Four thousand years ago, workers on the banks of the Nile were force-feeding geese — and it's carved in stone to prove it. This episode traces foie gras from that Egyptian tomb carving through ancient Rome, where the practice gave half of Europe's languages their word for "liver," through medieval Jewish communities who kept the tradition alive for centuries, and finally to the court of Louis XVI, where it became a fixture of French royal dining.

We cover how foie gras is legally defined in France, the real difference between foie gras entier, block, mousse, and parfait, and why that difference matters enormously for quality and price. We also give the controversy the honest, even-handed treatment it deserves — what gavage actually involves, what welfare science says about it, the industry's response, and where the legal landscape stands right now, from France's protected-heritage law to bans in California, Israel, and, as of 2026, New York City.

Then we get practical: how foie gras is actually produced from hatching to slaughter, the difference between duck and goose foie gras, how to cook it hot and cold, what to pair it with, and exactly how to store each form so you don't ruin an expensive piece of liver. This is a genuinely complicated episode — extraordinary history, real controversy, and remarkable food, all true at the same time.

Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history, and the stories behind the plates. New episodes explore the ingredients, chefs, and controversies that built French gastronomy — subscribe so you don't miss the next one, and follow along on video, Substack, and social for more.

Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history, and the stories behind the plates. New episodes explore the regions, chefs, and dishes that built French gastronomy — subscribe so you don't miss the next one, and follow along on video and social for more.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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#FoieGras #FrenchFood #FrenchCuisine #FoodHistory #FoodPodcast

Reblochon: The Cheese Born From Tax Evasion. Reblochon is a soft, washed-rind cheese from the French Alps with a nutty, hazelnut character and a bark bolder than its bite — but its real story starts with a medieval tax dodge. In the fourteenth century, farmers in the Thônes valley deliberately under-milked their cows when the landlord's rent collector came to measure the yield, then finished milking in secret once he'd left. That richer, hidden "second milking" — reblocher in the local dialect — became the cheese we know today.

This episode traces Reblochon from that act of quiet rebellion through its life as fromage de dévotion, given to Carthusian monks in exchange for blessings, to its 1958 AOC and the ongoing fight to protect it — including a 2023 acquisition by France's largest dairy group that has smaller producers watching closely. We break down the two legally protected types, fermier and laitier, why the green dot matters, and why the American market has been almost entirely cut off from real Reblochon since 2004.

We also get into the practical side: the three alpine cow breeds behind it, why the summer alpage cheese is considered the finest expression of the style, and how to serve, store, and eat it properly — including why cold Reblochon is a shadow of what it should be. And yes, we talk tartiflette, including the inconvenient truth about when it was actually invented.

Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history, and the stories behind the plates. New episodes explore the cheeses, chefs, and regions that built French gastronomy — subscribe so you don't miss the next one, and follow along on video and social for more.

Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history, and the stories behind the plates. New episodes explore the regions, chefs, and dishes that built French gastronomy — subscribe so you don't miss the next one, and follow along on video and social for more.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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He held three Michelin stars for thirty years and cooked for kings, presidents, and Hemingway — yet almost nobody outside serious culinary history has heard his name. This episode tells the story of Alexandre Dumaine, the chef whose restaurant, La Côte d'Or in the small Burgundian town of Saulieu, was once called a national shrine of French gastronomy.

We trace his path from a working-class boyhood in Digoin, through a punishing apprenticeship in Vichy, Cannes, and Paris, and a decorated stint on the Western Front in the First World War, to the decade in Algeria that shaped the chef he would become. Along the way we meet his wife, Jeanne Dumaine, the front-of-house partner without whom, by every account, the story doesn't work the same way.

At the heart of the episode is Saulieu itself: thirty years of three Michelin stars, a "less is more" philosophy built on reduced sauces and the finest Bresse chicken, and a clientele that ran from King Alfonso XIII to Salvador Dalí to a lone truck driver treated with exactly the same care. We close with one of the most generous successions in French culinary history, and the legacy Dumaine left behind at Saulieu.

Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history, and the stories behind the plates. New episodes explore the regions, chefs, and dishes that built French gastronomy — subscribe so you don't miss the next one, and follow along on video and social for more.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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#FrenchFoodPodcast #FabulouslyDelicious #foodpodcast #FrenchFood #FrenchCuisine #CulinaryHistory #MichelinStar #alexanderdumaine #CotedOrSaulieu

Le repas marcaire — the extraordinary farmhouse meal of the Alsatian Vosges that has been served in the stone mountain shelters of the high chaumes since the Middle Ages — is one of the most authentic, most specific and most completely of its landscape dining experiences in the whole of France. Today's Food Tour de France episode finishes at Le Markstein — at 1,240 metres on the Alsatian crest of the Vosges mountains, one of the great cols of the Route des Crêtes — and tells the full story of a meal born from the life of the marcaires, the mountain dairy farmers who spend their summers on the high pastures tending herds of vaches vosgiennes and transforming their milk into Munster cheese. Smoked pork from the farm's own pig. Potatoes cooked for two hours in farm butter with lardons and onions in a copper cauldron — the roïgabrageldi on the Alsatian side, the tofailles on the Lorraine side. Munster fermier from the farm's own herd. Fresh white cheese from the morning's milk with kirsch and sugar. Everything from the farm. Nothing from outside. A meal that is, in the truest possible sense, what it claims to be.

The episode covers the full story of the repas marcaire — the marcaire tradition of the Vosges that was recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2023, the annual transhumance that sees the vaches vosgiennes climb the mountain paths decorated with flowers and bells every spring, the stone marcairies where the marcaires lived in complete isolation through the summer months making cheese, and the ferme-auberge system that requires every dish served to visitors to be produced by the farm itself. We cover the specific dishes of the repas marcaire — the tourte de la vallée pastry case of minced meat from the Munster valley, the roïgabrageldi potatoes cooked in a copper cauldron for two hours, the Munster fermier aged on site, the Bargkass mountain cheese and the seasonal tarte aux myrtilles — and the specific honesty of a meal where the animals whose milk made the cheese are visible from the dining room window.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The repas marcaire episode connects directly to the beignets de pomme de terre episode finishing at the Plateau de Solaison — both are mountain meals built from the same fundamental logic of altitude, isolation and making the most of what the farm produces — and to the Munster cheese tradition that runs through the food culture of the Alsatian Vosges. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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#FrenchFoodPodcast #FabulouslyDelicious #foodpodcast #RepasMarcaire #AlsaceFood #FoodTourDeFrance #TourDeFrance2026 #VosgesMountains

Carpe frite — the deep-fried carp of the Sundgau, the southernmost territory of Alsace — is one of the most distinctive and most localised food traditions in the whole of eastern France. Today's Food Tour de France episode starts in Mulhouse — the great industrial city of the Haut-Rhin, 24 kilometres from the Sundgau — and tells the full story of a dish that has been made in the fish pond country of the southern Alsatian plain since the twelfth century, when the monks of the Abbey of Lucelle first introduced fish farming to the region. A fresh carp, raised in the clear Sundgau ponds, briefly marinated in white wine, passed through a light breadcrumb coating and deep-fried in hot oil until the exterior is deeply golden and crackling and the interior is white, flaking and completely tender. Served with salad, chips, lemon and mayonnaise. Eaten with the fingers. The dish most people in France outside the Sundgau have never heard of — and the one that 30 Sundgau restaurateurs have been defending and celebrating through the Routes de la Carpe Frite since 1975.

The episode covers the full story of the carpe frite — the legend of the shepherdess who cooked her mysterious Golden Fish for the Count of Ferrette and won permission to marry his son, the twelve-century monastic fish farming tradition of the Abbey of Lucelle, the specific conditions of the Sundgau ponds whose clear water gives the carp a delicacy entirely unlike its reputation, and the Routes de la Carpe Frite established in 1975 and awarded Remarkable Site of Taste status by the French National Council of Culinary Arts. We cover the Sunday lunch tradition that fills the restaurants of the Sundgau every week with families from across the Swiss and German borders, the village of Friesen — considered the capital of the carpe frite, 24 kilometres from Mulhouse — and the annual Carpailles that celebrate the dish with the same festive spirit it has always generated. And in 2025 the association celebrated its fiftieth anniversary — making this year the golden jubilee of one of the great food routes in Alsace.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The carpe frite episode connects to the pôchouse episode from Chalon-sur-Saône earlier in the series — both are ancient freshwater fish dishes specific to a particular landscape and a particular water, both are the food of a community that has been eating the same thing from the same source for centuries. And both reward the curious eater who takes the time to find them. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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#FrenchFoodPodcast #FabulouslyDelicious #foodpodcast #CarpeFrite #SundgauFood #FoodTourDeFrance #TourDeFrance2026 #AlsaceFood

Le jeanbonhomme — the small, golden, man-shaped brioche of the Territoire de Belfort that appears in every bakery in the city from Saint Nicolas Day on the 6th of December through to Christmas — is one of the most historically specific and most emotionally resonant seasonal foods in the whole of eastern France. Today's Food Tour de France episode finishes in Belfort — the Lion city, the gateway between Alsace and Franche-Comté, the city whose garrison held out for 103 days against the Prussian siege in 1870 and 1871 — and tells the full story of a brioche that arrived in this territory not through culinary invention but through displacement. When the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871 and France was forced to cede Alsace to the newly unified German Empire, tens of thousands of Alsatians chose to cross the border rather than become German subjects. Many came to the Territoire de Belfort. And they brought with them their food traditions — including a small man-shaped enriched bread that in Alsace was called the Mannele or the Mannala, and that in the Territoire de Belfort became the jeanbonhomme. A bread that carries the memory of a war, a displacement and a community that chose France.

The episode covers the full story of the jeanbonhomme — the Alsatian origins of the Mannele tradition, the specific historical moment of 1871 that brought it to Belfort, the recipe of enriched bread dough baked until deeply golden and glazed with egg, and the Saint Nicolas tradition that gives the jeanbonhomme its seasonal context. We cover the broader food culture of the Territoire de Belfort — the toutché potato cake, the cuniu brioche with dried fruit from the canton of Giromagny, both also of Alsatian origin — and the Lion of Belfort itself, carved by Frédéric Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, to commemorate the resistance of 1870. And we place the jeanbonhomme in the context of the French tradition of man-shaped seasonal breads — from the Mannele of Alsace to the Saint Nicolas breads of Lorraine — that mark the beginning of the Christmas season in the northeast of France in a way that distinguishes this corner of the country from everywhere else.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The jeanbonhomme episode is one of the most historically layered in the entire series — a seasonal bread that is a direct, edible consequence of a nineteenth century war and a community's decision to remain French. It connects to the broader picture of Alsatian food culture this part of the series has been building through the Belfort and Mulhouse stages. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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Le Week-end Gourmand du Chat Perché — the extraordinary annual food festival that transforms the entire historic centre of Dole into a vast gourmet village every September — is one of the most celebrated and most distinctive food events in the whole of Bourgogne Franche-Comté. Today's Food Tour de France episode starts in Dole — the former capital of the Franche-Comté, a city of Renaissance architecture, canals and the birthplace of Louis Pasteur — and tells the full story of a festival named after the most beloved creation of the writer Marcel Aymé, who grew up in this city and whose perching cat has given Dole its identity as a city that takes imagination as seriously as gastronomy. Running every year in late September since 2014, drawing over 60,000 visitors across a single weekend, the Chat Perché brings together around 150 local producers and food artisans across fifteen temporary villages installed in the stone-paved streets and Renaissance squares of the old town — with tasting passes, bell tower experiences, Michelin-starred menus and a children's food trail all running simultaneously.

The episode covers the full story of the Chat Perché festival — the structure of the tasting pass that takes visitors through historic buildings including the Hôtel-Dieu and the cloître de la Visitation, the special menus du Chat Perché served by every restaurant in the city from Michelin-starred kitchens to small neighbourhood bistros, and the food culture of Dole and the Jura that the festival celebrates. Comté from the Jura — whose different terroirs, maturations and producers all appear at the festival. Cancoillotte — the semi-liquid unpasteurised cheese of Franche-Comté, two thousand years old and now IGP protected. Morteau and Montbéliard sausages. Morel mushrooms from the Jura forests. Vin jaune — the extraordinary yellow wine aged under a film of yeast for a minimum of six years and three months — and the full range of Jura whites and reds that make this one of the most distinctive wine regions in France.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The Chat Perché episode connects to the Comté and French cheese episodes in the main Fabulously Delicious catalogue — and to the pôchouse episode from Chalon-sur-Saône earlier in the series, as both sit in the same broad Burgundy and Franche-Comté food culture that defines this stretch of the Tour route. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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La pôchouse — the ancient freshwater fish stew of Burgundy and Franche-Comté, made from a specific combination of Saône and Doubs river fish cooked in Burgundy aligoté white wine — is one of the most distinctive and most overlooked dishes in the whole of French regional cooking. Today's Food Tour de France episode finishes in Chalon-sur-Saône — a river city in the Saône-et-Loire, one of the great stretches of Burgundian France — and tells the full story of a dish first documented in writing in 1646, born on the boats and riverbanks of Verdun-sur-le-Doubs where the Saône meets the Doubs, made by the boatmen and fishermen who cooked it in a pot from the morning's catch with the white wine available to them on the Burgundian riverbanks. Celebrated by its own brotherhood since 1949. Still served in the restaurants that line the Saône today. And still made from the same four-fish combination that the pôchoux — the fishermen of the Bresse patois — established on these rivers four centuries ago.

The episode covers the full story of la pôchouse — the four-fish combination of lean pike and perch alongside fatty eel and tench that gives the dish its specific character, the aligoté white wine that is both the cooking medium and the drink alongside it, the lardons and croutons that complete the preparation, and the Confrérie des Chevaliers de la Pôchouse de Verdun-sur-le-Doubs founded in 1949 that has been defending and celebrating this dish for over seventy years. We cover the annual festival at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs — the Fête de la Pôchouse, where local restaurants serve it according to ancestral rules, the Confrérie Saint-Nicolas des Radeliers builds a raft on the Petit Doubs, and the dish is eaten without accompaniment as tradition demands. And we connect the pôchouse to the broader family of French river fish stews — including the lamprey à la bordelaise we covered earlier in the series.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The pôchouse episode connects directly to the lamprey à la bordelaise episode from the Bordeaux stage earlier in the series — both are ancient river fish preparations cooked in wine, both are the food of the boatmen and fishermen of great French waterways, and both tell the story of France's rivers through what they have been feeding their people for centuries. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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Nougatine de Nevers — the small artisan sweet of chopped almonds caramelised in copper, double-coated in orange royal icing and presented in a round tin decorated with portraits of Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie — is one of the most historically romantic confections in France. Today's Food Tour de France episode starts in Magny-Cours — home of the famous Formula One circuit, just south of Nevers — and tells the full story of a sweet created by a confectioner called Bourumeau in the mid-nineteenth century and launched into French high society at a dinner at the Préfecture of Nevers in 1862, when Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie paid an official visit to the city. The Empress was presented with a box. She ate one. Then another. Then several more. And by the time she returned to Paris she was placing orders. Within weeks the nougatine de Nevers was being eaten in the grand salons of the capital. The orange colour of the royal icing — as tradition has it — was chosen to match the complexion of the Empress herself.

The episode covers the full story of the nougatine de Nevers — from the disputed date of its creation, somewhere between 1840 and 1862 depending on the source, through the extraordinary imperial dinner that launched it into the French consciousness, to the registered trademark it has held since 1960 and the near-disappearance in the twentieth century that was only reversed by a Nevers native called Jean-Hugues Dessenne, who in 2007 decided that something this historically significant to his city was worth rescuing and relaunching. We cover the production process — the almonds caramelised in a copper basin, the cylinders that shape the nougaton, the patient double-coating in royal icing dried slowly in a warming oven that cannot be done by machine — and the connection to the faïence pottery of Nevers, where the nougatine is now sold in hand-crafted ceramic bonbonnières in the famous cobalt blue of the city, exported to the United States and Japan.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The nougatine de Nevers episode follows directly from yesterday's négus episode — Nevers has given this series two consecutive episodes and two of the most entertaining confectionery origin stories in the whole of the southwest. A press error and an empress who couldn't stop eating. Two sweets. One remarkable city on the Loire. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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Le Négus de Nevers: The Sweet Born From a Press Error in 1902 | Food Tour de France

Le Négus de Nevers — the soft chocolate-scented caramel enclosed in a hard caramel shell that has been made in Nevers since 1902 — is one of the most charming and most improbable origin stories in the whole of French confectionery. Today's Food Tour de France episode finishes in Nevers — the capital of the Nièvre department, a handsome city on the Loire — and tells the full story of a sweet born from a press error. In July 1902 a celebrated Ethiopian military leader called Ras Mekonnen visited France. The French press covered the visit enthusiastically — and some of those journalists, in their excitement, got the title wrong. They called him the negus — the title of the sovereign of Ethiopia, held at the time by Menelik II, who was Mekonnen's cousin and who never came to France at all. A confectionery in Nevers called Maison Grelier read the papers, created a sweet in honour of the visit and named it after the mistaken title. The négus. And the sweet has been made in Nevers under that name for over a hundred and twenty years.

The episode covers the full story of the négus — from the Maison Grelier tradition of creating a new sweet named after a significant event each year, through the commercial success that caused the confectionery to rename itself Au Négus, to the four generations of the Hiriart family who ran it from 1909 until 2013 when it was sold to the Ménard chocolate company. We cover what the négus actually is — a soft chocolate-scented caramel inside a shell of hard caramel, presented in a round iron tin with golden writing on a green background — and its coffee-scented alter ego the Abyssin, named for Abyssinia, the historical name for Ethiopia, which gives the whole naming structure of the Maison Au Négus range a gentle century-old nod to the East African connection that inspired the original creation. And we sit the négus alongside the great tradition of French regional confections — the bouchon bordelais, the Vichy pastille, the nougatine de Nevers — that are specific to a place and synonymous with it.

The Food Tour de France is a daily series running alongside the 2026 Tour de France on Fabulously Delicious — one episode for every stage start and finish. The négus episode connects directly to tomorrow's nougatine de Nevers episode — Nevers gets two consecutive episodes in this series, making it the most confectionery-rich city in the entire Food Tour de France. Two sweets. Two extraordinary stories. One city on the Loire. Search Fabulously Delicious on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the full series.

As Fabulously Delicious steps into its sixth year, one thing is clearer than ever: five years of French food culture has taught Andrew that the subject is genuinely inexhaustible.

My book Paris: A Fabulous Food Guide to the World’s Most Delicious City is your ultimate companion. This is a new 2026 update for the book and you’ll find hand-picked recommendations for the best boulangeries, patisseries, wine bars, cafés, and restaurants that truly capture the flavor of Paris. You can order it online at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andrewpriorfabulously.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

You can help keep the show thriving by becoming a paid subscriber on substack where you'll also get fabulous extra content. Every contribution makes a huge difference. Join here at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Merci beaucoup!

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