It might be heresy to say this, but I have never been terribly found of macarons, those crunchy on the outside, cream-filled sweets the French love to serve with coffee or munch in the afternoon at a patisserie. I want to like them, mind you. They are the elegant step sister to the American Oreo, a fancy rendition of a multi-textured sweet, a tiny bite that doesn’t toss you to the jaws of diabetes, like, say, Crème Brulee or Baba au Rhum. And yet, they have always disappointed me . . . until I tasted a savory one.
This creation by Chef Alex Miles, an American ex-pat who does his cooking these days in Dijon, is called Macaron aux Moutarde. Its fancy pink outside, splashed with casis and sprinkled with honeycake crumbs, covers an interior that sizzles with the surprise of mustard-infused Brillat Saverin cheese. I fall so fast in love with this tidbit Miles serves us that I sneak another, and yet another. Finally, I push away the plate.
A chef with global pedigree, a university teacher, a pastry expert, and an advocate for French lifestyle in regard to food and the senses, Miles has lived in France for nearly three decades. Married to a French woman, he sometimes deigns to teach small, intimate cooking courses to food lovers that manage to wander into his town, a charming spot in the heart of Burgundy. He’s also the creator of “Le 4-14 Festival,” entering its second year as a celebration of American Independence Day and French Bastille Day.
We gather in an artsy, upscale apartment and sip wine while Miles cooks on a Lacanche Stove and makes preparations on a gleaming, granite countertop. .We have spent the morning with him at the market where we wander behind him, watching as locals greet him as a celebrity. “This is the best breadmaker because he is trained as a musicologist,” he whsipers to me at one point. “Being an artist, he approaches his baking as art.”
photos by Becca Hensley
“This woman (he says of an elderly lady wearing leopard print) costs more, but her produce is the best — look at the size of those tomatoes!” For us, it’s a magical mystery tour and the baskets we carry soon fill with herbs, yogurt, rabbits, fat carrots, chunks of whole grain bread, leeks, berries, and cheese.
In the kitchen, we nibble on pate and macarons, sip some lusty Burgundian wines while Miles deftly tutors us in all aspects of our French food foray. He tells us to not be afraid of salt, “When you put the salt in the sauce, you will watch the sauce progress just as one watches the sun rise.”
He whispers that the secret to the French paradox is as simple as eating the freshest, most locally derived food. He bemoans the American tendency to fear fat and urges us to eat lots of French butter and to buy only full fat yogurt: “All that fat stuff means nothing,” he says, adding that we should never say “don’t eat this food or that — we should eat it all.”
Each meal, each opportunity to munch becomes a social event that might last hours. (Miles admits to a lunch last year that lasted 14 hours). This day we begin our food oriented market tour at nine, cook for hours, and finish eating at nearly four. All the while we laugh and make fast friends with the other students, we learn about food (Roquefort is born from moldy rye bread), France (French life is nuanced, not black or white), and the truth about cooking (it’s like being part of a theatrical production). We leave nurtured in more ways than one.
One good book: Long Ago In France: The Years In Dijon (Destinations)
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