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VERNON GIVERNY ... PASSIONATELY
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Farm and local Norman products
Every region has its own food specialties and its traditional cooking that were born of the imagination -sometimes the genius- of men and women who knew how to use the local products and resources of their country . Norman cooking , one of the most famous in France, is almost a form of art. This comes, of course, from the diversity and quality of our local farm products
At the time, people enjoyed drinking cervisia (barley beer) first of all and wine - even local wine although it was of very poor quality. Vine used to be grown on the hills along the Seine and the Eure, mainly on estates belonging to abbeys . After the 15th century, however, cider eventually became known as the 'official ' drink in Normandy.
Normandy would not be what it is without the various apple-related products among which cider brandy, - often known as 'calvados' and familiarly as 'la goutte'(= nip or drop)- Also to be tried is 'pommeau' an appetizer made with this 'goutte' or also apple juice jellies How
is cider made Cattle breeding and milk production, although not as developed here as in other parts of Normandy, also provide excellent products. For instance, do you know milk jam? Made with 83% of farm milk and only 17% sugar, very creamy , it can be spread on bread or pancakes, gourmets eat it with a spoon or add it to their coffee or tea to take the place of both milk and sugar.
How about beer? Several excellent local micro-breweries produce Norman beer in the old-style tradition. Hotteterre has been one of these craft breweries (about 20km south of Vernon) since 1975.
Norman farm producers welcome you Farm made products for sale, visits and demonstration of agricultural and cider-making equipment, farm meals and snacks
La Ferme des Ruelles Monsieur Galmel
- Ferme des Ruelles - 27 510 Tilly Visit : You will be shown around and taste farm-made products such as cider (Silver medal, 2005) and apple juice. The Farm Shop offers these products as well as eggs, honey, jellies or jams and many other Closed on Sundays. Groups with prior arrangement
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Above, Monsieur Galmel at work in the cellar and a view of the apple orchard To go there: direction of Gisors / Beauvais and turn left shortly after the top of the hill (Signpost: Tilly) 6 km from Vernon
Le Verger de
Giverny - 1 rue Ste Geneviève - La Chapelle St Ouen 27620 Bois Jérôme
Visit : Mr. and Mrs Couturier will show you around the cider farm. They will explain how cider is made and cider brandy distilled. Free cider and brandy tasting Farm shop with local farm products : home-made jam and ginger bread, cheese, pies, cider, cider brandy ( la goutte !), apple juice, etc.
Open from April 1st to October 31st, from 10h30 to 19h. Closed on Mondays. To go there : from Giverny, drive up rue Blanche Hoschedé , i.e. past the Village Hall and continue straight on. Signposted from the next important cross-road in the middle of the plain. 2,5 km from Giverny
Le pressoir d'or Le
pressoir d'or - Saint
Jean de Frenelles - 27150 Boisemont
To go there
: Direction of Gisors. At Les Tilliers (traffic lights), turn left
onto N14 towards Fleury / Rouen. Drive another 10km to Frenelles - Boisemont.
31 km from Vernon Le Cabri Madame Durdan
- 2 , Hameau du Val Corbon 27630 Ecos
To go there: from Vernon and Giverny, drive into Gasny. Once in the village, take a road on the left towards Ecos (D7). Drive past the hamlets of Le Mesnil Million and Blonval. Turn right just after Blonval (direction Bus Saint Rémi).14 km from Vernon
Brasserie Hotteterre 12, rue Hotteterre
- 27750 La Couture Boussey - France
To go there, drive towards A13/ Evreux / Pacy and over the motorway. Turn right 2km farther, just before the forest. 11km from Vernon
Christian Dieryck Monsieur Dieryck
- Hameau de Corbie - 27510 Tilly
To go there
: From Vernon : Direction Gisors/ Beauvais. The few houses of Corbie
hamlet are located about 4 km after the top of the hill. Turn left there,
the farm is the last construction on the right.
Where to find local and farm products in Vernon
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Cider
making
Traditional cider making starts with the blending of several types of apples (usually three: sweet, acid and sour) that are washed and then crushed into pulp before the juice is extracted in a cider press.
The freshly pressed juice is then run into barrels, in the traditional method or placed in glass fibre storage tanks, which are far easier to clean than the old wooden pipes.
Apples are crushed and pressed ( 18th century pictures) Fermentation
starts and continues for about six months, during which time apple juice
slowly becomes cider. Once natural fermentation has started, the wild yeasts that are naturally present in apples slowly transform the juice into cider. Various conditions ( temperature, first of all) are required to make the fermentation as slow as possible so as to develop aromas. This fermentation converts sugars to ethanol ( alcohol) and carbon dioxide. The more the fermentation lasts, the more the amount of alcohol increases and sugar decreases. Once the cider has reached the desired amount of sugar or alcohol, fermentation is stopped : thus a producer can obtain sweet cider at first, half-dry cider a few days later and finally dry cider. (By the way, this technique, the Charmat process -often used to produce sparkling wines- is used in France to produce a cider that is highly carbonated and more like an apple wine than traditional English cider which is completely flat and may be cloudy. ) Finally several types of cider can be blended (a very usual process in champagne making for instance) and after being filtered once again the cider is ready for bottling.
Cider
brandy (eau de vie and calvados) making Calvados is
the spirit resulting from distillation of cider; i.e. a fermented, apple-based
liquid. Two types of stills can be used :
In both cases, the cider is heated in the boiler. The vapour, containing the alcoholic properties being released first, can then be trapped, cooled, and condensed to an alcoholic liquid. The spirit obtained both at the beginning and the end of distillation (called 'têtes' and 'queues', heads and tailings) is discarded as being too low quality, only the 'heart' is kept with an alcohol content of about 70%. 6 kg of apples yield 5 litres of cider, which in turn will yield a 70cl bottle of cider brandy with 40% alcohol content (80 proof). The 'goutte' (remember this is its local familiar name) now has to remain in oak barrels for years so as to allow individual characteristics to develop and to soften and harmonise the flavours. Finally several types of apple brandy can be blended to obtain a complexity of flavours absent from a brandy from a single distillation.
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