Food & Drink - Local food

The Loire Valley is called the Garden of France due to its fertile soil which supports an abundance of vineyards, orchards, and vegetables. Quality fresh fruit such as apples, pears, cherries, and vegetables including asparagus and artichoke are plentiful in this area which is also the mushroom capital of France. There are lots of delicious local specialities to try including:

• Fouaces (or fouées): small balls of dough and flat bread cooked quickly in a wood-fired oven and spread with rillettes, goat's cheese or local beans called mogettes, or butter, jam or applesauce.

• Galipettes: large caps of Paris mushrooms, dried over a wood fire and topped with minced garlic, butter and parsley.
• Rillauds (or rillons): large cubes of pork which have been salted and simmered in water until tender, served hot, or cold.
• Rillettes(also known as Rillettes du Mans): is usually potted pork made from very small pieces, flavoured, seasoned, and cooked very slowly in stock.

• Fricassée Poulet Angevine: chicken sautéed with local Anjou Blanc wine with cream and mushrooms.
• Freshwater Loire fish: (salmon, pike-perch, trout, eel) often cooked in beurre blanc which is a delicate sauce made of white wine, vinegar, butter and shallots.
• Friture de la Loire: small river fish deep fried, served with lemon and a speciality of the guinguettes (typical riverside restaurant-bars) along the river.
• Matelote d’anguille: eels caught in the Loire stewed in wine.
• Coq au vin: chicken cooked slowly with Chinon wine, lardons, and mushrooms.

• Andouillette: large very strongly flavoured sausage made with tripe and pork offal.
• Button mushrooms: (champignons de Paris) cultivated for over a century in Saumur's limestone caves.
• Goats' cheese: including Ste Maure de Touraine or the pyramid-shaped nutty Valençay.
• Quernons d’ardoise d'Angers: nougat or caramelized praline with almonds and hazelnuts, coated with blue chocolate.
• Sucres d'orge de Tours: cooked sugar sweets, flavoured with apple or cherry.

• Paté aux Prunes d'Angers (or Pâte de Prunes): a type of plum turnover or pie, often made with Reine-Claude (greengages), only available when in season from mid-August until September.
• Pruneaux de Tours: dried Damson plums, often marinated in Vouvray and stuffed with almond paste.
• Confit de vin: wine jelly to serve with cold meats.

• Macaroons: little round cakes made of ground almonds, without any flour, originally made by the monks of Cormery.
• Cremet d’Angers: dessert made with crème fraiche (or fromage frais), whisked egg whites, sugar and whipped cream and often served with strawberries or fruit coulis.
• Pommes tapées: dried and flattened apples.
• Tarte tatin: upside-down tart from Sologne with caramelised apples.