Sixth and last part of our culinary “Tour de France”
The northern part of France dishes is the poor cousin of French cuisine but like the people of the north even if the recipes are few they are rich, tasteful and will keep your belly full.
Historically speaking the Northern region of France boundaries have been flexible for many centuries spreading as high as Holland so it’s without surprise that Belgium style and Flemish style cooking has been adopted as their own as early as the XIIIth century
Local ingredients in cuisine
- Turnip, leeks, potatoes and carrots
- Beer both for drinking and cooking
- French fries
- Cream
- Vergeoise (beetroot sugar)
Local drinks
- Beers (like in really many many sorts of)
- Le genièvre liqueur (oats, barley, wheat and rye alcohol with juniper berries)
And here are some very local dishes
- Mussels with French fries
- Fricadelles with French fries
- Pot au Feu or Hochepot
- Beef or Chicken beer stew
- Chicon au gratin (chicory and ham gratin)
- Flamiche au maroilles (thin crust dough with cream and maroilles cheese) with a variation with leeks
- Le Welsh (yup, eponymous from the Welsh dish) served of course with French fries
Desserts or sweets
- Sugar pie (does exactly what it says on the tin)
- Cramique (brioche)
- Bêtises de Cambrais
- Le merveilleux (meringue pastry)
- Tarte Libouli (egg and milk tart with a vanilla flavour)
As part of our introduction to French gastronomy our award wining Food Tours always contain some regional flavouring.
