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Thursday, August 9, 2007
The same bonbon shop loaded with caramels, BLEU DANS L'ILE, on the ile St. Louis is also loaded with NOUGAT.
In fact they carry bonbons from all over France - French regional specialties up the WHA-ZOO! Truely, the range of regional goodies in France is astonishing.And more often than not you can't find them outside of their home region!!!
Multi-colored NOUGAT...
I couldn't resist taking all these endless pictures of NOUGAT...
There is dark nougat (with Lavender honey) called Noir de Provence.Almond nougat · Dried cherry nougat glace · Fruit nougat · Fudge nougats · bla bla bla There are no end of variety of NOUGATS and most of them come from
MONTELIMAR, where it was invented so to speak in the end of XVIIème century. Arnaud Soubeyran makes 67 tons of nougat there every year.
But first Olivier de Serre had to bring in Almond trees from Asia to Provence.
Really NOUGAT goes back to the Greeks. Anywhere there was honey and almonds and egg whites around. To make Nougat à l'Ancienne you need:28% of peeled roasted almonds (at 180 degrees)
20 - 50 % Lavender honey
2% pistachio nuts.
Mix Lavender honey with water and sugar, stir the contents to 130 centigrade, pour the syrup into whipped egg whites, add the almonds together with a little vanilla. Traditionally it's stirred in a copper cauldron (see the arrow). Spread it on to rice paper, cool, cut into squares the next day and Et Voila!
Here is the "regional NOUGAT" I picked up in Cape May. A chunk of hardened marshmallow with severed gum drops embedded. Need I say more...I must admit as a kid I relished this tooth-destroying sweetie.
But I've moved on to the French stuff! :)
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