Category Archives: Haggis

Summer visitors to try out British food

Oh Bloody Hell – is it really 4½ months since I last posted to this blog. How time flies when you’re having fun!! During that time, we returned to France for a couple of months then went back again to The Isle of Man for a couple of months. Now we are back in France again… must be Sunday!

We had an interesting summer on the Isle of Man with three lots of visitors from France. First of all there was Pierre and Claude who stayed with us for a week (and fitted in a year’s worth of sightseeing!). There are so many curiosities to see on The Isle of Man for the first time visitor. One that amused Pierre and Claude was the Great Union Camera Obscura on Douglas Head (opened in the 1890s and is one of only a tiny handful left in the British Isles.)… I’m the lazy one with his hands in his pockets!

Of course, food is never far from the minds of French people, so we introduced them to a typical British picnic (complete with table and chairs). This time, I’m the taller one with the wine in his hand!! Included in the picnic were such British delicacies as Scotch Egg, Melton Mowbray pork pie and also we served radishes as part of a salad, which is not in the French culture (they eat them on their own as a starter, with salt and butter). Surprisingly, we also discovered that your humble Heinz Salad Cream went down a treat, since there seems to be no equivalent in France – the nearest being mayonaisse.

Harbour Lights - Port St. MaryWe were also pleasantly surpised by the warm reception our guests gave to the local eating places. The French can be a little snooty about their food, so we weren’t quite sure what sort of reception basic British “grub” would get. Our minds were put at rest after a delightful lunch at The Harbour Lights in Port St. Mary (I’m the one examining what I eat before shovelling it down!)

Basic British Picnic GrubOur next arrivals were M-D’s cousin, Anne-Marie, and her husband, Jean. They stopped with us for a little under one week since they were then heading off for a hiking holiday in Scotland. Again, they seemed to appreciate basic British “picnic grub” like the pork pie and Scotch egg, We also introduced them the delights of haggis neaps and tatties, before their Scottish visit, so they could decide whether or not they liked it (I think the jury is still out on that one!)

Manx Country CottageFor Jean and Anne-Marie, I think the attraction of The Isle of Man was simply the delightful country cottages and quaint streets of the old fishing village of Peel. Naturally, they enjoyed seeing all the other natural attractions the island has to offer (like Loaghtan sheep and Manx cats) but, being lovers of fish (to eat, of course) they thoroughly enjoyed trying out the famous Manx Kippers which are smoked by Moore’s Manx Kippers less than a mile from where we live. Moore’s is the last of the traditional oak-smoked curing yards and the flavour just oozes out of their products.

Isle of Man Steam RailwayOur final guests of the summer were M-D’s sister, Christine, and her younger son, Corentin. Christine has visited The Island before but, for Corentin, it was his first time, so we naturally did all the “tourist” bits like the electric trams, the Great Laxey Wheel, The Isle of Man Steam Railway. the horse trams, and everything else than contributes to making the Isle of Man a unique place to live and work.

The Hop GardenDuring their stay, we celebrated Christine’s birthday with a visit to our favourite restaurant on the island, The Abbey whose food and attention to detail was, as always, immaculate. Regrettably, they had used up all their stock of 2004 Chateaux Lyonnat Saint Emilion but, fortunately, they had a slightly younger version of the same wine, and it was a dream! We also visited a couple of “regular” haunts like The Hop Garden (pictured above) which serves really good quality “pub grub” in delightful surroundings.

And finally, M-D and I had a couple of weeks to recouperate from a hectic schedule of sightseeing! After which, a couple of quick flights and we are back in France, for the winter. We’re lucky, because my brother Steve lives close to the house on the Isle of Man so keeps an eye on it for us while we’re away. Maybe, one day, we can persuade him to visit France where we can play host to some of the delights that France has to offer.

Almost time to leave ‘The Rock’ again

How time flies. It only seems like yesterday that we were unpacking our loaded car having arrived from France. Now we are planning loading all the stuff we are taking back and catching the ferry to UK and on to France until June.

When we come from France we bring wine (wouldn’t you know it), tins of things like cassoulet, confit, snails (yes- honest!) and lot of other interesting goodies that you can’t easily get in UK. When we go back to France from The Isle of Man, we take stuff you can’t get in France like party poppers, custard, haggis and jelly beans! Yeah – I know – we’re real adventurous rascals, aren’t we!

While we’ve been here this time, we’ve had two or three interesting meals at home with friends and relatives including Cubes of Veal with Spicebread Sauce, snails (which we brought over with us and packed into the shells ourselves, along with garlic butter and parsley and, tonight, since my niece, Sally and her husband, Danny, are over for a few days, we’ll be having one of my regular favourites, Filet Mignon (Tenderloin of Pork) with Sage and Rosemary.

Abbey Restaurant, Rushen Abbey, Isle of Man
Abbey Restaurant, Rushen Abbey, Isle of Man

Marie-Danielle and I also managed to fit in a visit to The Abbey Restaurant at Rushen Abbey where I enjoyed some amazing Grilled Manx king scallops in hazelnut butter as a starter, then both of us had Chicken Ballontine with dauphinois potatoes, oyster mushroom cream and cranberry sauce. All this, washed down with a bottle of their amazing 2004 Chateaux Lyonnat Saint Emilion. I don’t know how much longer their stocks will last, but, boy, is that a great wine or is that a great wine!

The other things we discovered on this visit were two great local restaurants. One was a Chinese – The Jade Harbour Restaurant overlooking the marina where the food was excellent, the service was spot-on and the prices were right. The other was an Indian – The Royal India – in the little market place just down the road from where we live. Small (only about 30 covers) but clean, friendly, well-priced and with excellent Indain cuisine, this little gem is one we have revisited twice already!

So now, we are looking forward to being back in France so we can visit The Happy Sushi and La Petite Rôtisserie – our two “canteens” that we make plenty of use of! Wish us “Bon Voyage!”

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly

Well, Christmas is here again and all that’s left of the turkey is… er… nothing, because we didn’t have turkey! In fact, we’ve just had two consecutive Christmases and are feeling the effects. Here in France, Christmas is celebrated on the evening of 24th when the family gathers round for a long meal, followed by present-opening at midnight. This year, M-D’s daughter and her family came from Orleans (about 100 miles away) on 23rd and left on 24th. Then M-D’s sister and her two adult sons came on 24th, so we had two consecutive Christmas dinners.

With my daughter-in-law and her family, we opted for goose as a main course, with a cold starter of foie gras (accompanied by a nice fresh bottle of Chateau Romanin), a hot starter of (would you believe) Haggis, Neaps and Tatties, and then the main course followed by cheese and salad, then Chocolate and Walnut Cake (the walnuts having been gathered from my daughter-in-law’s garden in the summer). The main wine was a 1992 Savigny les Beaune, a very smooth Burgundy wine from our ‘Special Reserve’.

Haggis Neeps and TattiesWhat was amusing about this meal was the reaction to the Haggis, Neaps and Tatties starter! The French love to give the Brits a hard time about their food, and there are some particularly easy targets like haggis, because the somewhat biased stereotype does not match the reality of this dish. So I thought it would be fun to serve it as a second starter (after some delightful foie gras) and see what reaction we got.

In fact, I cheated a little because we took our two French grandchildren to Scotland last summer so I already knew that one of them liked haggis (we nicknamed her “The Haggis Vaccum”)! However, the one member of the family who is normally a little “French” and inclined to be very critical of anything un-French is our son-in-law, Vincent. So his reaction was the one we were a little unsure of. Yet he was the one who absolutely raved about this dish and cleaned his plate almost as quickly as his daughter (The Haggis Vaccum). It was about as successful as you could ever hope to have in any meal. In fact, the goose that followed was almost forgotten in the glowing praise for the haggis (despite the goose taking much longer to prepare and costing 50 time more than the haggis!)

Then, at the end, with a nice glass of Mas Amiel (the only wine that goes with chocolate), we tucked into M-D’s Chocolate and Walnut Cake, which is always a treat, particularly since she splits the cake in two and fills the middle with apricot conserve mixed with tiny chips of dried apricot!

So our pre-Christmas Eve Christmas passed off well and left us preparing a much simpler meal the following night, for M-D’s sister, Christine and her sons, Jerome and Corentin. We started (what again??) with foie gras (again, with Chateau Romanin), followed by pot roast duck stuffed with oranges, accompanied by another of our ‘Special Reserves’ – a 2002 Chateau Martet (a Merlot) that was, frankly, like drowning in heaven! Then we moved to salad and a wonderful selection of French cheeses and ended with a traditional rich fruit Christmas Cake that we brought back from UK with us a few weeks ago (complete with marzipan and icing). Again, surprisingly, this was much appreciated by the family because, despite often poking fun at non-French food, they sometimes find other interesting things if we take the time and trouble to introduce them to them.

So, no turkey, but lots of other good surprises. Tonight, it’s just soup, to let everything settle a little!