Catching a Rainbow

The Loire River named after the silt it produces in such great quantities, wends its way from its source in the southern part of the Cévennes highlands to the Atlantic Ocean near St Nazaire.
The Loire, the longest river in France some 10,000 Km long drains more than a 20% of the country and flows through some of the most fertile and productive areas of Europe let alone France.
To the West, bordering the vastness of the Atlantic, one finds the Pays de la Loire or the Land of the Loire. The name is a confusing moniker for this area of France; as it only comprises a few départements through which the river snakes, and is only one of the 26 regions of France as a whole.
However, the region of Pays de la Loire not only includes the ancient département of Loire Atlantique, once part of Brittany; but Brittany proper lies only a few miles north of the River crossing at St Nazaire.

The valley of the Loire is the home to some of the finest cheeses in France, particularly goat cheese. Names such as Crottin de Chavignol, Pélardon des Cevennes, Pouligny Saint Pierre, Sainte-Maure de Touraine Selles, sur Cher Valençay, and the Chabichou du Poitou are just a few, all of them covered by an Appellation d’origine Contrôlée, all of them great cheeses but, why did none of them make it across the river to Brittany and why does Brittany have no cheese today?

The last statement may cause concern for some very fine artisan cheese producers in Brittany, who on a small scale and local basis make some very fine cheese…but it is a sad fact that not one AOC cheese is made in Brittany let alone a goat’s cheese with the same classification.

Brittany, a peninsula, surrounded by the sea and the ocean for most part; has a strong affiliation with both. It is perhaps that Brittany has such a tie with the sea, that no real relationship was forged between it, the cow or the goat. It is true that Brittany makes a great deal of butter much of it speciality mixed with sea salt, but only a small percentage of the milk is transformed into cheese.

On visiting Brittany one admires the rocky coast continuously battered by wave and wind, its gentle cliffs descending abruptly to the mistress of Brittany…the sea. The regions history, dark, always connected to the deep, its music even the paint laid on stretched canvas, all have a connection with the Ocean. Pirates, Corsairs, fishermen. A people a language a way of life all seem to face seawards. This may account for why cheese has been neglected.

Brittany with its rolling low hills, soft rains and green grass should be fertile ground for cheese production, but it may have been the low hills which decimated cheese manufacturing prior to the middle ages. Roc Trevezel, the highest point in Brittany is only 384m above sea level.


Many of the most famous cheeses and cheese producing areas of France are located in remote highlands, in out of the way places away from normal trade routes and historically un-affected by outbreaks of Bubonic plague- Brittany has no such places.
In the 1300’s there was a huge outbreak of plague accounting for a loss of 25% of the French population. The Plague was known to follow trade routes, and Brittany had a major route from Rouen to Rennes and to the Western Ports.
The Ports of Brest, Morlaix and Roscoff also had contact with Ireland and Great Britain and thus completed the circular spread of the plague from France to England and back to France.
It is possible that the lack of cheese in Brittany was caused simply by the knowledge of cheese making dying out in the middle ages. This theory is further strengthened by the fact that many cheese in France, including Brittany were and are still made within the confines of Abby’s and Monasteries, they themselves normally isolated, enclosed, possible protected from the ravages of the Black Death, not by mountains or remoteness but by walls.

The cheeses that exists in Brittany today are mainly Trappiste cheese made in Abby’s, such as:
Abbaye de la Joie Notre Damme, a trappiste cheese made in the style, of Port du Salut.

L' Abbaye de Campeneac, another Abby cheese descended from the cheese of Mayenne, Entrammes, Port du Salut. Although today the Abby specialises in biscuit and chocolate production rather than cheese.

L'Abbaye de la Meilleraie,

Le Curé ou Le Nantais.
A cows milk cheese made south of the river Loire, so no longer in Brittany, created by a vicar from the Vendee.

Le Montauban-de-Bretagne
Is a variety of Saint-Paulin made in Ile-et-Vilaine.

Le Saint-Agathon
No longer exists but was made on farms around the area of Guingamp

Le Saint-Gildas
A rich cheese 75% fat content made from cows milk.

Cheese yes all of them made in the style of Port Salut or St Paulin, Trappist cheeses…none of them famous, none readily available and not one having an Appellation d’origine Contrôlée.

So why did goat cheese not cross the river Loire north into Brittany?
(To be continued)

Appellation d’origine Contrôlée or, AOC is a phrase known to many who have a fondness for wine and food. The translation from French means ‘term of controlled origin’ and is a French certification granted to certain French products including wine, dairy and other agricultural based foods.

The body of people involved with evaluating, awarding and regulating this prestigious award is the government run office of the Institute National des Appellations d'Origine or the INAO.

The INAO is split into three different committees.


1. The National Committee for wine and spirits.
2. The National Committee for dairy products.
3. The National Committee for other agro foods





The first product to be regulated by a parliamentary decree was Roquefort, a cheese from southern France, in the 15th Century. This was further developed during the First World War, when a decree was passed protecting the rights of the place of origin for certain other products. The result of this declaration was that for the first time the region or even the individual communes were given the sole protected rights to produce any given product. It is for this reason that items such as Champagne, Camembert Cheese and Cider from Cornouaille in Brittany, can only be produced in strictly controlled geographical areas. Although often copied, (Somerset Brie) the copies cannot be called the same (Brie), nor purport to be the original French commodity.

The INAO is a branch of the French Ministry of Agriculture and came into being on July 30, 1935. Originally it was created to manage and protect the geographical independence within the wine industry. It ensured that only wines made in a specific area of France, a region or even in some cases a commune, could carry a specific name such as Champagne, Bordeaux or Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
In 1937 a lawyer and winegrower from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, applied for and obtained legal recognition for the Côtes du Rhône thus became the first wine in France to be granted an Appellation d’origine Contrôlée.
Although the original 15th Century concept was invented to protect a cheese, it was not until 1990 that the INAO began expanding the certification to other food products apart from wine. Today although there are 467 wines covered by an Appellation d’origine Contrôlée, there are also 47 cheese and dairy products as well as 25 other food items.

It is illegal to manufacture and sell a product if it does not comply with the criteria of the AOC and these conditions can be very specific, as is the case with Roquefort.

1. Milk cannot be used until 20 days after lambing.
2. The renneting (the addition of the coagulating agent) must take place within 48 hours-at the latest-after the last milking.
3. The cheese culture, Penicillium roqueforti used in the manufacture must itself have been produced in France.
4. The Penicillium roqueforti must come from the traditional source from the natural caves within the commune.
5. Only dry salt can be used for the salting process.
6. The producers of the cheese must keep accurate records, available for inspection by the committee showing the quantities of milk delivered to the manufacturers of the cheese, as well as the number and weight of all the cheeses made, daily.
7. Every step of the production as well as the storage and refrigeration prior to shipping must take place with in the commune of Roquefort.

Only thus, can it be assured, that a Roquefort cheese is and will always remain Roquefort.
Once a product is awarded an AOC it is entitled to include a seal or certificate on the products packaging and no part of this design, which in itself has to be authorised, can be used on any other product not awarded the AOC.


Why have the AOC?

In many ways the AOC is an award, which all food, wine and dairy producers should be striving for. It is recognition of a regions entitlement to safeguard and protect its local heritage, independent of national idiosyncrasies.
It is a guarantee that the product, whatever it may be, has been manufactured in the same way for generations and in some cases hundreds of years or, if a recent addition; that the methods of production will be preserved for future generations.
It is a safeguard of a products character and continuity as well as protection for a specific region to lay right to its gastronomic heritage.
And it is an assurance as to the quality of any given product, rigorously tested, inspected and regulated to maintain the original standards for which the AOC was first awarded.



For a full listing of all AOC wines click HERE.

For a full listing off all AOC Cheese click HERE










Sources
http://www.agriculture.gouv.fr/spip/ressources.themes.alimentationconsommation.signesdequalite.lappellationdoriginecontroleeaoc_r172.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d'Origine_Contr%C3%B4l%C3%A9e

The name cider comes from the ancient Hebrew word shekhar, which refers to an alcoholic drink, which was other than wine. The Bible refers to this drink in the book of Numbers (6.3 the same word route gives us the word intoxication, for after all cider is an alcoholic drink.

The ancient Greeks translated the Hebrew shekhar into sicera, or sikera, which eventually translated into Latin, as cisdre. Over time the ‘s’ was dropped and the drink became known as cidre and cider in France and Britain respectively.

Cider traditionally, is made only from the juice found within an apple. However, today commercial large-scale cider producers make their version of the drink from apple concentrates with the addition of water and sugar. These drinks should not be confused with the cider, made by traditional means in the same way for thousands of years, and which actually taste of apples.

Apples were first found in the Far East on the border of northwest china and all modern day varieties appear to have descended from the original stock according to Barrie Juniper, Emeritus Fellow in the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University,
“it appears that a single species still growing in the Ili Valley on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan mountains at the border of northwest China and the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan is the progenitor of the apples we eat today” (as cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apples)
With Apples of course comes cider. In its most primitive form cider would have been made from the collection of wind fallen apples, collected, piled high and the juice would have flown freely. Apples spread west into Greece through the Fertile Crescent of Persia, and on into Egypt. The first written account of an apple orchard can be found in Homer’s Odyssey. In it he describes to his ageing father his memory of this orchard…

"12 pear trees bowing with their pendant load, and ten, that red with blushing apples glow'd". . .
During the first century BC Varro a roman scholar, who later became known as the most learned of all the roman scholars, wrote on the propagation of apples, their storage and the construction of an apple store.
When the Romans arrived in England in 55 BC, they were reported to have found the local Kentish villagers drinking a delicious drink made from apples. According to ancient records, the Romans and their leader, Julius Caesar, embraced the pleasant pursuit with enthusiasm and the drink became popular with the legionnaires.

In the first century AD, Pliny described how farmers would auction the fruit on the trees to cider manufacturers, a practice which is still carried out today in some Kentish apple orchards.
In the eight century AD King Charlemagne passed a decree that all Norman farmers should plant apple orchards and although the populace learned how to tend to their charges they were not sure what to do with the vast glut of apples that soon ensued. Cider making was one outlet and in the 12th century this was further extended when the first Calvados was made.
Although a milestone, this would not have been the first time that cider was made in France and does not explain how and when cider making came to Brittany.

It is possible that it was introduced by the invading Normans as well as the Franks who descended on the region by way of Germany.
When the Romans invaded Britain, they found the local populace drinking a fermented drink made from apples, cider. When the Britons invaded Brittany they also would have taken their cider making skills with them.

In the eighth century there began the twenty-year Moorish invasion of Southern Europe, including parts of France. The Moors reached as far north as Tours on the banks of river Loire and it is possible that they also brought with them the art of cider making as not all of the invaders abstained from alcohol at that time. Brittany lay on the northern bank of the river and may have learnt the skill of cider making from the invaders from the south.

It is not being over simplistic to say that Breton cider is made from apples; just as wine is made from grapes. Throughout Europe, where one passes the northern limit of the grape vine, one finds apple orchards and cider.
Whereas beer is a mixture of numerous ingredients, wheat barley oats hops etc, cider is a far purer and simpler drink and has now become the second most popular alcoholic drink in France, after wine.

As with wine the yeasts required to make the finished cider are obtained naturally developing on the cider apples as they lay maturing on the orchard floor and as with wine the fruit is collected, crushed and the extracted juice fermented and stored in Oak barrels. The analogy does not end there.
Just as there are different grape varieties such as Merlot Grenache and Pinot Noir, so there are cider apple varieties such as ‘Amère Vieuxville,’ ‘Coëtquentel’, and ‘Damelot.’

There are two main ways of pressing the juice, the ‘rack and cloth’ method and the ‘straw press.’ both of which are to be found in Brittany today.
The ‘rack and cloth’ press is the most common and is better suited to larger scale production as it is easier to operate.
The apples are first washed and then fed into a grinding mill, which crushes them into a rough chopped pulp.
The press is lined with cheesecloth, although now nylon mesh is more often used, and the pulp poured in. The cheesecloth is folded over enclosing the pulp and a circular slatted wooden frame, usually oak, is placed on top. Another layer of cheesecloth is set in the press and more pulp added. The procedure continues until the press contains a dozen or so cheeses and the press is full. Pressure is exerted by means of a screw like vice and the juice is extracted, chilled and stored.

The older more traditional method of making cider and which can still be found on small-scale farm producers is by means of a cider cheese made with straw.
The base of the press varying in size is usually made of stout oak planks with a gully or gutter running all round leading to a collection tank.
A rectangular frame slightly smaller than the base plate is made from heavy planks of oak and into this frame is piled straw- wheat, barley or oaten. The chopped apples are then scooped onto the straw, which not only gives the cheese strength and texture, but also acts as a filter for the juice; which starts to flow almost immediately.
A second layer of straw is added and the frame is gently eased to the top of the pile so that the process of layering can start again. Apples straw, straw and apples all carefully placed on top of each other until the Cheese is in some cases six feet high and held together simply by the fibrous nature of the straw. As the press is tightened the cider gushes from the cheese in a golden torrent, threatening to overflow the culvert and cascading into the collection tank. Although fast and furious to start the final pressing can take as long as twenty-four hours to complete and for all the juice to be extracted.

In 1998 Cider producers in Cornouaille, an ancient region of Brittany encompassing south Finisterre, part of Morbihan and the Cotes d’Armor received the coveted Appellation Cornouaille Contrôlée and was the first in France to receive the AOC.

However, not all cider in Brittany is of this standard, the cider of ciders, the traditional delicate farm produced product which has become part of the Breton psyche.
One still finds factory cider, dull lifeless one that has never known an oak barrel. Ciders made from concentrate, sugar and whose overly effervescent fizz has been contrived by the unnecessary addition of alien gas.
Ciders we have become used to in Great Britain, chemical monstrosities with artificially elevated levels of alcohol only appreciated by the sad unfortunate homeless sitting on their Brighton park bench.

The real ciders of Brittany have such clarity and depth of character that even those who do not normally choose cider as a drink will enjoy them. They are light; fresh with such a taste of apples that no one could confuse them with any thing else.
Like good wine, good cider is made by a combination of factors all working together for the common good, and not only apples. The soil, rainfall, sunshine and the knowledge of the artisan all combine to make cider the perfect drink regardless of personal taste.
In Brittany there are four main cider categories and they relate to the sweetness of the finished cider.

The driest of the ciders are the sec, where much of the available sugar has been converted into alcohol and so have the appearance of being drier. As a consequence they also have higher alcohol levels of around 6%. The reduced sugar gives them a clean fresh taste, vibrant and make them eminently suitable for drinking with seafood especially shellfish.
Then the demi-sec; more sugar less alcohol, around 4-5% its golden robe more pronounced- perfect for drinking chilled on its own; with friends.
The Brut with its moderately effervescent foam, light sweetness, is the perfect accompaniment to be had with crêpes.
The Doux the sweetest of them all, soft as summer rain. Rarely exceeding 3%alcohol, inconsequential, difficult to pour, foam cascading down the edge of a chilled glass, evocative, rich…perfect with apple pie and cream.

(The demarcation is not strict and depends on producer a Brut by one producer may appear sweeter than a Doux from another.)

Cider was not normally taken seriously, it was a local drink of the farms not normally found or appreciated outside the regions of production, but that is now changing.
The prestigious hotel group, Relais et Châteaux, have constructed a cider trail; linking together some of the regions cider producers with nearby Relais et Chateaux hotels and restaurants. Thus giving the discerning guest the opportunity to see the production and then experience the product at a nearby hostelry. To visit the Cider Trail, click HERE.

Cider has been classed as a poor relative to the more affluent wine; but that is now changing. In Brittany cider is becoming ever more popular, not to compete with wine but to stand alone in its own right as a truly venerable and exciting drink.





L'abus d'alcool est dangereux,
à consommer avec modération

Rennes situated at the eastern most end of Brittany embraced by ancient rhythms of the world, is the regions current capital.

This ancient town, built at the confluence of two rivers, the Ille and the Villaine - was built by the Britons of Armorica in 57BC. These people, who also gave their name to the département of the Cotes d’Armor, joined forces in a lose coalition against the Roman occupation of the time. The rivers also lend their names to the département in which Rennes is situated - Ille et Villaine, one of the four counties of Brittany.

In 58BC several Roman emissaries were held captive in Rennes, which forced Giaus Julius Caesar to intervene and suppress the peoples of the region. Britons of Armorica had refused the customary tribute to the Roman Empire, and had subdued the neighbouring dioceses of Vannes and Nantes, thus forming a powerful, though vassal, state. Rennes had also received help from across the channel and this further persuaded Caesar to cross the channel and put down the uprising in Great Britain.

Rennes once again came under attack in 275AD when the Barbarians threatened to overrun the city. As a consequence a large brick wall, made from the local red clay, was constructed to enclose the town and Rennes became known as the Red Town.

In the Middle Ages, starting in the 5th Century, the Bretons had taken charge of the western end of the Armoricain peninsula calling it Little Briton which then became known as Brittany and eventually Bretagne – while the Franks populated the rest of the region. In 1851, when the Bretons were strong enough, they declared full independence from the rest of France.

In 1356 during the war of succession, the English under the command of the Duke of Lancaster laid siege to Rennes. The siege, which was finally broken by Bertrand du Guesclin, was in support of Charles de Monfort’s claim for the title of the Duchy of Brittany.

In 1491, it was the French army of Charles VIII, that once again attacked Rennes and although successful through out the rest of Brittany, Rennes alone resisted and refused to be brought to her knees. Threatened with total destruction the ruler of Brittany, Duchess Anne sued for peace. She married the King of France and thus ended the history of Breton independence.

Rennes has not always been the capital of Brittany or the four départements of Morbihan, Finisterre, Cotes d’Armor and Ille et Villaine. The traditional and some say more inclusive definition of Brittany also includes a fifth département, that of Loire-Atlantique.

Field Marshal Henri Pétain annexed the département of Loire-Atlantique, from the rest of Brittany in 1941. Pétain was the head of the puppet administration running France throughout the German occupation, of a good part of the country, during the Second World War.

The separation of the fifth county was for two reasons.
Firstly: it was done as punishment to the Bretons who actively supported the Free French National Council of Charles de Gaulle in exile in London.
And secondly: as an attempt to crush Breton Nationalism, which had long been demanding a Breton free state.
Thus ended the thousand-year rule of the city of Nantes, as the capital of the independent Duchy of Brittany… that honour moved to Rennes.

When the Duchy of Brittany become part of France via the dowry of Queen Anne’s daughter, in 1514. The right to have a separate parliament was negotiated and preserved for future generations.
The parliament in Brittany, founded in 1551 held sessions in Rennes until 1561 thus enhancing the towns importance. However, the parliament was not to remain in Rennes. Following the uprisings in 1675 caused by protests over high taxation imposed by Louis XIV, the parliament was moved to Vannes and there it stayed for fourteen years.
The parliament returned to Rennes, becoming the administrative centre of Brittany for the next two hundred years… until the great fire.

On 23rd December 1720, the centre of Rennes was ravaged by fire, which raged for six days and terrible nights. The fire devastated a good portion of the city, destroying nearly one thousand buildings in total and only stopped when it reached the firebreak made by the canal.
Present day Rennes is laid out using the same plans used for the re-construction after the great fire.
Although many of the timber framed building are built in the style of the Middle Ages, only a few, such as those in the Champs Jacquet remain. The others date from after 1720 and the reconstruction.

The French Revolution, (1789–1799) did not leave Brittany and in particular Rennes untouched. Although it did not see the same horrors as were experienced in Nantes, where thousands were put to death, a royalist uprising supported by the British was destroyed by General Hoche near Rennes.

The Second World War

During the Second World War, Rennes escaped the high intensity bombing and the Blitzkrieg experienced by others, leaving the city intact to act as the Germans operational centre for the occupation of Brittany. Although not destroyed Rennes did not go unscathed as the records of Bomber Command show,

On the night of the seventh May 1944
55 Lancaster’s of No 1 Group bombed the airfield and an ammunition dump at Rennes. The force was not able to locate and mark the target adequately and most of the bombs fell on a nearby village. No aircraft lost.

Eleventh and twelfth May 1944
105 Lancaster’s and 5 Mosquito’s of No’s 3 and 8 Groups attacked the railway yards at Louvain near Rennes but the main weight of the bombing hit the railway workshops and nearby storage buildings. 4 Lancasters lost.

Twenty seventh/twenty eighth May 1944
78 Lancasters and 5 Mosquito’s of No 8 Group attacked the airfield at Rennes in good visibility. The marking was good and the bombing was very accurate. Much damage to the airfield installations was caused and there was a large explosion, probably in the bomb dump.

As with many Breton towns such as Brest, the damage caused during the war was primarily but unavoidably caused by the allies in their build up to the Invasion of Europe on June 6th 1945. Bridges, major roads and railway lines and stations were all targeted as well as centres of communication and administration such as Rennes.
The American Third Army finally liberated Rennes in August 1944.

Rennes today


In March 2002 at the cost of €500 million, Rennes became the smallest town in the world to have its own designated Metro service…well the second smallest.
The Rennes Metro running northwest to southeast is 9.4 km long and has fifteen stations along its route. There is only one line with two tracks one in each direction, and is based on Siemens Transportation Systems of light automatic vehicle.
Running from J.F. Kennedy in the north to La Poterie in the south, via the city's SNCF station, thirteen of the stations are underground and have been constructed with very little damage to the aesthetic appearance of the older sections of the town.
The station, ‘La Poterie,’ as well as all the overland sections and their supports were designed by the British architect Norman Foster.
Services run every day of the week with trains every 3 and 7 minutes. The journey from one end of the system to the other takes 16 minutes, the trains averaging 32 Km/h.
The smallest metro in the world is hosted in the small Austrian mountain village of Serfausin Austria.



Le Parliament de Bretagne

On the night of the 4th February 1994 a tragedy befell the city of Rennes, Brittany and the Breton people. The regional parliament, the home of the Breton independent dream was destroyed by fire.
During a demonstration in the square outside the parliament, a marine flare was ignited. The flare became lodges in the roof space and set light to the ancient timbers. An ill wind fanned the flames and the fire soon spread to the whole building engulfing it in flame. Many firemen were injured tackling the blaze. Today the parliament has been fully restored.

Every Saturday morning, until 13h30, there is a large food market in the centre of Rennes where a vast array of fruit, vegetables, fish and other French delicacies can be bought. Rennes has a large shopping centre at Place de Colombier with the Metro stopping nearby. Being a University town there are numerous bars, cafes and restaurants particularly north of the river where the town has a patchwork of eighteenth century squares, large administrational buildings interspersed with quaint, intimate and alluring alleys of half timbered houses.

Rennes is a pleasant city, worth visiting for a stroll to admire the fascinating melange of different architectural designs ancient and new. Although it does not have a particularly strong or cohesive personality, Rennes is a great place for lunch in one of the many colourful squares numerous street cafes and restaurants. Followed by a stroll and some retail therapy a perfect springtime appointment, once the long monochrome of winter has passed.




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