Food

Ooh, la la

Susan Nowak digs out her passport and heads to France

Escape! With one bound

we are free and heading to Brittany on the good ship Armorique. Breton crêpes and cider, langoustines and steak frites beckon on our first trip abroad since before the pandemic. Hoping entente is still cordiale – perhaps we should wear badges proclaiming “Down with Brexit and Boris” – but actually confident the Celtic connection between us on the cusp of Cornwall and our cher amis in Brittany will transcend that.

Aussi, 2022 marks our golden wedding anniversary, and we’re celebrating with 50 ‘highlights’ during the year. We should knock off several in France and anyway, it’s the nation of l’amour. We drive our car merrily onto the ferry to Roscoff, and it’s anchors aweigh.

We commenced the

culinary experience in the ship’s cafeteria, where I began with eight huge juicy langoustines followed, in French fashion, by boeuf bourguinon (excellent red wine sauce and smooth mash, beef bit tough). Inexplicably, the beer was Lagunitas IPA (6.2 per cent ABV) from California. The bottle apprised us of its ‘raging hop character’, bit of an exaggeration, but the Kerne artisanal French cider was spot on, apple sweetness tempered by a sharp, dry toasted sandwich on superior yeasty bread topped with ham, goat’s cheese and honey.

note. As a seafood accompaniment, très bien. Not haute cuisine, but the meal only cost £12 each.

Slightly bleary-eyed next

morning, we drove off the ferry, muttering “keep on the right”. Though our hotel was in the port, with only three full days in France, for this first trip back we want to cram in as much as we can, so headed inland to the medieval town of Morlaix, its architecture almost Tudor in style.

Just outside was the hamlet of Plourin-lès-Morlaix, where the marketplace had been hijacked by a group of strolling players, talented mime artistes who held us enthralled. Then Morlaix itself, and husband Fran had done his homework. He took us to Ty Coz, close cousin to a proper English pub, where he drank what he later said was the best beer of the trip – a real ale IPA (5.6 per cent) brewed by Brasserie Coreff.

We had the French equivalent of a ploughman’s – for me a tasty panini – fresh baguette filled with ham and mozzarella plus cabbage slaw. Fran’s choice was even better, a petillaint balein – open

Back to Roscoff, and our

hotel in a quaint little square by the Gothic-style church. Our room, right above the sea, looked across to the Promenade bridge, about half a mile long, where folk catch the ferry to Île-de-Batz (which has a brewery).

The town itself is a bracing seaport with ancient granite houses, loads of bars and restaurants serving the freshest fish and seafood you could desire. You see people eating alone, steadily chomping their way through great platters of seafood from cockles to lobster – deftly cracking open the shells of everything from our familiar brown crabs to terrifying spider crabs. Yet despite this abundant harvest from the sea, I would say that Brittany’s signature dish is a simple pancake: the Breton crêpe.

Clockwise from top: French cider was the perfect onboard dining companion; British pub close cousin Ty Coz serves locally brewed cask IPA; strolling players entertain in Plourin-lès-Morlaix

Clockwise from top: Plenty of choice at the Crêperie Cabioc’h; Kir Breton is made with cider; artichoke in cider; just like home – handpulled beer in Keltia

We embraced them at the Crêperie Cabioc’h with its beautiful stone frontage and simple intimate interior. The beer was local Rosko Blonde (4.5 per cent), delicate fruit on the nose, citrus flavours, described as d’esalterante – thirst-quenching. I drank a Kir Breton made, not with the usual white wine, but with local cider.

The range of crêpes was mind-blowing: savoury made from wholewheat flour producing a dark, lacy crêpe folded into quarters around the filling. I had La Forestiere of wood mushrooms, sour cream and bacon lardons. Fran went for La Raclette of air-dried ham, potatoes, raclette cheese and yet more sour cream. It’s not easy choosing from so many fillings, everything from salmon to a confit of the famous Breton red onion to L’Anglaise containing – yes, you’ve guessed – bacon, eggs and mushrooms.

And so dessert. These

crêpes were more like English pancakes and again, choices made us feel like kids in a sweetshop – we shared one with a blueberry jam and home-made chocolate filling.

The next day, we went the pretty route to Quimper over high hills stopping in the hamlet of Pleyben where we found a classy little wine store and deli that had space for a wall of beers. Fran spent lots of his holiday euros here.

Again, he’d done his homework, but clearly lacked application. After driving all that way because Finnegans Wake in Quimper was supposed to sell Proper Job (4.5 per cent), instead we found Delirium Tremens (8.5 per cent) plus keg beer from Brasserie Lancelot, founded in 1990 by Bernard Lancelot on the site of a gold mine in Roc-Saint-André, Morbihan.

Here, too, was our only gastronomic disappointment. My vegetable risotto was a edible bits off all those leaves, and I snaffled the choke. Our dessert was a house special – Isle Flottante, or floating island, the airiest, softest meringue covered in toasted almonds floating in a delicate crème Anglais (custard). The Val de Rance cidre was a particularly good partner. Produced by a cooperative dating back 65 years, it owes its richness and depth of flavour to the local climate and terroir of

Breton cider apples.

For mains we had duck confit and ham with spicy sauce. Why, you may wonder, in a restaurant famed for its seafood where all around us were scoffing great platters of the stuff? Because we had saved that treat for the final day when we would lunch at Les Chardons Bleus, known as ‘le Bistrot de la Mer’.

It never happened. The following morning, “au secours!” our car would not start – and we had to be at the ferry by 3pm. It was only the fantastic team effort of French RAC, the jolly guys at Brittany Ferries who towed us on and off, and English RAC awaiting us in Plymouth that got us home. So, sorry there’s no seafood feast photo, but think of moi. You don’t get to see it – but I never got to eat it… au revoir.

ghastly mush of overcooked rice that seemed more like pudding with tiny slivers of vegetable relieving the mush. Serves you right for ordering risotto in France, I hear you say. Fran quite liked his sausage ragu in spicy tomato sauce, but his frites were charred chips.

And then his research paid off. On the way back, in the charming riverside town of Landerneau, he led me to a pub with handpumps – we could almost be at home! The pub Keltia (more Celtic links) had beer badges on the wall and the barman pulled a half litre of Brasserie Coreff Ambrée (5 per cent), a smooth, slightly sweet ’n’ sour amber beer, more malty and yeasty than hoppy.

Alors, our final night in Roscoff. We splashed out at the elegant Hotel Les Arcades. Fran began with a spectacular whole artichoke, but lost heart nibbling the

Susan Nowak

writes CAMRA’s Good Pub Food, and has made many TV and radio appearances talking about pub food and cooking with beer