An elaborate hot brioche or puff pastry pie filled with layers of sturgeon, salmon, or sometimes chicken, rice, cream and buckwheat or semolina with herbs, hard boiled eggs and mushrooms or soft roes, brains; really any good and delicious ingredient that is available. For authenticity this dish should contain vesiga, the dried spinal columns, containing the marrow of sturgeon.
A small ball of minced (US: ground) meat which differs from a croquette in that a croquette is dipped in egg and breadcrumbs rather than batter or caul fat. They are similar to croquettes in many other respects. French cromesquis are coated in batter. Polish cromesquis are wrapped in a very fine pancake and then dipped in batter. Russian cromesquis are wrapped in caul fat. All are then deep-fried. Originates in Russia.
Elephant garlic or wild leek. A head of garlic having a large single clove and bearing more resemblance to a leek.
A drum of soft, double cream (US: heavy cream), cow's milk cheese from the vicinity of La Bouille in Normandy, with a strong smell and taste. It is a version of Monsieur-Fromage.
Wrasse. Ballan wrasse. A very bony fish which provides good flavour for fish soups. May also refer to the cuckoo wrasse.
La Camargue is an area of salt marshes in the delta of the Rhône at the south western corner of Provence. It is marshy with several shallow lagoons. Flamingoes haunt these lagoons and salt is made in salt pans in the south, while horses, sheep, cattle and bulls for the ring are raised in the north. As more land is reclaimed rice is becoming a major crop and vines are being cultivated. It is also a name for a cheese.
Amethyst deceiver. It may be cooked with other mushrooms in a mixed mushroom stew or served as a garnish to other dishes.
