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Cider Digest #1459
Subject: Cider Digest #1459, 20 August 2008
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1459 20 August 2008
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: cider magazine (and digest) (Cider Digest Admin)
Re: Cider Digest #1458, 14 August 2008 (Joan Fletcher)
Normandy Cider trip report ("Pat Maloney")
Send ONLY articles for the digest to cider@talisman.com.
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Subject: Re: cider magazine (and digest)
From: cider-request@talisman.com (Cider Digest Admin)
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:37:33 -0600 (MDT)
In the latest Cider Digest, Ben Watson asked:
> Please don't let the CD disappear! I know there are challenges, but I have
> also plugged it shamelessly in the new edition of my book, "Cider, Hard and
> Sweet," which will be published in October...
(speaking as my digest-janitor alter ego) I have no intention of letting
the Cider Digest disappear! I talked to Alan Yelvington about his magazine
project, and we're quite in agreement that the magazine and the Digest will
be nicely complementary to one another, not competitive at all.
The Digest will continue to be timely (more timely as y'all submit more
good articles:) and a place for discussions. A magazine (or newsletter
perhaps at first) can have longer articles, graphics, good editing and
review, etc., etc.
(This might be a good time to remind ye that the Cider Digest is NOT
edited...this is why I style myself "janitor" rather than "editor". I
clean out spam and other junk; I do a cursory mechanical check to see
that articles appear to be related to cider or perry. If I -happen- to
notice something that seems way-wrong, I'll drop a note to the submitter.
However, (a) there's no guarantee I'll catch bad postings, and (b) I won't
refuse to print something bad unless it presents a risk (such as over-
carbonating bottles). The digest is self-regulating, not edited.)
- --the janitroid
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1458, 14 August 2008
From: Joan Fletcher <cyberwyrd@telus.net>
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:20:56 -0700
A while back there was a notice on Cider Digest of a book available
on line, "Native Apples of Gloucester" by Charles Martell. It exists
on the web site as a 10 MB Word file. Does anyone possibly have it
available as a PDF? I don't have Word and am limited to opening it in
a text editor, which is beyond lame. From what I can glean from the
text editor, it seems to have all kinds of wonderful information
about apples I didn't even know existed. My husband, who does have
Word on his computer, tried to download it for me and it gave him all
kinds of error messages, leading us to suspect it is an infected
file. Has anyone else had better luck?
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Subject: Normandy Cider trip report
From: "Pat Maloney" <pmaloney@callatg.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:01:47 -0700
WARNING - LONG POST OF TRIP TO NORMANDY -
In the last digest, jpullum127@aol.com asked for a report from the guy that
went to Normandy this summer. That would be me. Sorry it's taken so long
to report back, but one thing led to another and that led to another thing
and that thing led back to the first thing and ...
But I would like to thank all those who sent suggestions and advice prior to
our trip. We had a great time if you don't count the hassles we had getting
there and back. Flying just ain't the fun that it used to be.
In all, we were in Normandy for 10 days and in Paris for 4. Paris was fun
but Normandy was an experience! For the first 5 days (it should have been
6, no thanks to United Airlines) we stayed in Cabourg, a quaint little
resort town on the Normandy coast where my wife was attending a conference
at the "Grand Hotel de Cabourg" right on the beach. In the mornings I
shopped (for replacement clothes - again, no thanks to United!) or had an
espresso at a cafe or picked up munchies at the street market while my wife
worked at the conference. Of course, one of the first things I purchased
was a bottle of local cider! At this point I couldn't tell a good one from
a bad one, label-wise, so I just grabbed one from a grocery bin. In
general, cider in a store cost about 3-6 Euros, or $4.50-$9 at the time.
What I DID find out was that price was a general indicator of quality. Duh.
Unfortunately, I had selected a 3 Euro bottle...
I took it back to our hotel and stuck it on the balcony to chill overnight,
along with the stinky but tasty cheese that I hoped the seagulls would leave
alone. As it turned out, the birds should have taken the cider! It was
pretty bad. Smelled and tasted like plastic band-aids. My wife gave up
after one sip but I slogged through half a glass before tossing it down the
drain. "Uh oh," we thought. "Is this what Normandy cider is SUPPOSED to
taste like?" Undaunted but wary, we decided to stick to our plan of
exploring the countryside and visiting cideries and distilleries, hoping to
find something better.
As you all probably know, the area is filled with D-Day memorials, etc., and
we did go to one in Arromanches, about 30 kilometers west of Cabourg. Their
museum was focused on the artificial harbor that was created off its beach a
few days after the major Allied landings in 1944. The harbor was built in
pieces in England and floated over the channel and reassembled off the coast
of this town. It allowed the allies to supply the troops with provisions,
ammo, tanks, trucks, etc. It was really an amazing technical feat and a
very interesting - and vital - part of the history of the war.
But one of the more spectacular things were the oysters and GOOD cider we
had for dinner at a hotel restaurant on that beach - Hotel de la Marine. We
laughed, we cried, we ordered more! I had researched the fact that oysters
were a specialty of Normandy and there were several places along the coast
that were known for especially good ones. I asked the waiter where these
came from - they were the best my wife and I have EVER tasted - and the guy
pointed out into the ocean just down the beach from us at Asnelles. So I
guess the question of freshness was not an issue! For our meal, we each
ordered mussels in Normandy cream sauce - a regional specialty made by
steaming the mussels in cider (!) and slathering them with the wonderful
local cream. What's funny is that there were a few tiny crabs sprinkled in
among the approximately 4 dozen (literally!) mussels in our bowls. It seems
the crabs live among - and sometime inside - the mussels, eating the same
food supply. Nice and crunchy! And especially yummy with a bottle of the
excellent slightly effervescent and dry cider we drank - finally!
Besides wonderful dairy products like butter (that's as thick as soft
cheese), cream and superb cheeses (it's where Camembert and Liverot come
from, among others), the area is famous for seafood (uh yup!) as well as
cider and calvados. So in the afternoons we went driving through the
countryside in search of cideries, distilleries and cheese making
establishments. Basically we had a great time!
We met some interesting and eccentric people, including one well-known cider
maker, Francois David, who talked to us in French for 45 minutes, at least.
Now we think he understood that we didn't speak French much beyond "Merci!"
but he proceeded to tell us (we think) about other producers of fine
products in the area (including cutting off some tasty Gillot Camembert
cheese that was in his refrigerator and giving us a taste), showed us his
cidery (a very disorganized barn with lots of debris and pails of fermenting
"something" scattered about and then (again, we think) tried to cut some
plastic bags of just the right size so he could give us a huge slab of old
honeycomb from an old hive that was next to more active bee hives under his
apple trees. He never did get the bag thing right, so he eventually gave
up. We kept trying to say "Merci! Au revoir!" and gracefully back out of
his driveway (we had gone to his house in Blangy-le-Chateau (near
Deauville), apparently) but it took forever to get away - mostly because my
wife and I couldn't believe this was really happening and weren't sure
whether we should stick around for the amusement value or run for our lives!
It's such a fine line, sometimes...
Anyway, we finally realized we weren't going to actually taste or buy any
cider from him so we left. As it happened, that night we dined at a
brasserie in Trouville - and they had his cider there - quite yummy! We
mentioned to our waiter that we had just been to see Mr. David and he just
rolled his eyes, saying something about how the man had inhaled too many
"vapours" over the years. How appropriate that when we finally tried it,
the restaurant was named "Les Vapeures!"
The whole Normandy area is very pretty. It reminded me of Hawaii and Oregon
combined. Very green with rolling hills and farmland and orchards and
ocean. Everything seems very well maintained as well. No litter to speak
of, neither in the cities nor on the roads. Roadside grass is trimmed, even
along the small, one-lane country roads. We got the feeling that if they
didn't keep things well trimmed, the foliage was so thick that it would
overtake the roads and villages within a month and you'd never see them
again! Just like Hawaii.
And boy, did we drive on a lot of those quaint country roads! I took over
my Garmin GPS unit and purchased a European map before leaving home. I set
it for the "quickest" route between places and it took us on roads that were
not on my Michelin map. Now, a local villager may know that a particular
back road is the fastest way to the next village, but without the GPS I
never would have found it. It was great! We saw countryside that tourists
normally never see and old villages and towns that seemed deserted, they
were so far off the beaten path. But still they were immaculately kept up,
often with flowers planted alongside the road within and just outside the
town.
On one of our drives, we took the "Route du Cidre" in the Pays d'Auge
"appellation" - an area just south of Cabourg that has a high concentration
of quality cideries and distilleries. Here's a map:
http://calvados-tourisme.info/loisirs/route-cidre.php?PHPSESSID=13855457333b
ea4a26752eb17a4eb752 And here's the list of producers to go with the map:
http://calvados-tourisme.info/loisirs/rub1.php?route=2&lang=gb
I loaded a couple addresses into the GPS and we set off, looking at the
beautiful countryside instead of a map. We visited the establishment of
Etienne Dupont and had some wonderful ciders and calvados. Etienne gave us
a personal tour (OK, one room really - but old and stunning!) of the
calvados still and we left with a couple ciders to drink and a bottle of
unfiltered calvados from 1977 that we brought home. MMMmmmmm. His organic
cider is available in the States and is distributed by B. United Int'l.
www.calvados-dupont.com
We also stopped in at Calvados Pierre Huet in Cambremer. They have perry as
well as pommeau (fresh apple juice with calvados added), which were good,
but we preferred the Dupont cider overall. www.calvados-huet.com
Normandy is so green because, like Hawaii and Oregon, it rains a lot. Not
heavy and not all day, but most days. The weather was very pleasant this
time of year however - temp in the high 60's, low 70's - just perfect for
sightseeing and driving. It only sprinkled a bit on one day, I think, so we
never really got wet. And the latitude is so high - about the same as
mid-Canada - that it was still fairly light - and warmish - at 11pm! Weird.
Of course, it didn't hurt that we were there on the longest days of the year
anyway.
After the conference in Cabourg was over, we took off and drove to some
other parts of Normandy. One of the most spectacular was Mont St. Michel,
an island abbey in the middle of the bay between Brittany and Normandy.
It's packed with tourists jammed into its tiny streets during the day, but
if you get a room on the Mont itself, the place takes on an entirely
different character at night. So of course I reserved a room ahead of time.
We had a view of the bay from our window and it was great to walk around the
island at night. The night we were there was one of the highest tides of
the year when the water completely surrounds the island (except for the
causeway that you drive on to get there). Pretty amazing.
After spending the night on "The Mount," we drove up the Cotentin peninsula
to Valognes where we visited two superb museums, "Musee Regional du Cidre
(Cider Museum)" and "Musee de l'Eau-de-Vie et des Vieux Metiers (Museum of
Calvados and Old Trades)." Boy, were these worth the visit! Highly
recommended. http://www.mairie-valognes.fr/uk/museums.html Also
recommended: sitting at an outdoor cafe in the seaside town of St.
Vaast-ls-Hougue, scarfing local oysters and washing them down with fresh,
local cider! Nothing better.
We eventually ended up in Paris where we got rid of the car and spent 4 days
walking through neighborhoods, visiting churches and museums (D'Orsay,
Louvre), looking for and drinking cider and calvados ... and eating oysters.
Always the oysters! We would begin just about every dinner with at least 6
oysters each. In all, I think we had oysters from 5 separate areas of
Normandy - all were great but my favorites were still the first ones from
Asnelles that we had in Arromanches. On one of our last nights we had a
seafood feast at "le Bar a Huites" restaurant near our hotel. The proximity
was a good thing, too, because I don't think we could have walked very far
after eating that meal and drinking more cider! By the way, cider is the
perfect accompaniment to a shellfish feast like this. Two kinds of crab,
clams (razor clams are now my favorite!), mussels, two kinds of oysters (of
course!), whelks, periwinkles (yes - those things I used to use for bait -
yum!), regular shrimp, tiny 1" shrimp you eat whole, and probably a few
other mollusks and crustaceans I can't remember. We couldn't finish all of
it!
All in all, a fun trip - despite airplane and baggage hassles. I highly
recommend renting a car and driving through the Normandy countryside for at
least a week - but take or rent a GPS and pre-program it with some favorite
places. What you see and taste when you're not glued to a map will amaze
you!
Cheers!
Pat Maloney
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End of Cider Digest #1459
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