This article is for you if you have decided to challenge yourself or to win a crazy and quite reckless bet with your friends: to cook a meal using only local products from Troyes and the Aube department.
First, you must know that it is totally achievable!
The Aube is an agricultural department, where you can find all the fresh food you need to prepare a full menu made from local produce.
Let’s start with the aperitif. You should let yourself go to the temptation of a Magra Bendi, in its red version made with raspberry or in its white version made with pear and peach. This drink comes exclusively from a bold and innovative distillery owned by the Barbe family, in Lusigny-sur-Barse, that makes many different drinks in its still. Unless you prefer the Cacibel, a subtle blend made of blackcurrant, cider and honey, straight from the Bellot cider house in Chaource. Or you might go for a good champagne, knowing that the Aube department is the second largest producer in France!
For starters, the local farms will provide you with any type of pork meat. Unless you fancy some snails?
Let’s move on to the main course. It is very hard to avoid the famous andouillette! The andouillette from Troyes is as renowned as the sausage from Strasbourg (or Toulouse, Morteau or Lyon), the andouille from Vire, the ham from Bayonne, the rillettes from Le Mans, and the white pudding from Rethel, to name a few of the meat specialties made in France.
Whether industrial or artisanal, baked or barbecued, served as a gratin or on a bed of chips, this culinary specialty is a real pride in the department. The advantage is that you can serve the andouillette with all kinds of sauces. The Chaource cheese, another specialty of the Aube, is a perfect accompaniment. As for drinks, why not continue your dinner with champagne?
Still about meat, there are many other meat specialties to choose, like beef or mutton for example. You might want to try the famous “Lamb from the Aube”? Unless you prefer to serve any kind of poultry dish?
You should go and visit the “Maison Taupin”, a butcher in Saint-Parres-aux-Tertres, where you will find meat from the best farms of the department, starting with its own (if you like quail…).
How to best accompany the meat? With mushrooms, Champagne truffles, Champagne lentillons (a type of lentil), or even sauerkraut cabbage, of which Aube is the second largest producer after Alsace. For drinking, champagne is still a good option (it can accompany the whole dinner), but you might be curious enough to try some local red wine, like the coteaux champenois, or a rosé wine, called the rosé des Riceys?
Another possibility is to go with one of the many craft beers made in one of the breweries of the department, which are now enjoying a new era.
Are you more of a fish person? This is perfectly fine, and you can rush to the “Domaine du Moulin d’Eguebaude” fish farm in Estissac, where you can buy or even fish for trout and salmon yourself!
During the fishing season, rivers and lakes of the Aube department can also be a good source of supply for your menu, provided that you get up early in the morning, and that you are patient and optimistic, of course!
This is cheese time! In the Aube department, there are enough cheeses to compose a platter worthy of the best restaurants. The chaource was already mentioned above, but you will also be delighted with some champ-sur-barse, some langres, some ervy fermier or some soumaintrain, to name only a few of the local cheeses. You can also choose a good fromage frais (cream cheese).
To finish with a good dessert, you can rely on the excellent local chocolate makers and the wonderful pastry cooks, very appreciated in Troyes. You might even decide to finish your dinner with a surprise, so that you can impress your guests: by serving a paris-troyes, which is an adaptation of the paris-brest!
Champagne is the best choice to end your meal with style. Unless you feel an urge for cider or apple juice. The orchards in the Pays d’Othe and in Chaource will provide you with these fresh drinks. Do not forget that, in the Aube department, there is a lot of producers of all sorts of honeys and jams, as well as ice creams and home-made biscuits.
As a digestive, a glass of Prunelle de Troyes will always be a wonderful idea. As its name indicates, it is a sloe-based liqueur made in Troyes, by its one and only producer, the “Cellier Saint Pierre”. Is it a sin to drink some of it? Well, if you really need to confess and repent, the cathedral is just opposite the Cellier!
However, if you feel any remorse and wonder if you should have rather tried a ratafia, a limoncello, a marc, a fine, a brandy, a whisky a a vodka for your menu…
Just keep it all in your fridge for when you will cook you next dinner 100% from the Aube!
