01 00 16 07
In this flat land of canals -hops, the flavouring ingredient of beer -once grew abundantly.
Now replaced by cattle and wheat preferred by the international market, the local identity hops created is disappearing.
01 00 33 10
In this way unique regional traditions and flavours are destroyed by outside economic pressures.
01 00 40 11
The Chef speaks: “What’s a border? When you are going a few kilometres further away in France you are still in Flanders.
01 00 48 21
Chef Stefaan Couttenye points out how a food heritage is common to regions rather than nations.
01 01 02 23
In this episode we go to southwest Belgium’s Flanders region where the Germanic people from the north of Europe encounter the Latins of the South.
01 01 12 18
The European Union’s concern for hygiene over variety and diverse taste combined with international corporations buying power have closed many breweries.
01 01 22 24
But between St.Bernard’s and another local brewery they still produce 14 beers.
01 01 28 19
At 5AM the chief brewer Claus Guy arrives to load the tun or large copper kettle with barley and water which makes the base liquor of the beer.
01 0137 23
As the kettle fills …
…the Master brewer Burt van Hecke watches the temperature gauge. The slightest rise or fall changes the taste of the beer.
01 01 49 03
Claus said: “my uncle was a monk and chief brewer at a monastery; beer is in my blood” but, he carefully added, “not at this time of day”.
01 02 04 03
With the desired 62 degrees reached, Claus remembered: ‘I worked in a trans-national brewery, sat on my bottom and pressed computer buttons all day…it’s not brewing, it’s manufacturing.’
01 02 19 18
As an earlier batch ferments, sugar changes to alcohol, releasing carbon dioxide.
01 02 26 08
Old fashioned water filters stop air from entering and spoiling the beer.
01 02 38 12
Using gravity rather than motors which alter taste, the liquor moves through filters to strain off the malt. Then hops are added for flavour.
01 02 41 10
Claus said: “This is a job you can only do with a passion. I live beer.”
01 02 46 23
While the morning’s batch is processed, earlier batches are chilled and distributed to vats where they mature for months.
01 02 55 06
Later in the morning the final filtering occurs, watched by Franz Larermete.
01 03 02 20
Although trained as an engineer Claus said: “beer making is not science. It depends on the quality of the raw materials, the water and conditions including the outside temperature.”
He pointed out sadly: ‘because of EU regulations, traditional small brewers are being driven out of business’.
01 03 23 00
In the village of Wattou, the Hommelhof restaurant is devoted to beer based cookery.
01 03 29 15
Using rich dark, wheaty white, fruit or herb flavoured beers, chef Stefaan Couttenye, has revived and invented many dishes. Some use beer as an accent, others for the base of sauces.
01 03 46 13
With local vegetables he prepares a ham hock stew based on his grandmother’s recipe.
01 03 51 23
This preservation of traditions revitalizes their culture.
01 03 56 22
His neighbour and butcher, Christiaan Vermeulen, sources pigs from local farmers. He said: “Because organic reared pigs are raised on open land, it’s too expensive in our small country.”
Stefaan believes the people of Flanders haven’t woken to the illnesses caused by processed foods so as yet there is little demand for natural produce.
01 04 16 21
After separating the shin or hock from the leg, Christiaan uses a special mixture of wood and spices to lightly smoke them for Stefaan.
01 04 26 24
Their continual discussions keep traditions alive.
01 04 23 05
The chef speaks: “I think we are a new generation of cooks who want to make a new way of cooking with traditional products, from regional products”
01 04 49 23
In late spring, Flanders’ white asparagus comes into season.
01 04 54 17
Stefaan trims and snaps rather than cuts them so the woody ends break off.
01 04 59 14
He boils them under a cloth to keep them from rising out of the water.
01 05 03 02
For the sauce Stefaan uses more local herbs and vegetables.
The use of local ingredients implies a food shed…a region which supplies enough varied ingredients all the year. Because the food is sourced from close by, transport pollution decreases, produce is fresher and food identity is maintained.
01 05 24 01
To the boiling beer and shallots, Stefan adds stock and then carefully slices a local Ganda ham for the sauce.
01 05 34 22
Beer is used sparingly because, as he said: “to much and it pushes other flavours away or creates bitterness.”
01 05 52 08
He poaches an egg, adds chives to the sauce thickened with cream and prepares to finish the dish.
01 06 03 15
Stefan’s asparagus is from Marc Deswerte, whose nearby organic farm straddles the boarder between France and Belgium.
01 06 11 20
Using a special fork, the asparagus are cropped near their roots.
01 06 17 08
Plastic sheeting blocks weed growth and pests, holds humidity in, stabilizes temperatures and prevents the sea wind from blowing away the mounds.
01 06 26 13
Using this, Marc does not need expensive agro-chemicals.
01 06 36 11
On asparagus
His 15 tons a year mature between April and June, allowing him to supply 40 nearby restaurants.
01 06 44 14
As it takes three years for a root to begin to yield an edible asparagus, Marc has developed patience.
01 06 55 04
The crop is cleaned, trimmed and sorted on the farm.
As Marc does his own distribution he cuts out wholesalers and supermarkets. This allows him to retain the total sale; this is how he survives.
01 07 30 08
Marc dug up a tree on the Flemish side of his farm and took it across the border to plant outside his French friend’s bar.
01 07 47 11
In this area of France and Flanders you are never far from a military cemetery.
01 07 54 02
Marc, with his love of food and people, wanted to celebrate the unity of the local French and Flemish who, regardless of boarders, share a common culture and an enjoyment of his asparagus.
01 08 10 19
Back at Stefaan’s restaurant, he finishes the asparagus with the egg and raspberry beer sauce, studded with chives and slivers of the Ganda ham.
01 08 23 18
With another beer he finishes the ham hock’s sauce.
01 08 27 24
Steffan said: “I came from a traditional French kitchen. I worked with one and two star chefs so I started a gastronomic restaurant.
01 08 43 24
After a few months I realised it wasn’t working because we have to live from tourism.
01 08 50 23
Tourists don’t go to the star restaurants because it’s too expensive, so I looked for another kind of cuisine.
01 08 59 04
But I didn’t want to be like every tourist restaurant-steak with frites, mussels with frites. I was looking for another dimension.
01 09 10 09
Here I was in a village of 1200 people but there were still two breweries.
01 09 15 09
I said ‘I must start to cook with beer’ so I looked at what we Flemish did before with the cuisine.”
Chef speaks: “I remember my grandmother was making stew with beer, rabbit with beer so I say I must go that way…”
01 09 33 06
Early Wednesday morning in Veurne’s square, beneath the tower of the 13th century St. Walburga Church…
01 09 47 05
…traders set up their stalls or open the panels of their mobile shops to a cornucopia of sausages and grilled fowl, hundreds of cheeses and fresh fish…and to the popular pancakes and waffles made by Eddy and Aynum Coppieters.
01 10 10 16
Their fresh steaming pancakes enfold melting chocolate or vanilla sugar.
01 10 25 14
These farmer’s markets represent the passing seasons as different vegetables and fruits appear in abundance and disappear.
01 10 35 00
Live chickens of many varieties, guinea fowl and ducks await to be sold for roasts or to be used for breeding.
Local markets allow farmers and regional producers to survive without having to succumb to the pressures of supermarket’s purchasing agents.
01 10 56 23
Although three and a half billion people in the world earn their living from food production, their entire output is controlled by 90 purchasing desks.
01 11 11 13
The sun just rising and although June, the chill still rolls in from the North Sea as the first trawlers enter Niewport’s harbor.
01 11 22 00
Because of depletion of fish stocks, every year the boats go further from shore.
01 11 26 18
To survive against the huge factory ships which drag the sea with giant nets, the local captains specialize in premium priced fish.
01 11 38 20
During the long journey back -sometimes over 4 hours- the crew weigh, sort and label the larger fish.
01 11 46 21
The boats unload at this EU financed dock.
01 12 04 21
The smaller fish are sorted by ex-fishermen -tough guys who still need to work, keep their hand in, and who then enjoy a cognac for breakfast as the world wakes up.
01 12 20 07
While the market’s employees weigh the catch to check the boxes against the fishermen’s tally, the captains watch.
01 12 31 22
This morning one of them tracked down a school of large sea bass, which he hopes will bring a good price.
01 12 37 12
Buyers from Paris and Brussels converge, inspect and phone fellow buyers to find out which fish are being landed in other ports and how low they should pitch their offers.
01 12 48 02
This is where corporate buying power, which supermarkets possess, drive the fishermen’s prices down, forcing many out of business while supermarket profits soar.
01 13 03 06
In the computerized auction room -tension as the trading starts.
01 13 08 11
The bidding begins at the top market price and drops until an offer is made.
01 13 20 21
As the price goes down, a buyer must decide when to hit the button: too high and he’s a fool; too low and he’s lost the catch.
01 13 36 18
Bruges emerged in the 13th century as a centre of manufacturing and trade in cloth.
01 13 42 14
In 1520 it’s canal to the sea silted up and its trading privileges were lost. But with its canals and late gothic and renaissance architecture it remains the Venice of the North.
Fish market 01 13 56 03
Its fish market opens as soon as the merchants arrive from the seaports with their purchase of the days catch.
01 14 04 14
Louis Brussels lays out the display.
01 14 09 07
Albert de Vry uses his knife to strips the skin from some fillets and his mechanical machine for others.
01 14 21 11
A fisherman turns up with several kilos of grey shrimp which were boiled as soon as they were landed, turning them pink.
01 14 36 16
Down the street is The Swann hotel and restaurant.
01 14 43 07
Chef Peter de Pauw makes a Papsaus; mashed potatoes blended with buttermilk, nutmeg and butter.
01 14 54 16
This is simple farmer’s food being reintroduced to a public looking for distinctive truthful tastes.
01 15 02 09
As many chefs, Peter finds the heart of the taste and adds a modern twist:
01 15 08 24
…a poached egg,
01 15 10 05
…herbs and grey shrimp.
01 15 34 01
Luk Hessels and his wife Katren run an organic farm which has been in her family for over 100 years.
Luk said the local Belgium Blue cattle have been so over bred, many calves are born by caesarean. Not his though.
01 15 48 01
They also raise organically a rare breed of chicken - the Izegemse Cuckoo, famous for the quality of the meat.
01 16 02 17
Peter, the Swann’s chef prepares a Cuckoo with fresh and preserved morilles mushrooms,
01 16 09 09
fries the chicken in butter…
01 16 14 19
and prepares a sabayon sauce made with Bruges beer and eggs.
01 16 31 12
He said: “my food has its own flavour: I make my own stocks, I use local organic ingredients and rely on regional recipes for inspiration.
01 16 42 07
Dominique and Fabienne Persoone-De Staercke run Chocolate Line, a chocolate confectionary.
01 16 54 22
Although trained as a chef, Dominique discovered a passion, and passion it is, for chocolate.
01 17 02 08
He purchases cocoa beans from different countries depending on the harvest’s quality. Added to this are surprising ingredients: cardamom, salt, wasabi and chili.
01 17 12 12
These valued ingredients can not be cultivated regionally but Cocoa can be sourced through fair trade agreements which guarantee foreign farmers a living wage.
01 17 22 16
He said “The best ingredients make the best chocolates.
If it’s gastronomically balanced, you can do anything.”
01 17 30 05
This machine vibrates the moulds to force air out of the chocolate.
01 17 34 08
“The hardest thing is to keep the chocolate at the right temperature- you have to keep it moving”.
01 17 39 02
He said: “when I started ten years ago with gastronomic chocolate, everyone laughed: ‘he’s crazy’ they said, but now people understand.”
01 17 50 22
“Every culture prefers a certain taste: the British like their chocolate sweet, the French -bitter and the Germans -creamy.”
01 18 00 03
In Bruges there are 200 chocolate shops but only 3 others use traditional methods like Dominique, the rest are factory produced.
01 18 14 04
Before the density of population destroyed the eco-system of the canals, eels carp, trout and snook ran in the water.
01 18 21 20
Either it is true that a clean-up is bringing life back to them or this fisherman is a wishful thinker.
01 18 27 16
At the Syphon restaurant, eels are still a specialty although now they are imported.
On her profile 01 18 36 01
Teresa Callewaert nets a few from the restaurant’s holding tanks.
01 18 48 17
They come to the tanks as tidlers and grow in the controlled water until ready for the pot.
01 18 58 24
In the kitchen the eels are first fried in butter.
01 19 25 18
Later they are either served plain or added to various sauces or soups.
01 19 38 10
The Callewaert family ethos is to preserve the cooking tradition of the Flemish countryside.
01 19 52 18
Across 50 kilometres of rolling farmland is Ghent. Its past wealth is still visible in its canal side trading houses and churches.
01 20 00 14
The city is dotted with street-food vendors. A particular Flemish treat is double fried potatoes with different sauces.
01 20 08 02
Jozef Matthys, the owner, prepares the fresh potatoes. He fries them in beef suet to dry out the moisture.
01 20 21 24
When an order is taken, his assistant Nayhalie Meiresonne cooks them a second time in vegetable oil to crisp them.
01 20 28 10
Salt and any of 16 sauces are added to this seductive but fat rich treat.
01 20 41 03
The centre of Gent has preserved some of its original fabric although the neon shop fronts of international retail outlets are distractingly present.
01 20 50 02
Early morning. The city is still asleep as Pol Rysenaer mixes his artisanal ginevra or gin with fruits and flavourings, creams and coffee to create soft or strong or very powerful combinations, startling in their intensity.
01 21 06 14
As the street sweepers begin and the canals churn with delivery boats, Pol said: “I’d been an architect for 8 years when I was asked to look after this bar. I never left. My work is my hobby, the minute it becomes work I leave.”
01 21 21 16
He recalled: “A hundred years ago each village made its own beer and ginevra. But now we have the EU which has brought problems with its regulations.
01 21 31 23
Our government should protect us as the French have done with their cheeses, but they are not. Soon we’ll all be finished.”
01 21 48 19
The tide is out on the flat sands of the North Sea.
01 21 53 03
Edie D’Ulster and Raymond de Vos prepare to trawl for shrimp, a tradition first recorded in 1502. This lasted until the beginning of the 20th century from Amsterdam through Flanders, down into France and along the English coast.
01 22 13 06
Men who owned horses which were free a part of the day from their other labors used them to fish with. Clean, cheap, ergonomic, they helped to make extra money or food.
01 22 34 00
Edie has been fishing this way for 42 years, ever since he and fell in love with the daughter of a stable owner and encountered the Branabas horses. His father-in-law to be taught him how to fish.
01 22 55 22
He said: “The pleasure is to be with the horse in the water…every time we go out, Raymonde and I say what a beautiful life…”
01 23 09 23
“We used to have four seasons -soles, herring, sprats and shrimp- now we only have shrimp.
01 24 17 23
Eddie said “the shrimp are good with salad or tomatoes with mayonnaise but best of all is just boiled and drunk with a dark beer.
01 24 27 18
Raymonde said: “we Flemish people are not very commercial minded; we need enough to live on and for the rest, we just enjoy life. We’re happy when we have shrimp.”
01 24 43 22
Fishermen forsaking the petrol engine…
01 24 47 18
…farmers growing natural produce forsaking poisonous chemicals…
01 24 52 19
…chefs rediscovering regional foods and reducing food miles , a young brewer nurturing local beers…
01 25 01 24
Responsible people creating a regional food shed, living by neither stealing irreplaceable resources from their children nor leaving them a terminally ill eco system.
Title:
When we (live) ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such a desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.
Wendell Berry in THE GIFT OF GOOD LAND
Wds 2924
In this flat land of canals -hops, the flavouring ingredient of beer -once grew abundantly.
Now replaced by cattle and wheat preferred by the international market, the local identity hops created is disappearing.
01 00 33 10
In this way unique regional traditions and flavours are destroyed by outside economic pressures.
01 00 40 11
The Chef speaks: “What’s a border? When you are going a few kilometres further away in France you are still in Flanders.
01 00 48 21
Chef Stefaan Couttenye points out how a food heritage is common to regions rather than nations.
01 01 02 23
In this episode we go to southwest Belgium’s Flanders region where the Germanic people from the north of Europe encounter the Latins of the South.
01 01 12 18
The European Union’s concern for hygiene over variety and diverse taste combined with international corporations buying power have closed many breweries.
01 01 22 24
But between St.Bernard’s and another local brewery they still produce 14 beers.
01 01 28 19
At 5AM the chief brewer Claus Guy arrives to load the tun or large copper kettle with barley and water which makes the base liquor of the beer.
01 0137 23
As the kettle fills …
…the Master brewer Burt van Hecke watches the temperature gauge. The slightest rise or fall changes the taste of the beer.
01 01 49 03
Claus said: “my uncle was a monk and chief brewer at a monastery; beer is in my blood” but, he carefully added, “not at this time of day”.
01 02 04 03
With the desired 62 degrees reached, Claus remembered: ‘I worked in a trans-national brewery, sat on my bottom and pressed computer buttons all day…it’s not brewing, it’s manufacturing.’
01 02 19 18
As an earlier batch ferments, sugar changes to alcohol, releasing carbon dioxide.
01 02 26 08
Old fashioned water filters stop air from entering and spoiling the beer.
01 02 38 12
Using gravity rather than motors which alter taste, the liquor moves through filters to strain off the malt. Then hops are added for flavour.
01 02 41 10
Claus said: “This is a job you can only do with a passion. I live beer.”
01 02 46 23
While the morning’s batch is processed, earlier batches are chilled and distributed to vats where they mature for months.
01 02 55 06
Later in the morning the final filtering occurs, watched by Franz Larermete.
01 03 02 20
Although trained as an engineer Claus said: “beer making is not science. It depends on the quality of the raw materials, the water and conditions including the outside temperature.”
He pointed out sadly: ‘because of EU regulations, traditional small brewers are being driven out of business’.
01 03 23 00
In the village of Wattou, the Hommelhof restaurant is devoted to beer based cookery.
01 03 29 15
Using rich dark, wheaty white, fruit or herb flavoured beers, chef Stefaan Couttenye, has revived and invented many dishes. Some use beer as an accent, others for the base of sauces.
01 03 46 13
With local vegetables he prepares a ham hock stew based on his grandmother’s recipe.
01 03 51 23
This preservation of traditions revitalizes their culture.
01 03 56 22
His neighbour and butcher, Christiaan Vermeulen, sources pigs from local farmers. He said: “Because organic reared pigs are raised on open land, it’s too expensive in our small country.”
Stefaan believes the people of Flanders haven’t woken to the illnesses caused by processed foods so as yet there is little demand for natural produce.
01 04 16 21
After separating the shin or hock from the leg, Christiaan uses a special mixture of wood and spices to lightly smoke them for Stefaan.
01 04 26 24
Their continual discussions keep traditions alive.
01 04 23 05
The chef speaks: “I think we are a new generation of cooks who want to make a new way of cooking with traditional products, from regional products”
01 04 49 23
In late spring, Flanders’ white asparagus comes into season.
01 04 54 17
Stefaan trims and snaps rather than cuts them so the woody ends break off.
01 04 59 14
He boils them under a cloth to keep them from rising out of the water.
01 05 03 02
For the sauce Stefaan uses more local herbs and vegetables.
The use of local ingredients implies a food shed…a region which supplies enough varied ingredients all the year. Because the food is sourced from close by, transport pollution decreases, produce is fresher and food identity is maintained.
01 05 24 01
To the boiling beer and shallots, Stefan adds stock and then carefully slices a local Ganda ham for the sauce.
01 05 34 22
Beer is used sparingly because, as he said: “to much and it pushes other flavours away or creates bitterness.”
01 05 52 08
He poaches an egg, adds chives to the sauce thickened with cream and prepares to finish the dish.
01 06 03 15
Stefan’s asparagus is from Marc Deswerte, whose nearby organic farm straddles the boarder between France and Belgium.
01 06 11 20
Using a special fork, the asparagus are cropped near their roots.
01 06 17 08
Plastic sheeting blocks weed growth and pests, holds humidity in, stabilizes temperatures and prevents the sea wind from blowing away the mounds.
01 06 26 13
Using this, Marc does not need expensive agro-chemicals.
01 06 36 11
On asparagus
His 15 tons a year mature between April and June, allowing him to supply 40 nearby restaurants.
01 06 44 14
As it takes three years for a root to begin to yield an edible asparagus, Marc has developed patience.
01 06 55 04
The crop is cleaned, trimmed and sorted on the farm.
As Marc does his own distribution he cuts out wholesalers and supermarkets. This allows him to retain the total sale; this is how he survives.
01 07 30 08
Marc dug up a tree on the Flemish side of his farm and took it across the border to plant outside his French friend’s bar.
01 07 47 11
In this area of France and Flanders you are never far from a military cemetery.
01 07 54 02
Marc, with his love of food and people, wanted to celebrate the unity of the local French and Flemish who, regardless of boarders, share a common culture and an enjoyment of his asparagus.
01 08 10 19
Back at Stefaan’s restaurant, he finishes the asparagus with the egg and raspberry beer sauce, studded with chives and slivers of the Ganda ham.
01 08 23 18
With another beer he finishes the ham hock’s sauce.
01 08 27 24
Steffan said: “I came from a traditional French kitchen. I worked with one and two star chefs so I started a gastronomic restaurant.
01 08 43 24
After a few months I realised it wasn’t working because we have to live from tourism.
01 08 50 23
Tourists don’t go to the star restaurants because it’s too expensive, so I looked for another kind of cuisine.
01 08 59 04
But I didn’t want to be like every tourist restaurant-steak with frites, mussels with frites. I was looking for another dimension.
01 09 10 09
Here I was in a village of 1200 people but there were still two breweries.
01 09 15 09
I said ‘I must start to cook with beer’ so I looked at what we Flemish did before with the cuisine.”
Chef speaks: “I remember my grandmother was making stew with beer, rabbit with beer so I say I must go that way…”
01 09 33 06
Early Wednesday morning in Veurne’s square, beneath the tower of the 13th century St. Walburga Church…
01 09 47 05
…traders set up their stalls or open the panels of their mobile shops to a cornucopia of sausages and grilled fowl, hundreds of cheeses and fresh fish…and to the popular pancakes and waffles made by Eddy and Aynum Coppieters.
01 10 10 16
Their fresh steaming pancakes enfold melting chocolate or vanilla sugar.
01 10 25 14
These farmer’s markets represent the passing seasons as different vegetables and fruits appear in abundance and disappear.
01 10 35 00
Live chickens of many varieties, guinea fowl and ducks await to be sold for roasts or to be used for breeding.
Local markets allow farmers and regional producers to survive without having to succumb to the pressures of supermarket’s purchasing agents.
01 10 56 23
Although three and a half billion people in the world earn their living from food production, their entire output is controlled by 90 purchasing desks.
01 11 11 13
The sun just rising and although June, the chill still rolls in from the North Sea as the first trawlers enter Niewport’s harbor.
01 11 22 00
Because of depletion of fish stocks, every year the boats go further from shore.
01 11 26 18
To survive against the huge factory ships which drag the sea with giant nets, the local captains specialize in premium priced fish.
01 11 38 20
During the long journey back -sometimes over 4 hours- the crew weigh, sort and label the larger fish.
01 11 46 21
The boats unload at this EU financed dock.
01 12 04 21
The smaller fish are sorted by ex-fishermen -tough guys who still need to work, keep their hand in, and who then enjoy a cognac for breakfast as the world wakes up.
01 12 20 07
While the market’s employees weigh the catch to check the boxes against the fishermen’s tally, the captains watch.
01 12 31 22
This morning one of them tracked down a school of large sea bass, which he hopes will bring a good price.
01 12 37 12
Buyers from Paris and Brussels converge, inspect and phone fellow buyers to find out which fish are being landed in other ports and how low they should pitch their offers.
01 12 48 02
This is where corporate buying power, which supermarkets possess, drive the fishermen’s prices down, forcing many out of business while supermarket profits soar.
01 13 03 06
In the computerized auction room -tension as the trading starts.
01 13 08 11
The bidding begins at the top market price and drops until an offer is made.
01 13 20 21
As the price goes down, a buyer must decide when to hit the button: too high and he’s a fool; too low and he’s lost the catch.
01 13 36 18
Bruges emerged in the 13th century as a centre of manufacturing and trade in cloth.
01 13 42 14
In 1520 it’s canal to the sea silted up and its trading privileges were lost. But with its canals and late gothic and renaissance architecture it remains the Venice of the North.
Fish market 01 13 56 03
Its fish market opens as soon as the merchants arrive from the seaports with their purchase of the days catch.
01 14 04 14
Louis Brussels lays out the display.
01 14 09 07
Albert de Vry uses his knife to strips the skin from some fillets and his mechanical machine for others.
01 14 21 11
A fisherman turns up with several kilos of grey shrimp which were boiled as soon as they were landed, turning them pink.
01 14 36 16
Down the street is The Swann hotel and restaurant.
01 14 43 07
Chef Peter de Pauw makes a Papsaus; mashed potatoes blended with buttermilk, nutmeg and butter.
01 14 54 16
This is simple farmer’s food being reintroduced to a public looking for distinctive truthful tastes.
01 15 02 09
As many chefs, Peter finds the heart of the taste and adds a modern twist:
01 15 08 24
…a poached egg,
01 15 10 05
…herbs and grey shrimp.
01 15 34 01
Luk Hessels and his wife Katren run an organic farm which has been in her family for over 100 years.
Luk said the local Belgium Blue cattle have been so over bred, many calves are born by caesarean. Not his though.
01 15 48 01
They also raise organically a rare breed of chicken - the Izegemse Cuckoo, famous for the quality of the meat.
01 16 02 17
Peter, the Swann’s chef prepares a Cuckoo with fresh and preserved morilles mushrooms,
01 16 09 09
fries the chicken in butter…
01 16 14 19
and prepares a sabayon sauce made with Bruges beer and eggs.
01 16 31 12
He said: “my food has its own flavour: I make my own stocks, I use local organic ingredients and rely on regional recipes for inspiration.
01 16 42 07
Dominique and Fabienne Persoone-De Staercke run Chocolate Line, a chocolate confectionary.
01 16 54 22
Although trained as a chef, Dominique discovered a passion, and passion it is, for chocolate.
01 17 02 08
He purchases cocoa beans from different countries depending on the harvest’s quality. Added to this are surprising ingredients: cardamom, salt, wasabi and chili.
01 17 12 12
These valued ingredients can not be cultivated regionally but Cocoa can be sourced through fair trade agreements which guarantee foreign farmers a living wage.
01 17 22 16
He said “The best ingredients make the best chocolates.
If it’s gastronomically balanced, you can do anything.”
01 17 30 05
This machine vibrates the moulds to force air out of the chocolate.
01 17 34 08
“The hardest thing is to keep the chocolate at the right temperature- you have to keep it moving”.
01 17 39 02
He said: “when I started ten years ago with gastronomic chocolate, everyone laughed: ‘he’s crazy’ they said, but now people understand.”
01 17 50 22
“Every culture prefers a certain taste: the British like their chocolate sweet, the French -bitter and the Germans -creamy.”
01 18 00 03
In Bruges there are 200 chocolate shops but only 3 others use traditional methods like Dominique, the rest are factory produced.
01 18 14 04
Before the density of population destroyed the eco-system of the canals, eels carp, trout and snook ran in the water.
01 18 21 20
Either it is true that a clean-up is bringing life back to them or this fisherman is a wishful thinker.
01 18 27 16
At the Syphon restaurant, eels are still a specialty although now they are imported.
On her profile 01 18 36 01
Teresa Callewaert nets a few from the restaurant’s holding tanks.
01 18 48 17
They come to the tanks as tidlers and grow in the controlled water until ready for the pot.
01 18 58 24
In the kitchen the eels are first fried in butter.
01 19 25 18
Later they are either served plain or added to various sauces or soups.
01 19 38 10
The Callewaert family ethos is to preserve the cooking tradition of the Flemish countryside.
01 19 52 18
Across 50 kilometres of rolling farmland is Ghent. Its past wealth is still visible in its canal side trading houses and churches.
01 20 00 14
The city is dotted with street-food vendors. A particular Flemish treat is double fried potatoes with different sauces.
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Jozef Matthys, the owner, prepares the fresh potatoes. He fries them in beef suet to dry out the moisture.
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When an order is taken, his assistant Nayhalie Meiresonne cooks them a second time in vegetable oil to crisp them.
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Salt and any of 16 sauces are added to this seductive but fat rich treat.
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The centre of Gent has preserved some of its original fabric although the neon shop fronts of international retail outlets are distractingly present.
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Early morning. The city is still asleep as Pol Rysenaer mixes his artisanal ginevra or gin with fruits and flavourings, creams and coffee to create soft or strong or very powerful combinations, startling in their intensity.
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As the street sweepers begin and the canals churn with delivery boats, Pol said: “I’d been an architect for 8 years when I was asked to look after this bar. I never left. My work is my hobby, the minute it becomes work I leave.”
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He recalled: “A hundred years ago each village made its own beer and ginevra. But now we have the EU which has brought problems with its regulations.
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Our government should protect us as the French have done with their cheeses, but they are not. Soon we’ll all be finished.”
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The tide is out on the flat sands of the North Sea.
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Edie D’Ulster and Raymond de Vos prepare to trawl for shrimp, a tradition first recorded in 1502. This lasted until the beginning of the 20th century from Amsterdam through Flanders, down into France and along the English coast.
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Men who owned horses which were free a part of the day from their other labors used them to fish with. Clean, cheap, ergonomic, they helped to make extra money or food.
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Edie has been fishing this way for 42 years, ever since he and fell in love with the daughter of a stable owner and encountered the Branabas horses. His father-in-law to be taught him how to fish.
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He said: “The pleasure is to be with the horse in the water…every time we go out, Raymonde and I say what a beautiful life…”
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“We used to have four seasons -soles, herring, sprats and shrimp- now we only have shrimp.
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Eddie said “the shrimp are good with salad or tomatoes with mayonnaise but best of all is just boiled and drunk with a dark beer.
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Raymonde said: “we Flemish people are not very commercial minded; we need enough to live on and for the rest, we just enjoy life. We’re happy when we have shrimp.”
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Fishermen forsaking the petrol engine…
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…farmers growing natural produce forsaking poisonous chemicals…
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…chefs rediscovering regional foods and reducing food miles , a young brewer nurturing local beers…
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Responsible people creating a regional food shed, living by neither stealing irreplaceable resources from their children nor leaving them a terminally ill eco system.
Title:
When we (live) ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such a desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.
Wendell Berry in THE GIFT OF GOOD LAND
Wds 2924