Jul 11
It is summertime in France and the open markets are bursting with color and flavor. Since barbecuing is technically illegal in Paris, given the fire hazard and all….we have to head to our local restos to get a plate of perfectly grilled vegetables. But nothing tastes better on a long summer’s night. Don’t you agree?
Yesterday at the Salon l’Agriculture one of the many interesting things I came across was this:
My first thought was, “Yum! A large chocolate globe.” My second thought was, “Is that burnt?”
Turns out I was right on track with the whole overcooked thing. After taking a few pictures and catching the twinkle in the eye of the vendeur, I summoned up the courage to ask him just exactly what the heck those big black, burnt things were. Noticing of course, that I speak French with an accent, he asked me where I was from. When I told him I was from the States, he said, in French, “This is the French version of New York Cheese Cake, the Tourteau Fromagé”, or the Cheese Crab.
cheese crabs….
They do look a little like giant crabs, don’t you think? They are also known as Tortue Fromagé (Cheese Turtle) and Tourteaux Fromagé (Cheese Cakes).
I had never laid eyes on a Tourteau Fromagé until 24-hours ago, but already I’m a convert. How is it that the French can even make burnt cake taste good??
The Cheese Crab/Cake is a specialty of the Poitou-Charente region in Southwest France, and not usually found at a boulangerie or a pâtisserie, but rather in a fromagerie—especially those that specialize in goat cheese.
To set the record straight, it is nothing like New York Cheese Cake, but it is a lot like a springy and airy Angel Food Cake, with a bit of tangy sweetness.
The cake’s story is one I can relate to: a harried baker accidently shoved a goat-cheesy gâteau into a blistering-hot oven. She smelled something burning, and opened the oven to find a blackened and hardened crusted cake. Obviously she must have been having company, because she tried desperately to salvage it. She lowered the temperature, crossed her fingers, and hoped for the best. To her surprise, the burnt crust protected the inside of the cake, and her finished creation was a spongy, sweet but slightly tart, absolutely perfect cake.
After sharing one with my family last night, I must admit, it seems like a very versatile creation. You could eat it as a breakfast cake with a café au lait, or at lunch with a little fruit on top, or it would be divine after dinner with some strawberry ice cream, and maybe just a wee bit of chocolat noir. It also seems very well suited for a picnic or car trip as it would take a good deal of force to flatten this crab / turtle en route.
When I asked the vendeur if I should eat the crust, his response was, “Comme vous voulez!” I liked it better without the crust, but admittedly, I ate a slice with the crust. Yes. It tasted markedly burnt. Mais it’s a thin crust, and the inside is most definitely worth tasting.
Vocabulaire
boulangerie: bakery
chocolat noir: dark chocolate
Comme vous voulez: As you like.
fromagerie: cheese shop
gâteau: cake
mais: but
pâtisserie: pastry shop
vendeur: seller, merchant
salade de chèvre chaud croustillant
Before I moved to Paris, my only experience with goat cheese was those small white logs of pasteurized cream cheese-like stuff, hermetically sealed in a thick, clear plastic casing, with annoying plastic green leaves pressed along the sides.
Thankfully in France there are somewhere around 400 different types of cheese, so one can only assume a large number of those are chèvre. The Frenchies seem to be crazy for chèvre, and so am I.
Nearly every time I go out to lunch with a Parisienne (female), one of us orders a salade de chèvre. As everyone in Paris (male or female) is concerned about their weight, somehow the goat cheese salad has become a mythical weight loss entrée for at least the women. (Calorie-wise, I’m not so sure.) Calorie count or not, all those French goats and their delicious cheese, make it very easy to add salade de chèvre to my list of 365-things-I-love-about-France.
There are two main goat cheese salads in France: salade de chèvre chaud and salade de chèvre chaud croustillant. My favorite is croustillant, but the main thing is to make sure it is chaud (warm). There is something about the contrast of the warm cheese with the cold salad greens that knocks the socks right off my tastebuds.
On a simple salade de chèvre chaud the cheese is usually served crouton-style on thin, toasted slices of baguette. On the more decadent salade de chèvre chaud croustillant, the goat cheese comes wrapped in phyllo dough with a slight hint of honey and rosemary. Heavenly!
Here’s an anglicized recipe from Mademoiselle Slimalicious (one of my new favorite blogs, written by a French expatriate in Australia). Bon appétit!
Vocabulaire:
chaud: hot, warm
chèvre: goat
croustillant: crispy, crusty
365+ Things I Love About France 