Fleur de Courgette - The Courgette Flower; in the USA the Zucchini Flower.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

  
The courgette/ zucchini flower.
 
Before the courgette/zucchini flower, there was the fruit itself.
   
The courgette, zucchini in the USA, was developed in northern Italy from squash brought from Central or South America.  An Italian book entitled “Orticoltura”  (2nd edition) is the first known reference to the zucchini/ courgette; the book’s author was Domenico Tamaro, and it was published in 1901. Tamaro called the zucchini the “zucca quarantina vera nana, “  the forty-day true dwarf zucca; zucca is Italian for pumpkin and squash.   From Northern Italy, the zucchini reached France and the rest of Europe
 
Until the 1860’s the city of Nice on France’s Cote d’ Azure belonged to Italy and so it not surprising that this vegetable  (actually a fruit) is an integral part of Cuisine Niçoise, especially ratatouille where the zucchini/courgette stars.
  
The female zucchini plant with its single flower.
www.flickr.com/photos/cobaltfish/14600850634/
   
Courgette, zucchini, flowers are fresh for just a few days, so every day the fields must be checked for new blooming flowers; then they are quickly and lightly packed for the restaurants and farmer’s markets where they will be sold. For your local supermarket to have courgette flowers, they will have to have excellent local sourcing connections and daily supplies. 

The flowers of the courgette/zucchini have a delicate aroma and to eat them uncooked they must be really fresh as the flower is all about texture.  If you have the chance try the flowers uncooked and stuffed with cream cheese, you will appreciate the scent and feel the flower on your tongue and then the cheese flavoring.  When deep fried, you are left only with the texture and correctly prepared the stuffing will pop as you put pressure on the flower in your mouth.
 
The courgette/zucchini flower dishes of France vary considerably.  Some are lightly stuffed with vegetables or seafood and presented as entrée (the French first course), and that may be a full plate of ten or fifteen flowers. Others are densely stuffed with goat’s cheese or salmon so that three or four flowers are offered as a garnish. The preferred method of cooking is overwhelmingly deep-frying.
   

The male zucchini/ courgette flowers.
www.flickr.com/photos/keithroper/1505611572/

The Courgette (Zucchini) flowers on French Menus:
   
Fleur de Courgette Farcie aux Écrevisses et Poularde, Sauce Nantua - Courgette (zucchini) flowers stuffed with crayfish tails and the meat from a young, spayed, and fattened chicken, accompanied by Sauce Nantua.
   
Sauce Nantua is a butter sauce, originally made with the crayfish for which the town of Nantua was once famous. Today, due to over-fishing the crayfish will not be local.  Nonetheless, the beautiful lake Nantua bordering the town is a watersport center.  Nantua is in the department of Ain which is part of the old province of Bresse.  By local sourcing their produce and food products the chefs of Nantua will be working with one of France’s AOP butters, the Beurre de Bresse AOP and one of France’s only two AOP creams the Crème de Bresse AOP.  Also from Ain come the Bresse Bleu, Bleu de Gex AOP, and Comte AOP cheeses; all that along with France's only AOP poultry, the Volaille de Bresse AOP.   
       
Fleur de Courgette Farcie aux Gambas - Courgette flowers stuffed with large shrimps.

Fleurs de Courgette Farcies aux Petits Légumes – Courgette flowers stuffed with tender young vegetables.
    
Fleurs de Courgettes au Crabe TourteauTartare de Courgette, Estragon, Granny Smith – Courgette flowers stuffed with the meat of the edible brown crab and served with a Tartar of courgettes and Granny Smith apples flavored with tarragon. The edible brown crab with its firm white meat is the most popular crab in France
             

Male zucchini flowers.
www.flickr.com/photos/ljcybergal/641392898/
  
Fleur de Courgette Farcie à La Mousse De Saumon, Jus De Ratatouille – Courgette flowers stuffed with salmon mouse and the sauce from ratatouilleThe most important vegetable in a ratatouille is the courgette/ zucchini, and so here the flower flavored with the vegetable’s cooking juices.
    
Fleurs de Courgettes Farcies et Frites de Panisse aux Olives du Pays, Jus au Romarin – Courgette flowers stuffed with panisse and local olives and served with a Rosemary flavored sauce.  Panisses are made with farine de pois chiche, chickpea flour, in a variety of shapes and deep fried and traditionally served on their own with salt; today an optional addition of grated Parmesan cheese may be offered. Panisse began as a fast food from the City if Nice on the Mediterranean. Panisse would be bought hot and eaten on the go. Now in fine restaurants, a panisse may be used as a garnish or served with a salad or have morphed into a dessert with added fruit.
     

Courgette flowers in the market.
  
Fleurs de Courgettes en Beignets avec Chèvre et Ricotta - Courgette flowers stuffed with goats’ cheese and ricotta and deep fried. Ricotta is a cheese that originated in Italy, but the fresh ricotta will be locally made, and most French ricotta cheeses are made with goat’s milk. Beignets in French is the word used for nearly all deep fried dishes as well as for French doughnuts.
   
In France, the courgette/zucchini flower season runs for nearly three months; from June through August    The female flower is a single yellow flower that grows at the end of the fruit. The more abundant male zucchinis grow on separate stalks near the female plants; the flowers taste the same and have the same texture. 
   

Preparing the zucchini/ corvette flowers
 
In France zucchini is the key ingredient in ratatouille, that famous Provencal stew of vegetables prepared in olive oil and cooked for an extended time over low heat. The dish, originating near present-day Nice, is served as a side dish or on its own for a light lunch served with bread.
  
Deep-fried courgette flowers stuffed with tuna.
Photograph courtesy of Mathew Kinghorn
     
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Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
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Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu’s links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 400 articles that include over 3,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.
 

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018

Champignons on French Menus. The Champignon de Paris, the Button Mushroom in French Cuisine. The Mushrooms of France I.

  
       
Champignons de Paris,  button  mushrooms,
Photograph by Freeddigital photos.net  
  
The Champignon de Paris, the button mushroom,
and its cultivation changed the world’s menus.

The first mushroom to be successfully cultivated was a relative of today's button mushroom. However, that was in the 17th century and commercial production of cultivated mushrooms of any kind would still have to wait for three hundred years.  

In the early 20th century came the Champignon de Paris, the button mushroom. Then, following on the button mushroom's commercial success the search was on. How to cultivate other mushrooms came with serious investments.  Today we may choose from over fifteen types of cultivated mushrooms.  Cultivated mushrooms with their ability to intensify tastes, and their wide variety of textures, are now available all year round
      
Champignon de Paris, the button mushroom;
 Probably at its best on the grill.
Photograph courtesy of cinnachick   
   www.flickr.com/photos/cinnachick/3721916743/
  
The Button mushroom is the mushroom
that all the growers want you to buy.
      
The button mushroom brings you four or more or mushrooms in different sizes, with different names, different prices, different colors, and close to ten different names. Despite all these differences, the white button mushroom is exactly the same mushroom as the brown button mushroom.  The same as the medium sized Cremini, also called the Portabellini and then the largest of them all Portabella or Portabello.  The only difference between all these mushrooms is their degree of maturity and color.The Champignon de Paris, and its descendants are now right up there along with Nouveau Beaujolais, Pink Champagne and a number of other food products when it comes to marketing.
   
The Cremini, Portabellini, and the Portabella or Portobello
are part of the button mushroom family.
 
The relatively expensive Portabella may grace some impressive tables, but that is thanks to skillful marketing; not a long trek in the woods after the rain.  The little button mushroom with its nearly closed cap grows and grows and grows and eventually becomes the Portabella. Despite the sales hype these mushrooms are healthy and tasty, and our choices and taste buds will not suffer if we know their history. That,  my best beloved, is how the white champignon de Paris, the brown champignon de Paris, the cremini, the Italian brown, portabellini, the portabella and a few other brothers and sisters developed. It all began in Paris.
         
The champignon de Paris, the button mushroom ready for market.
  Photograph courtesy of Mike Licht
www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/14538379264/
      
The Champignon de Paris on French menus:
 
Noix de Ris de Veau  Croustillante aux Ecrevisses, Navets Fanes Farcis d'une Crème de Persil, et Champignons de Paris.  Veal sweetbreads crisply cooked with freshwater crayfish along with turnip leaves stuffed with a cream of parsley sauce and button mushrooms.  
         
Cuisse de Grenouilles à l’Estragon, Tombée de Baby Épinard et Champignons de Paris – Frog’s legs cooked in tarragon, the herb, served together with baby spinach leaves and button mushrooms.
             
The Cremini.
Photograph courtesy of nsdis

www.flickr.com/photos/20705353@N00/4467946253/
     
Champignons Cremini avec Poivrons Rôtis, Fromage de Chèvre et Oignons  Aigres-Doux sur Pain au Levain Grillé avec Sirop de Balsamique.  – Cremini mushrooms served with roasted sweet peppers, goat’s cheese, and sweet and sour onions served on grilled unleavened bread with syrup of balsamic vinegar. Balsamic syrup depends very much on the chef; at its simplest the syrup is balsamic vinegar and sugar cooked together until it thickens.  From those beginnings, I have enjoyed a balsamic syrup where the chef used honey and water and flavored the syrup with a vanilla bean.  Ask the server for more information on the balsamic syrup as it can make this delicious menu listing a star.
     
For more about the different types of French bread see the post:
   
A stuffed portabello mushroom.

www.flickr.com/photos/cajsa_lilliehook/32647864083/
    
Steak de Palette Grillé et Tranché sur Pain à l'Ail avec Champignons  Cremini.  The palette is called a chuck steak in North America and the UK.  Here the steak is served on garlic toast with cremini mushrooms. The palette is an inexpensive cut. In North American and the UK, this cut, in its various forms is cut from the shoulder. It is a cut that is most often seen as a roast or pot roast.  In France butchers and chefs know there are particular parts of the chuck that makes an excellent steak. Like the onglet and bavette, the cut used for France’s steak frites,  the palette when correctly prepared makes a tasty and inexpensive steak.   For more about ordering as steak in France cooked the way you like it see the post:  Ordering a Steak in France, Cooked the Way You Like it.
    
Médaillons de Bœuf et Champignons Portobello Sautés au Miel – Round cuts of steak  often cut from an entrecote.  A médaillon indicates the shape of the cut so when I see this on a menu I ask for more information; here the steak is served with Portabello mushrooms lightly fried in honey.
       
 
The Portabella
Photographs courtesy of artizone.
     
Raviolesaux Champignons Portobello, 
Roquette et Huile de Truffe –Ravioli stuffed with Portabello mushrooms served with leaves of rocket and flavored with truffle oil.
       
 
The Portabella at work.
The portabella served with asparagus and barbecued ribs
Photograph courtesy of tpoling.
www.flickr.com/photos/tpoling/7265716524/
   
The development of the Button Mushroom
   
When, at the end of the 19th century, it became apparent that the cultivation of mushrooms was going to be a success story of epic proportions. Large temperature-controlled and permanently covered growing centers were required.
      
The catacombs of Paris and the button mushrooms.
     
The garden shed may have been acceptable for trials, but that was in the days before air-conditioning and abundant electricity.  Then the  Champignons de Paris were first commercially grown in old limestone quarry tunnels. Under Paris are tens if not hundreds of miles of old limestone quarries. These quarries were dug over hundreds of years for building material required for the city that was growing above.  In the 18th century, 50% of these old tunnels were reopened as health-hazard-free catacombs for the overflowing Paris cemeteries. Over 6,000,000 million of Paris’s departed souls were reburied in these tunnels.
    
Rent Free growiing centers for the button mushroom.
     
Then in the 20th century the tunnels that had not been made into catacombs became rent-free growing centers for button mushrooms.  In the beginning, the horses that drew the Parisians carriages supplied the food for the hungry mushrooms! Today button mushrooms are no longer grown in the tunnels under Paris, but rather in purpose-built climate controlled hothouses all over the world.  And, of course, the food the mushrooms now receive is now 100% vegetable based;  however, I sometimes wonder if that is just because there are not enough horses?     
     

 
Inside a button mushroom factory.
  Photograph courtesy of pennstatenews

www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/4949860146/
    
  Visiting the Paris Catacombs
    
While there are no longer any mushroom factories under Paris you may visit Paris’s catacombs, except on Mondays, and for opening times see the English Language website:



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Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French menus?


Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu’s links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 400 articles that include over 3,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

   

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018.
  

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