mediterranean secret continued until the hunger distract the photo hunting session.

The ambiance of the old city, the stone buildings… and the first things that attracts the eyes are the soft colours of the windows and doors on the old buildings at the area. The soft blue, the soft green and fresh white adore the antique middle age stone buildings. The fresh purple of the street lamp gives the unusual impression too. It makes the difference from other old cities I have visited.

A short story about the name of Tarascon, the legend that I copied from Wikipedia. 

History session for a second :

Legend reported among others by the Golden Legend[2] has it that the creature inhabited the area of Nerluc in Provence, France, and devastated the landscape far and wide. The Tarasque was a sort of dragon with six short legs like a bear's, an ox-like body covered with a turtle shell, and a scaly tail that ended in a scorpion's sting. It had a lion's head.

The Tarasque was said to have come from Galatia which was the home of the legendary Onachus, a scaly, bison-like beast which burned everything it touched. Some speculate that the story of the Onachus may be related to either that of the Unicorn or the Phoenix. The Tarasque was the offspring of the Onachus and the Leviathan of biblical account; disputably a giant sea serpent.

The king of Nerluc had attacked the Tarasque with knights and catapults to no avail. But Saint Martha found the beast and charmed it with hymns and prayers, and led back the tamed Tarasque to the city. The people, terrified by the monster, attacked it when it drew nigh. The monster offered no resistance and died there. Martha then preached to the people and converted many of them to Christianity. Sorry for what they had done to the tamed monster, the newly-Christianized townspeople changed the town's name to Tarascon.

I found a tarasque statue besides  the Chateau Royal de Provence or Château du Roi Rene which is located just few meter from our hotel in the town. The castle looks so tidy, unfortunately I did not have time to enter to see more. 

In front of the chateau, the beautiful big collegial stands in with the big plaza – Collegiale Royale Ste Marthe. The big soft green colour of its big door gives the different feeling, a dazling view.

Not many places I had visited there in Tarascon, but the Terminus restaurant will be in the next story as part of the cuisine adventure.

FROMAGERIE, it is a cheese shop or a cheese counter, which sells any kind of cheese and dairy products such as milk.

Regarding cheese there is a saying from French President - Charles de Gaule - : How can anyone govern a nation that has two Hundred and forty-six different Kinds of cheese?

(Read: How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 kinds of cheese – in my point of view : it is not an easy job to take care the nation which the people has such big tastes and desires --- 246

In Indonesia saying, we have one that let’s say almost similar :  even we have the same colour of hair, however our desire and thoughts will be different for sure… so  if we mix those 2 thoughts : if we have already had 246 different tastes and desire, how about the coulour of their hairs …. Mmm… no connection at all  

Well if you want to know how many types of cheese this link will help : http://www.cheesesoffrance.com

For me a moment to choose cheese  at the fromagerie is an exited moment because it always gives a big surprise as I never know the taste of the cheese I choose before.

When I said that in Indonesia the cheddar cheese is the most common thing we can have, the French people will respond  : that’s not cheese, it’s too soft … ehehhee…je dis rien

The first French cheese I tasted when arrived in my palace, First it was MORBIER, the name comes from the name of the village of  Morbier  at Franche compte area ... I have no idea where the place for certain but must say that the cheese is great. It is semi hard, not too salty and a blue line in the middle.

I am learning that  cheese goat  have small shapes around 5 cm in diameter and the taste and aroma is  stronger than cheese from cow.

Camembert cheese, well for sure, we have often heard about this kind of cheese, it is sold commonly in package of 250 grams, origine from Normandy.

It is said that the best taste of camembert if it has ripen which is creamy. Unfortunately when I bought, it has not been so creamy but  I already finished it all just before it got creamy…c’est gourmand  - people will say here (the greedy ---).

When visiting a neighbouring village near the Alpes, I was offered  a very creamy cheese, like melting cheese on a hot pizza, it is called COULOMMIERS.

He said that COULOMMIERS is part of the Brie cheese which is it king of cheese, made in paris ... Lyonnais seems a little allergy with anything from Paris ( lol ) ... they will say ... ah that’s made in Paris !  ( as I do not have a personal revenge  with parisian so just enjoyed that creamy coulommiers)

Oh yes, for the French, the eating ritual is not PERFECT without cheese.

Well today at the base camp the cheese  I have is FOURME D'Ambert, it’s blue cheese. Apparently this type is included the classical type of cheese.

There is the famous cheese shop near the base camp: fromagerie Didier Galland. This is the link: http://www.fromageriegalland.com/

And the open hour is special : work days from 12:30 until 15:30 closed. It shows that  the eating ritual is respected…eating ! , eating ! , life eating  .. eating is more important than business.

This is the heaven cheese: http://www.univers-fromages.com/

A little story about other dairy products, milk.

Mostly,  the Pasteurized system is not used often but use the system micro filter instead. 

The difference is that the pasteurized system, milk is heated for certain of time and temperature to kill the bacteria, while the micro-filter system, milk is filtered with a certain filter to filter out the bacteria, without heating it . So this system will not damage the proteins and vitamins, as a result the milk more fresh and last longer and the taste creamier ... for milk lovers in Indonesia... you need to taste the different hahaha ...

This links is helpful to know better: http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/microfiltered-milk.html

Hopefully, the Ultra milk ( Indonesian famous brand for pasteurized milk) will adopt this system soon .

Eating Ritual

 
There are many new things that I am happy to find them here. One of them is  the eating ritual. I do not know how to start, so many new ones. However I will try to put down what that impressed me so much. 

Boulangerie or bakery.

In boulangerie, we can have not only many varieties of French breads with a variety of shapes and cover of their crust but also paradise for  any kind of pie and tart, some times we can find sandwich also here. 

Pain is sort kind of the French bread which is brown in colour and crusty mostly. They can be in various shapes also some times has topping on the crust.

Brioche – this is the sweet bread, some have filling and some just empty without any filling.

The tart or tarlettes – this one is like pie with topping.

They have really mouth watering shape, so cute and desirable. Once I tried the tarte au citron, which is tart with citron jam as topping… wuiihhh I would say, it’s so sweet and sour in the same time.

So far I have not seen the tart or sweet bread  with cheese filling like cheese cake or cheese bread. Perhaps, cheese is best to be eaten alone.

In Boulangerie  I do not often see the white bread like we have for breakfast. In fact we can have such kind of bread in supermarket. In my opinion French people prefer having bread with crust, probably because of the way they eat is different from the way we eat white bread and also the French bread is last longer than white bread. They do not only cut the bread by hand but also used the bread to clean up the plate from the remain soup or sauce and also clean up the knife while eating cheese - in Bandung – people do not used to with that style.

When I had an opportunity to have a dine out, there is  someone who cleaned up her  plate from sauce with the bread so skilful and the most impressive thing is while eating French talking actively.

So I threw the joke, that French people eat and talk in the same time as fast as their TGV-the France ‘s high speed train. And instead of getting mad, the guy replied that  they are like Hamsters, when we are talking, we keep aside the food - in the cheek.

Boulangerie is all around at every corner, and always busy – a real good business indeed.  Once I passed the street and found people waiting in front of the boulangerie made a long queue untill reach the street to buy bread ... no idea what is the speciallity  of this bakery. I took the picture of that bakery, the  name Atelier Boulangerie - located in the Boulevard Croix – Rousse, Lyon.

Well if we are in Indonesia, we often see people bring their lunch as nasi padang in brown package, here it is a common sight to see people have bread in their hand, often they seem not able to bear their hunger, they are eating their bread while walking… hungry, hungry…. Hungry, can’t wait for more ...

Just for info, in the traditional market, we can have other kind of bread which common eaten by African people, as there are quite a lot Moroccans here, which is thin bread without yeast.  

FROMAGERIE, KEJU PRANCIS 

Cheese dairy in the Croix-rousse market

Fromagerie artinya tukang keju dan susu. And ada yang nulis, Presiden Perancis Charles de Gaule : How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese? (baca : Bagaimana orang bisa memerintah bangsa yang punya 246 jenis keju – mungkin artinya mengatur bangsa yang punya 246 selera dan keinginan --- Pembahasaan penulis : kalau peribahasa kita – rambut sama hitam, selera bisa beda… ini dari selera aja udah beda gitu, gmana rambutnya ???  cek cek cek --- gak nyambung kayanya, tapi pokoknya gitulah )

Nah kalau mau tau berapa jenis keju yang ada di sini ini link nya : http://www.cheesesoffrance.com

Jadi keju ternyata ada yang dari susu sapi, susu kambing, and susu domba.

Dari situ juga bisa dibagi, ada yang soft, semi soft and hard dan yang warnanya biru, maksudnya banyak jamur birunya.

Dari rasa ada juga kelompoknya, yang rasanya lembut, sedang atau kuat.

Selain di toko yang namanya fromagerie itu, keju dijual di pasar traditional. Moment memilih adalah moment yang menarik karena ini always surprising karena belum pernah coba sebelumya.

Ada keju yang dibuat dalam ukuran kecil atau sekitar 250 gr tapi ada banyak keju yang dibuat dalam ukuran yang gede gede , jadi kalau beli tinggal bilang mau sekian gram.

Ketika ngobrol, di Indonesia ada keju apa aja dan kata gw Keju Cheddar udah top di Indonesia … mereka bilang wah itu mah bukan keju.. kurang strong rasanya. 

Pertama datang ke istana ini,  keju yang tersaji adalah jenis MORBIER, ternyata kata om Wikipedia ini berasal dari nama desa Morbier di area Franche Compte… gak tau di mana nih di Perancisnya. Rasanya soft keras, gak terlalu asin ada garis biru di tengahnya.

Terus,  ada keju dari kambing, bentuknya cenderung kecil kecil, diameter 5 cm lah dan rasanya strong.

Keju Cammembert, nah yang ini pasti udah sering kita denger nya, dijual 250 gram an, buatan pabrik, katanya kalau enak tuh yang creamy. Kalau gak creamy itu belum mateng bener. Sayangnya ketika gw beli, belum creamy bener, tapi udah keburu abis ketika belum waktunya creamy hahaha… dasar - gourmand, kata orang sini (si rakus --- ).

And sewaktu sowan ke desa tetangga, gw disuguhin keju creamy banget, kaya toppingnya pizza waktu panas, namanya COULOMMIERS, ternyata itu jenis brie katanya- king of cheese, buatan paris… orang lyon suka agak allergy dengan buatan Paris… mereka akan bilang… ah itu mah buatan paris… kenapa ya mmm…(gw sih gak ada dendam pribadi ama orang paris jadi enjoy aja tuh coulommiers)

Biarin aja… yummy pokoknya Coulommier teh. Kenapa teh ? kan keju  ya yang dibahas…biasa orang Bandung, keukeuh… makan keju juga 'teh' nya gak ilang  

the site "fromages-de-terroirs.com" lists, just in Rhone-Alpes, a dozen cheeses.

 Oh iya, bagi orang Perancis, ritual makan tanpa keju, kaya kurang sempurna - kurang nendang  katanya 

Nah hari ini keju di base camp lagi jenis FOURME D’AMBERT, ada jamur birunya. Ternyata ini termasuk jenis keju klasik katanya.

Wah thanks to internet, ternyata baru nemu, ternyata ada caranya motong keju and jenis pisau untuk keju. Ini link nya untuk know better : http://www.fromages.com/decoupe.php

Pantesan gw pernah salah waktu potong keju Cammembert waktu itu. Phew… banyak banget yang harus dipelajari.

Harga keju disini murah, untuk Cammembert 250 gr, merk Coeur de Lion 1.9 Euro sama dengan  Rp 24000 lah, kalau di bandung lebih mahal ya. Kraft aja 200 gr harganya  Rp 17 000, betul gak ?

For your info : Makan keju adalah selalu bagian dari ritual makan, sebelum desert pasti disediakan keju… mmm tanpa keju belum sip katanya.

Ada toko keju yang terkenal dekat base camp : fromagerie Didier Galland. Ini linknya : http://www.fromageriegalland.com/

"Nah hari ini keju di base camp lagi jenis FOURME D’AMBERT, ada jamur birunya. Ternyata ini termasuk jenis keju klasik katanya"

And jam bukanya : kalau jam 12.30 sampai 15.30 tutup, ritual makan , makan, dan makan.. makan lebih penting dari bisnis

Searching tentang keju di internet bias ngabisin 5 sks kali, makin banyak dibuka makin banyak standard dan aturannya. Jadi udah dulu ceritanya.

Ini ada surga nya keju : http://www.univers-fromages.com/ 

Sedikit mengenai produk dairy yang lain, disini kebanyakan udah gak pake system Pasteurized, tapi pake system micro  filter -micro filtre. Bedanya kalau pasteurized system, susu dipanaskan dengan suhu dan waktu tertentu supaya membunuh bakteri, sedangkan system micro filter, susu disaring dengan saringan yang besarnya tertentu untuk menyaring bakterinya, tanpa memanaskan. Jadi tidak merusak protein dan vitaminnya, akibatnya susu fresh lebih lama dan rasanya lebih creamy… bagi pecinta susu… you need to taste the different hahaha…

Ini link yang membantu  : http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/microfiltered-milk.html

Semoga, susu Ultra akan mengadopt system ini  SEGERA ya.. Amin

Joke : Orang Perancis kalau di foto gak bilang 'cheese' kali ya --- tapi " fromage" --- wah hasilnya kayanya beda lol

a well-stocked cheese board

Ritual Makan - Boulangerie

3.14 million of bread are produced each year in France, 74% of bread purchased are "baguettes" (SOFRES 2002)

Hal baru yang gw temuin di sini adalah ritual makan. Gak tau gimana harus mulainya, banyak banget yang baru. Jadi gw certain aja yang gw inget.

Boulangerie atau toko roti , di sini dijual aneka ragam roti dengan berbagai macam bentuk dan ada kue tart and pie gitu.

Pain - adalah jenisnya roti perancis itu yang berkulit keras yang warnanya coklat. Tapi sini banyak bentuk dan ada yang bertopping juga.

Brioche - ini adalah roti manis, ada yang pake isi ada juga yang kosong.

Yang gw suka, namanya Pain du chocolat, kulitnya kaya pastry, isinya coklat... mmm..tidak pernah bosen.

Tarte or tartelette - itu kue kaya pie dengan topping, kan kalau pie tanpa topping ya?

Kue tart nya macem-macem rasa dengan bentuk yang cute cute pula, tapi kayanya gak banyak kue rasa keju kaya di kita dengan cheese cake nya. Mungkin keju ya keju aja, jangan dimakan pake kue atau roti. Pernah cobain tartette au citron (tart dengan topping citrun)... wuiiih.. enak sih tapi ya ampun manis and asem bener.

Di boulangerie hampir gak pernah ngeliat roti putih yang seperti yang biasa kita makan untuk sarapan, ada sih kalau mau, tapi cuma di supermarket yang ada. Tapi french people lebih suka roti yang kulitnya keras, mungkin karena cara makan mereka yang beda dengan cara kita makan roti putih itu dan juga roti yang keras ini tahan lebih lama dibanding roti putih itu. Mereka makan roti itu dengan cara disobek, kalau di Bandung, pasti keliatan kaya orang kampungan, yang makan roti sambil ngebersihin piring dari soup or makan keju pake roti sambil ngebersihin pisaunya.

Waktu makan di rumah orang lain, ada orang yang ngebershin piring dari sauce dengan sangat cekatan pake roti itu and sambil sibuk ngomong… and for sure ngomong Prancis yang cepet itu.

Jadi gw buat joke baru, orang perancis itu makan and ngomong sama cepetnya kaya TGV-kereta cepat mereka. Eh si orang perancis bukannya marah, tapi malah jawab, memang kita sih kaya Hamster, kalau ngomong, makanannya di simpen di pinggir dulu (di pipi maksudnya )

Nah boulangerie ini ada di tiap sudut mata memandang, and selalu sibuk , bahkan gw pernah liat sampe pembeli antre kejalan nunggu beli roti… no idea apa yang hebat di toko roti ini. Nih gw ambilin foto toko rotinya, tapi lagi sepi … namanya ATELIER BOULANGERIE… lokasinya di Boulevard Croix – Rousse. 

Nah kalau kita di Indonesia, sering liat bawa bungkusan nasi bungkus or bungkusan nasi padang, nah disini orang orang teh banyak yang bawa roti di kantongin, atau jalan sambil makan roti panjang itu, gak tahan lapar kale ye …

Sekedar info, kalau ke pasar tradisional, karena banyak juga orang dari afrika, seperti maroco, jadi banyak juga roti mereka yang tanpa ragi itu, atau ada yang seperti martabak... belum pernah coba hanya liat aja di pasar jadi gak bisa cerita rasanya.