One More Croissant for the Road

One More Croissant for the Road
Felicity Cloake

The nation’s ‘taster in chief’ cycles 3,500km across France in search of the definitive versions of classic French dishes.One of the chief pleasures of cycling, apart from the thrill of freedom it gives you, is stopping for lunch, so ravenous you inhale the bread basket before they’ve even had time to bring over your beer. And France is a country whose roads, so straight and smooth and quiet, seem designed for cycling, and whose hearty provincial cooking, whether that’s Moules Frites or Boeuf Bourguignon, makes the perfect fuel for it. To be hungry in France is to be fortunate indeed.One More Croissant for the Road sees ‘the nation’s taster in chief’ Felicity Cloake embark on the trip of a lifetime, cycling 3,500km across France in search of the definitive versions of classic French dishes. Felicity has long established herself as an absolute authority on everything that is important about food. This lively and charming account of her search for the ultimate Quiche Lorraine, la meilleure Tarte Tatin and a Cassoulet par excellence, culminates in a triumphant two-wheeled tour of Paris’s boulangeries in pursuit of France’s finest croissant. Accompanied by charming line illustrations, each chapter concludes with Felicity putting this new-found knowledge to good use in a new ‘perfect’ recipe for each dish, the conclusion of her rigorous and thorough investigative work on behalf of all our taste buds.Felicity Cloake is the author of the Guardian’s long-running weekly column, How to Cook the Perfect…as well as having been the New Statesman’s food columnist since 2011 and the author of four books with Fig Tree. She was named Cookery Journalists of the Year at the 2016 Fortnum & Mason awards, and won the Cookery Journalist of the Year and New Media trophies at the 2011 Guild of Food Writers awards.

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Copyright (#u90f5a66f-df1b-54dc-9eb7-cab0c4582dda)

Mudlark

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First published by Mudlark 2019

FIRST EDITION

Text © Felicity Cloake 2019

Illustrations and cover illustration © Sara Mulvanny/Agency Rush 2019

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Felicity Cloake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008304935

Ebook Edition: June 2019 ISBN: 9780008304942

Version: 2019-04-30

Dedication (#u90f5a66f-df1b-54dc-9eb7-cab0c4582dda)

For my sausage-scoffing, plonk-sinking peloton – with whom the glass was always half full

Contents

1  Cover (#u759fab98-e86d-55c5-ad89-dfa3d36ce173)

2  Title Page

3  Copyright

4  Dedication

5  Contents (#u90f5a66f-df1b-54dc-9eb7-cab0c4582dda)

6  Prologue

7  STAGE 1: The Grand Départ, London to Cherbourg

8  STAGE 2: Cherbourg to Avranches

9  STAGE 3: Avranches to Dol-de-Bretagne

10  STAGE 4: Dol-de-Bretagne to Saint-Malo

11  STAGE 5: Saint-Malo to Redon

12  STAGE 6: A Stage in Two Parts: Redon to Tours, Paris to Lamotte-Beuvron

13  STAGE 7: Limoges (Circuit)

14  STAGE 8: Limoges to Bayonne

15  STAGE 9: Bayonne to Pau

16  STAGE 10: Pau to Carcassonne

17  STAGE 11: Marseille

18  STAGE 12: Marseille to Nice

19  STAGE 13: The Col de Joux Plane

20  STAGE 14: Lyon

21  STAGE 15: Chalon-sur-Saône to Dijon

22  STAGE 16: Strasbourg to Meistratzheim

23  STAGE 17: Meistratzheim to Nancy

24  STAGE 18: Toul to Bar-le-Duc

25  STAGE 19: Bar-le-Duc to Reims