Le Dîner Paysan
# episode 1 / Sept. 2020
THANK YOU to all our partners
Ombres et Facettes
Ofyr France
Trudon
Nouvelles Renaissances
Centre Region - Loire Valley
The Perch
Celebrate the flavors of this lush, rolling region, home to abundant crops.
Hills crowned with forests, valleys with wooded slopes, sunken paths lined with hedges, rivers, ponds, sand quarries... Welcome to the Perche.
The stopover will take place in one of the valleys of Perche, and more precisely in the meadows of a small town in Loir-et-Cher, Sargé sur Braye. Accessible from Paris in 49 minutes by train (Montparnasse Station > Villers sur Loir Station), to then go to the secret garden of our Chef.
Chef Guillaume Foucault,
and Quy Phi, a couple perched gently
At the helm of this first edition of the Dîner Paysan, a couple whose know-how is as good as their kindness, and whose roots in the Percheron region are condensed in Guillaume's cuisine. The starred Chef defends the values of his region with finesse, ingenuity and a certain sense of determination to promote what had disappeared. No passéism, but a modernity in his approach, which restores taste to many products, meaning to their presence on their plates and a real human dimension through his exchanges with farmers without whom the pots would be empty.
As for Quy Phi, who is just as attached to the sense of detail and essential to the good balance of the tandem, and who usually works in the dining room, will have here a limitless space to express her creativity, notably through drinks with herbs from the vegetable garden, while welcoming you into this playground of flavors, for an evening under the stars.
Among the Producers and Artisans of Perche
There are many who strive to produce well. What is certain is that it will take many Percheron dinners to do them all justice. But here is a foretaste of the products and stories of men who take us from Perche Ornais to Perche Vendômois, to be found in this #1.
PATRICK CHOLET, beekeeper and breeder of Cadres Noirs Percherons
Patrick, a geneticist and taste magician, manages his entire production chain in a fragile context: lack of flowers and male sterility linked to pesticides.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
Before creating a honey acclaimed by gourmets and chefs such as Guillaume Foucault, Alexandre Bourdas, Pascal Barbot, or David Gallienne… Patrick was Sales Director of an oil group, before radically changing his life 5 years ago.
THE APPROACH
Generally speaking, the quality of the hive is compromised. Patrick takes a counter-stance and tries a virtuous circle, losing nothing. With the wax that he recovers and has transformed into sheets, he changes 50% of the frames every year of his 300 hives. To control his honey production, Patrick raises his own bees and changes his queens every year.
Its honey is extracted cold and not heated, with a rather innovative system. Collected by a membrane pump that works like a heart, its honey is perfectly preserved. Nothing is lost, even the skin recovered from the surface of the tank is given to the bees.
HIS PRIDES
Its hawthorn or apple tree honeys, but also its flavored honeys: with black garlic, perfect to accompany white meat or goat cheese; with hibiscus, red fruits, saffron, passion fruit, turmeric… mixtures made at the time of extraction.
And his numerous meetings and collaborations around beehive products, including the young French brand of natural and responsible cosmetics Les Candides.
EMILE AUTÉ, tea planter in France
Aptly named Émile is a tea farmer, planter and creator of flavors with his collectible teas, flavored teas, and herbal teas, including a great range for children.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
Émile changed his life in 2015 after a career in the family restaurant group, he seemed to have covered the subject, and by chance (or not) he came across the No. 1 of Kaizen magazine on permaculture and autonomous farms. There, he said to himself: "That makes sense!"
THE APPROACH
To reinvent himself, Émile starts by changing regions, heading to the outskirts of Vendôme in the outbuildings of a castle to think, before settling at the Ferme du PetitPont in Azé, a reference in peasant agriculture where goat cheese and organic vegetables are produced. Émile finds a roof there, land to experiment with his first crops but above all friends. "I also learned the Peasant spirit as it is conceived for a local and nourishing agriculture and of course solidarity and kindness.
Despite the "originality" of my project, I was followed, encouraged and supported."
HIS PRIDES
Perche tea of course!
Succeeding in producing beautiful Camellia Sinensis leaves and transforming them into tea will have been his great joy, now all that remains is to develop the tea industry in France.
©Sébastien Carles
JÉRÔME LEPOIVRE, pig breeder from Bayeux
Jérôme, a native of Percheron, owns a mixed-crop farm with suckler cows. But the desire to work differently led him to develop a Bayeux pig farm at the same time.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
Passionate about old Norman breeds, he started a small outdoor breeding of Bayeux pigs in 2017. The choice of this animal was obvious to him, it is a slow-growing pig, between 14 and 18 months are necessary to obtain a very tasty meat, slightly pink, marbled and above all with good fat.
THE APPROACH
This choice accompanies his desire to return to simple things to produce as before without preservatives or additives, while regaining control of his operation, thus becoming less dependent on various agricultural organizations.
HIS PRIDES
Among his prides, born from collaboration, the sausages including the one with honey with Patrick Cholet, a beekeeper from Bellem, who notably makes honey for Chef Guillaume Foucault, and who we will also find at Dîner Paysan #1.
CÉCILE and THIERRY HERMELINE, peasant bakers
It has been more than twenty years since Cécile and Thierry settled in their farmhouse in Perche, near La Perrière. In their previous life in Brittany, Thierry was an organic baker and Cécile was a biology teacher. Today they have several jobs: farmers, market gardeners, millers, farmer-baker and farmer-cook.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
It's an education, a lifelong awareness, they wanted something else for their children, to give meaning to their lives, and Cécile was asking for a different setting in the countryside while working together.
“Bread is a recipe, I learned to make it with Thierry, I know how to knead, shape… I have ideas, it requires him to be responsive”, this is how Cécile tells us about this 4-handed score.
THE APPROACH
The grain must be sorted, transformed into flour every week, the sourdough prepared, kneaded, shaped. Twice a week, the wood-fired oven, which offers gentle, descending cooking and a very crispy crust, is lit to bake up to 6 batches. From midnight to 4 p.m., Thierry does not allow himself any rest. As for Cécile, on the shop side, she welcomes customers until 7 p.m., Thursday and Sunday.
More than twenty different breads, pizzas, fougasse and homemade tarts are raided.
At the same time, Cécile writes cookbooks, "the books allowed me to travel intellectually, and to get out of the world of my farm", a logical continuation of the plant-based cooking classes organized regularly on site.
THEIR PRIDE
The braid, the bread most popular with customers.
Their vegetable garden and orchard for personal use and for fougasse and other delights in the shop.
Discovery courses in the profession of farmer-baker.
The brand new Tiny House and its adjoining wood-fired oven, for many upcoming events.
CAROLINE SCHWERDORFFER, ceramist at the Château de Mauregard
Caroline is multifaceted, night nurse, coach, psychotherapist, former medical delegate, gallery owner for 9 years, creator of a Singular Art festival, she has now been a ceramist for 1 year after having passed a CAP in art professions. Thus connected to her emotions, she lives in the present moment.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
The artists that Caroline had been exhibiting for years, asked her about her own creations and her friends saw her as a potter. The desire to do something new itches her, the need to touch, without an intermediary like the brush, directly with her hands in the clay, the decision is made, Caroline becomes a ceramist. For our craftsman, no decoration, it's not her thing, what interests her is the shape then the color, as for the enamel, it is homemade. When Caroline tells her story, arriving at pottery was not written and yet everything in her family predestined her.
THE APPROACH
The oven is in the chapel, the workshop in the back kitchen and the enamelling outside to have maximum space and daylight.
Caroline throws and works on the plate - baking sheets and a rolling pin - which brings her art closer to that of the magicians of the kitchen, with a hint of the sacred! She works with white stoneware, but plans to move towards warmer colored stoneware, ochre and caramel (we are still in the kitchen). And why not also work with green clay from Perche.
The container is essential, it gives another taste to our cooking.
HIS PRIDES
Right now, her pitchers are the attraction of novelty. Caroline loves to turn, it's much more enjoyable.
PASCAL POTAIRE, producer of sparkling wines and perries
Pascal forms a duo with Moses Gadouche and are incredible artisans-explorers in natural sparkling wines. He is an earthling who loves nature, he gets up every morning with the same passion to admire the life cycle of fruits, and always with this satisfaction of having a finished product that perfectly relates the terroir he loves.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
For Pascal, everything has always been about encounters. He, who has neither training nor roots in the vine, decided after some time as a wine merchant to take the plunge. This is precisely what he likes, to be able to take things in reverse and deviate from established protocols. He then became a winemaker in the Cher Valley, through motivation, absolute respect for the environment and decisive encounters including that with Christian Chaussard, a winemaker who has now passed away.
THE APPROACH
Pascal is the epitome of honesty. All his harvests are done by hand, it takes time but this is how he feels, touches and sees the transformation of his raw material. An approach that also corresponds to a desire, that of producing the best sparkling wine, the best perry possible, from which he always seeks to obtain the finesse and balance essential to the pleasure of tasting.
Chef Guillaume Foucault was a decisive encounter since it was he who helped Pascal to carry out the research work on perry, by getting his hands on pear trees that were sometimes several centuries old, and to obtain perfect fruits for the production of this 100% natural product.
HIS PRIDES
His bottles full of natural bubbles with this color and this line that holds. His pride is also to have succeeded in bringing back into fashion the sparkling wine and the perry, while he launched into the vineyard without any training or any family ties, simply with pedagogical and fascinating people met along the way. And then this pride finally, to prove that the method of the elders is convincing if it is well applied, that it allows to have vintage products. Pascal is a farmer proud to be one.
JÉRÔME AUGIS, cow breeder
Jérôme does not just raise cows, he participates in the recognition of a breed called Percheron "La Fine du Perche" and cultivates hedges, since to date he has planted 20km and does not intend to stop there.
THE TRIGGER, THE ORIGINS?
Jérôme fell into the pot when he was a child, as he likes to say. He who has always helped his grandfather and his father on the farm feels deeply rooted on his Percheron lands, he is the fifth generation to take over.
THE APPROACH
When he took over the business in 1998, he began a process of reflection and questioning the model in which he had grown up. Not that he wanted to revolutionize everything, but rather to add his own seed without deconstructing the work of his predecessors.
It is now a question of producing less for better quality, respecting the soil, the air and the environment which surrounds it, while promoting its native Perche.
His work is not finished but his sustainable agriculture is the story of a career that he hopes to pass on.
HIS PRIDES
His Percheron women! They tell a story, a territory, a way of working, a cohesion between farmers and above all a reflection of the whole system.
©RFI/Clemence Denavit