Gastronomy for the Rhone Alpes Region of France

Bresse-Dombes-Bugey or a journey to Brillat-Savarin country

From the north to the north-east of Lyon these three regions are famous for their delicious gastronomy.

- The Bresse
The Bresse is the land of poultry.
The tricolour poultry of Bresse -red crests, white feathers and blue legs is raised in the open air and fed on cereals and dairy products.

The poultry is eaten roasted with cream, crayfish and in chicken liver pâtés blended with cream.
The crayfish and pike used to make quenelles are fished in the ponds of the Dombes and for pudding there is the delicious bressanne brioche covered with cream and sugar or another variety of much thinner wafer, only made in the medieval village of Pérouges .

- La Dombes
Fish: the ponds teem with carp, pike and frogs served in a persillade. The Dombes is also home to a blue-veined cheese; The Bleu de Bresse and another local delicacy are 'corniotes', small tarts covered with soft white cheese.

- The Bugey
The Bugey is famous for its centre even if there is no particularly famous restaurant there. The traditional produce has become a gratin of crayfish tails in a "Nantua" cream sauce, or a pike served in white butter or a quenelle, or poultry in a demi-deuil sauce - or one of the large choice of pies made with game, truffles and foie gras with delicious names like l'Oreiller de la Belle Aurore, la Toque du Président Clerc and le chapeau de Monseigneur Gabriel Cortois de Quincey.

Discover the other territories The Beaujolais and the Rhône valley Bresse Dombes Bugey Lyon-Forez-the Roanne region Savoie and Dauphiné

Savoie and Dauphiné

Savoie is a mountainous part of Rhone Alps which today includes the "departments" of Savoie and Haute Savoie.

Savoie

This part of the Rhône-Alpes region is an interesting larder.
Firstly there are all the delicate lake fish including : lavaret (pollan) in Lake Le Bourget, féra (dace) in Lake Annecy and Lake Geneva or palée in Neuchâtel, perchot whitebait, burbot and char, a extremely delicate fish exclusive to lake Le Bourget and lake Geneva.
Pork produce is also to the fore with air-dried Savoie ham, centred on Thônes, Megève, Les Gets, Taninges and Abondance. The longeole is a rare sausage manufactured in the Chablais, aromatised with fennel or cumin, diots cooked in white wine or marc, pormonaise, a smoked sausage with cabbage and smoked Magland sausage eaten cooked or dried.
Other specialities enjoyed by some include goat sausage goat and joint of dried goat.
The Savoie has many cheesess : Abondance, Beaufort, Bleu de Gex, Comté, Reblochon, all with AOC labels and blue cheeses like Termignon, Lavaldens and Sassenage, cheeses from monasteries like Tamié and Chambarand, blue cheeses from the Haute Tarentaise and Aravis, cow and goat milk tommes and Chevrotin from the Aravis.

Excellent lamb from the Savoie Mountain pastures.
As for Savoie wines, fresh and often flinty white Roussette, Crépy and Abyme and red Mondeuse with game have been famous for a long time.
Local pastries include Savoie cake and Saint-Genix brioche.

The Dauphiné

The famous Grenoble walnuts have an AOC label.
Pork produce. In La Mure, savour the murson, a sausage scented with caraway and the pork and calf meat pies. Italy contributes its recipes for raviolis stuffed with cheese and herbs poached in a poultry gravy.
The emblematic cheese is the Saint-Marcellin, particularly enjoyed by Louis XI.

Puddings: Bourgoin brioche with sugar and pralines, Grenoble walnut cake.

Discover the other territories The Beaujolais and the Rhône valley Bresse Dombes Bugey Lyon-Forez-the Roanne region Savoie and Dauphiné


The Beaujolais and the Rhône valley: wine after wine

Both the North and South of Lyon produce excellent wines with unique and local characteristics. The Rhône valley is also where the gastronomy of Provence, distinguished by its herbs and olive oil, begins.

The Beaujolais

In figures, the Beaujolais could be resumed as 22,000 hectares of vines and an annual production of 1,300,000 hectolitres of wine. Beaujolais, Beaujolais-Villages and the Vintages are all made from red Gamay grapes which give a white juice.Forty villages in the "Golden Stone" country, the southernmost part vineyard, produce Beaujolais, often on the edges of fir forests.Very close to the vines, in Bessenay, there are crops of cherries and on the Lyon plateau, near the "Côteaux du Lyonnais red, rosé and white wines (the production centres are Saint-Bel, Taluyers, Fleurieux, Thurins and Millery) grow peaches, apples, apricots, cherries and small red fruits.

Beaujolais wine is easy to drink, chilled with simple foods.

Beaujolais-Village wines are produced in thirty-five villages. There are good with pork produce, white meats and dry goat cheeses.

Moulin à Vent (tannic wine with Burgundy overtones, keeps from 6 to 10 years),
Régnié (clear colour, raspberry flavours for the most recent vintages, keeps from 3 to 6 years),
Saint-Amour (peach flavours, keeps 3 to 4 years). None of the vintages should be tasted before the Easter following the year in which they were made.

Beaujolais Nouveau : Beaujolais or Beaujolais-Villages are wines which have only been fermented for a short time and are put on sale on third Thursday of November each year.
In addition to its wines, the Beaujolais is famous for its goat's cheeses, its andouillettes (tripe sausages) fastened with string and its saveloys cooked in grape mulch.

The Rhône Valley

The Rhône valley streches from the south Lyon to Avignon. Wines are the main crop in this area.
As you go down the valley, the first vintage is the Côte Rotie (flavours of spices and small red fruits, keeps from 5 to 15 years) then the Chateau-Grillet (a single owner for this vineyard planted with Viognier grapes. A fresh white wine which keeps from 6 to 8 years), followed by the Condrieu (peach flavours, keeps for 18 months to 3 years).
Further south, on the right bank, Saint-Joseph red (flavours of liquorice and violet and keep from 2 to 8 years) and white (perfumes of hawthorn and keep from 3 to 4 years), then Cornas (tannic, keeps 5 to 15 years) and white Saint-Péray wine, still or sparkling (honey flavours, 3 to 5 years).
On the left bank, the red Hermitage (structured, keeps from 15 to 20 years) and white (a prestigious wine, with much finesse, keeps from 10 to 15 years and Crozes-Hermitage (the red keeps from 3 to 5 years and the white 3 to 4 years).

In the Ardèche the red and white wines are classified Qualité Supérieure. Drink young and chilled.

In the Drôme, the Côteaux du Tricastin, makes rustic wines which keep from 3 to 5 years and sparkling Clairette de Die.

Pork produce: The Caillette de Chabeuil made from pork offals, the gratons from the Ardèche and Drôme and the fougasse aux gratons, the pouytrolle or stomach of pig stuffed with vegetables and the meat and herb sausage in the Ardèche and Drôme.

Fruit and vegetables: Throughout the Rhône valley, plus marrow bread from Montségur, Camaret and Lauzon in the Drôme.

Meat: young guinea-fowl in the Drôme, kid in the Ardèche and Drôme.

Cheese: The "picodons" from the Drôme and Ardèche (AOC)

Puddings : The Easter lamb and 'pantin' from Annonay, the brassadeaux from the Drôme and Ardèche, pognes from Romans, Saint-Péray chips and Crest 'couve', two varieties of dry biscuits, almonds croquettes from Nyons and Vinsobres, The "Swiss Guards" in Valence in homage to Pope Pius VI, chestnuts and chestnut puree from the Ardèche and the famous nougat from MonPhoneimar, limetree from Buis-les-Baronnies, aromatic herbs from Provence, Nyons "tanche" olives (AOC) and olive oil.

Discover the other territories The Beaujolais and the Rhône valley Bresse Dombes Bugey Lyon-Forez-the Roanne region Savoie and Dauphiné


Lyon-Forez-the Roanne region : a tradition of pork produce

You will find excellent cheese and other local products in every shop.

Lyon

Curnonsky, Prince of Gourmets used to say that Lyon was the world Capital of Gastronomy.

Pork produce: First of all, Lyon andouillette with calf's caul. There’s quite a big choice of sausages - the long Rosette and Lyon cooking sausage with its regular cubes of fat.
.

Traditional Lyon cuisine - tripe and onions, tripe in salad, cooked ox paunch marinated in white wine, soaked in mustard and sautéed in a frying pan.

Vegetables: Onions are used in almost every meal in Lyon - and there are also beet, the Solaize blue leek and "dead men's fingers", known as black salsify.

Fruit: cherries from Bessenay, strawberries from the Rhône valley and
raspberries from Thurins.

Cheese : : spread "silk workers' brains" on bread (a famous meal in the Croix Rousse district of Lyon), a soft white cheese whipped with herbs, extremely pungent cheese made by grating dry goats cheese with white wine, leek gravy and some drops of marc (grape alcohol).

Pudding : End up your meal with light and crunchy "bugnes" or thick "matefaim"
pancakes.
Beaujolais and Côteaux du Lyonnais wines.

The Forez and Roanne regions

Pork is a traditional produce of Rhone Alps
Typical Fish: carp and pike are delicious here.
Typical Cheese: brique du Forez, fourme de Montbrison (AOC).
Pudding, acacia flower fritters and fruit jellies Wines from the Forez and Roanne region.