Ah, Normandy, this beautiful region of France! Walking through the fields, picking apples from the apple trees, visiting calvados distilleries, and drinking to get tipsy! Going to the small towns of Normandy is the experience you will live, a charming little place to spend a quiet holiday with your family! In addition to its picturesque villages and beautiful half-timbered houses, Normandy has some great food to offer! Come and travel with us through this blog to some typical food and drinks in Normandy that will awaken your appetite and make you take your plane tickets to go to this charming French region!
Discover with us:
🍻 Drinks
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Salty
Mussels in Norman cider
You will find a lot of mussels in Normandy which is a coastal region, and of course, to make them Norman they are cooked in cider!
Les tripes à la mode de Caen
The origin of this dish dates back to the 11th century when a cook got tired of wasting paws and stomachs and decided to use them to create this dish. Although tripe recipes do not date back to that day for the first time, this recipe, invented in the Abbaye aux Hommes in Caen, is unique in that it is cooked in cider and seasoned with various vegetables.
Escalope Normande
If you don't like seafood, you can try the escalope Normande is made from chicken, turkey, or veal escalope, and to make it Norman, it is cooked with calvados like many dishes! But also cream and mushrooms and, depending on the person, also apples!
Tarte au Pont l’Evêque et au cidre
Normandy is the mother of delicious cheeses! In particular the Pont l'Evêque, you can eat it like that with bread, in fondue as seen with the Camembert, and in many ways! Here it is in a pie! Fill your shortcrust pastry with Pont l'Evêque and cider or calvados, a few other small ingredients and you end up with a savory tart to roll around in! (But do a good workout afterward because it's not the least caloric thing you can eat) But if you like cheese, you'll love it, so it's worth making a dent in your balanced meals to eat this typical dish from Normandy!
Fondue de Camembert
Miam Camembert cheese! Internationally known, well known for its pestilential smell, remains a real delight! (And as they say in France, the stronger the cheese smells, the better it is!) This cheese can be eaten in many different ways, the most common is raw with bread, but it can also be eaten melted! Put a little calvados and milk in it, a few cloves of garlic, then melt in the oven. Once ready, dip some breadcrumbs and cold cuts in it, a real delight! There is also the Norman fondue, where in a ramekin, mix three kinds of cheese (Pont l'Evêque, Livarot, and Camembert) always with a little milk and calvados so that it melts better, and eat the same way, a real delight! Our advice is to dip also apple slices in the cheese, this is delicious!
Magic Beau Gosse
Magic Beau Gosse is a fast-food kebab in Caen. You will tell us, why in typical food in Normandy you present a kebab, not very typical! Indeed, the food is not typical, but fast food has been super famous there for a long time! But for some time, you don't need to be from Caen to know it because a famous rapper in France named Orelsan who is from Caen, wrote a song where he talks about this fast food. Now it is even more crowded, which makes it a bit more local!
Sweet
Le Teurgoule
The name of the dessert, teurgoule, is said to mean "to twist one's mouth", and there are rumors that this is because they rushed to eat it while it was still very hot. It is a kind of rice pudding sweetened with cinnamon and cooked for 5 hours in a special dish.
Confiture de lait
Although its origin is not French, according to legend, milk jam appeared in France when a cook in Napoleon's army left sweetened milk to cook for too long. But whatever its origin, milk jam remains a specialty in Normandy, mainly due to the quality of the region's milk, which makes the product delicious!
Crème au cidre et aux pommes
A cream based on whipping cream, sugar, cider, and calvados, which is left to rest in the fridge until it is time to eat when the apples are added, cooked with half a lemon and cinnamon, and then assembled in a small glass! A very nice little dessert to serve!
Douillon Normand
The Douillon Normand is a great snack to prepare for guests! It consists of filling apples or pears (also a local fruit) with butter and sugar, then rolling it up in a shortcrust pastry. A real treat for young and old!
Drinks
Cider
As we saw in our article on Breton specialties, cider is one of the leading drinks in these two regions! You will find apple trees everywhere in Normandy, making it a great cider producer, loved all over France!
Calvados:
Calvados is both the name of a department in Normandy, but above all, this Normandy brandy! Made from apples, this is a must in the region! you can visit several calvados (also called calva) distilleries, like Le Père Magloire, a leader in calva production in France!
Trou Normand
France is well known among foreigners for its love of inviting relatives at home for dinner or lunch! And in France, they don't do things by halves and serve good hearty meals to their guests! A tradition that has existed for generations is to have a trou Normand, which consists of drinking a little Calvados with an apple sorbet to make room in the stomach to continue the feast! A typical drink/digestif in Normandy that you don't want to miss!
Apple Juice
Apples, apples, and more apples! You'll begin to understand that the apple is the most important fruit in Normandy, so of course, you'll find delicious apple juice! We advise you to go to a local producer, you will rediscover apple juice! Nothing to do with the industrial apple juice you are used to buying in supermarkets!
Now that Normandy cuisine has no secrets for you, it's time to try it for real! Go and visit Caen and the D-Day beaches that are not far away from Le Havre, or the Mont Saint Michel, which is Norman and not Breton despite the debate and disagreement between the two French regions!
Never stop exploring beautiful places and check our other articles. Follow us on our Instagram page @thewalkingparrot for more content and to stay informed of upcoming articles!
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