Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Bourgoin-Jallieu - 29th April

We have been here a week and so far our brand new Peugeot 3008 SUV has used just over ¾ of a tank of diesel which is about NZ$115, not bad considering how many trips out of town we have done. Excluding accommodation, we have spent on average NZ$100 a day including the fuel. Today is the start of a long weekend so we are avoiding the holiday traffic and saving money by hanging out locally (Bougoin-Jallieu is about 40km south-east of Lyon).

Brioche de Bourgoin: a brioche bun in the shape of a crown, decorated with praline and red and white sugar.
Its history: On October 18, 1447, Louis II, Dauphin of France and future Louis XI, visited Bourgoin. The future King Louis XI stayed several times in Bourgoin and in his honour the bakers prepared this brioche.

I'm not sure if he liked it but the crunchy sugar was disgusting as was the coffee and hot chocolate from the local café. My chocolate was made with powdered cocoa and had no frothy milk on top; however it was a vegan cafe so maybe the milk producer was a bean and not a cow. Lunch today is a coarse goose pate, not Foie gras status as it isn’t as buttery and rich. Therefore it is probably made with ordinary goose livers and not from a goose fattened by force feeding. [Ed - you cannot get a decent coffee in France without finding a café run by Kiwis]

We managed a walking geocache visiting sights where Napoleon once stayed. Bourgoin is on the Napoleon Route which is named after the way he travelled in 1815 from Elba, starting his 100 day return which ended in the Battle of Waterloo; he should have stayed at home, like us today. Cache in hand we walked around town noting that there were more shops open and people around at 5.00pm than there were at 10.00am. We spotted these two biggies out for a stroll; the photo doesn’t do their size justice.

Two snails and a Guylian chocolate

Cheese Experience No.8: Ways to get Cheese -

• My intention this morning was to buy some local cheese from the market (1) but we couldn’t find one.
• The lady at the Tourism Office recommended the La Halles Paysanne (2), translates to peasants hall, which is a shop that sells local produce like honey, cheese, oil, cured meats etc nice but I didn’t see what I wanted.
• I didn’t fancy going to the supermarket (3)
• I don’t know where any farms are that sell direct (4)
• so the last option was the Fromagerie (5).
  We wandered past but it is one of the most expensive ways to buy cheese and some pretentious fella carries on like it is caviar and charges accordingly. So our cheese experience today is window shopping until we can find a market tomorrow.

When we are not exhausting our brains trying to decipher complex French geocaches, I preoccupy myself with a puzzle book; however I’m on vacation and should be resting my brain. I saw a sewing shop and decided a cross-stitch would be less taxing and bought one from a lady with very little English. Once home I realised it wasn’t so relaxing as I’m used to counted cross-stitch kits not printed tapestry with no instructions and no cottons. The lady assisted me with one colour cotton to get me started, it’s no Bayeux tapestry but it will be made in France.