Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

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My tour will be in less of a hurry than the actual race – bad for the digestion, and if I’m going to do this properly, there will be a lot of digesting on the menu. When I sit down and try to make a list of my 21 favourite French foods (to match the number of stages in the real Tour), not only is it hard to whittle them down, but those that make the cut come from almost every corner of the country, with the exception of the far Nord, which, despite an admirable facility with the deep-fat fryer, did not particularly wow me with its cuisine on my previous visit.

And whereas a list of my most treasured British dishes would skew heavily towards stodge, this lot, though a little low on salad, is pleasingly varied: (almost*) anything we can do, France does better. They’ve even beaten us on our specialist subject, the spud – I like a baked potato as much as the next noted gourmand, but I think we can all agree that Alpine tartiflette takes it to the next level. (Mostly by adding more cheese.)