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** Article "le nouveau
quotidien" ( journal suisse ) de P. HUBERT
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LA FEVE SACREE DANS TOUS SES ETATS
II y a des noms de lieux qui par leur seul énoncé incitent à des voyages pour lesquels aucun titre de transport n'est requis. Zanzibar, Sumatra ou Madagascar fleurent bon les épices poivrées, le tabac et la vanille, Valparaiso la houille et le goudron, Aberdeen des embruns chargés d'effluves de tourbe et de bruyères. Plus près de chez nous, entourée du vignoble franc-comtois, la petite bourgade d'Arbois évoque le fameux vin jaune au goût âcre et pourtant tellement subtil. Mais la renommée d'Arbois ne se limite pas à ses vins; c'est également un haut lieu de la gastronomie comptant quelques tables célèbres, dont Le Paris de Jean-Paul Jeunet. Et, dernièrement, un jeune chocolatier-confiseur a été admis à jouer dans la cour des grands. Issu d'une famille d'origine alsacienne, Edouard Hirsinger se prépare à fêter dans deux ans le centenaire de la maison. Ce talent hors pair s'est vu récompensé l'an dernier par le titre de Meilleur ouvrier de France. Dans son cas, il serait plus juste de parler de sacre, tant ses spécialités atteignent la perfection. Mais les lauriers et les distinctions ne sont pas chose nouvelle pour cette famille qui remportait déjà en 1902 le Grand Prix culinaire de Paris pour aboutir au Grand Prix du festival international du chocolat en 1995. Parmi ses produits, très peu de chocolats au lait, cela va de soi, mais une trentaine de ganaches noires confectionnées avec la crème de la coopérative laitière du coin et une sélection des cacaos les plus aromatiques et raffinés de la planète, les Criollos et les Trinitarios.
Hirsinger travaille ses chocolats comme les grands couturiers leurs collections,
avec le souci du détail et de 1'innovation perpétuelle.
Goûter ses ganaches aux parfums étonnants, c'est faire le
tour du monde : pur caraibe, poivre vert, thé, réglisse, cannelle,
fruit de la passion, pain d'épice, café... Mais son sens de
l'innovation ne s'arrête pas là, il marie avec une main de
maître la nougatine au sésame, la pâte d'amandes à
la gentiane confite. Ses pâtisseries et entremets sont tout aussi divins. Sa feuillantine à la mousse de chocolat amer et aux raisins de Corinthe macérés dans du vieux marc continue à embaumer le palais des heures après sa dégustation. Mais il n'y a pas que les amateurs de grands chocolats qui combleront leur fringale de perfection chez Hirsinger. Chacun y trouvera de quoi satisfaire ses penchants épicuriens: des confitures aux parfums de caramel ou de mûres sauvages, un fameux pâté en croûte créé en 1906, sans oublier ses marrons glacés de la Garde Freinet dans le Var, considérés comme les meilleurs. Si
le bonheur chez Hirsinger se trouve dans le ballotin, il a avantage d'être
plein car arriver au fond de la boîte équivaut à
un sentiment de frustration frisant le désespoir et fait comprendre
pleinement le sens des mots "être en manque". EDOUARD HIRSINGER,
Place de la Liberté, F-39600 Arbois |
** Article
"TIMES -COOK" by Frances BISSEL
The Times Cook
Photograph by Roger Stowell I was sent recently a chocolate Easter object to try. It arrived bashed to smithereens and the chocolate did not taste very good. Somewhat cloying and sweet. But not wanting to waste it, I melted it down and used it for cooking. The results were disappointing, again proving to me that, like wine, one should not cook with something one would not happily eat or drink. Chocolate and wine are linked surprisingly often. Terminology in chocolate tasting often echoes that of wine: fruity flavours and long aftertaste, for example. Individual varieties of bean have particular characteristics, like grape varieties. And when blended produce chocolate of great distinction.
I refer here to chocolate, the pure ingredient, not confectionery. Not long
ago. l had a look at the contents of the plain chocolate bar that probably
most of us grew up within England. Thinking it the height of sophistication.
It contains less than 35 per cent cocoa solids: the Good chocolate, with a cocoa content of at least 70 per cent, and as much as 99 per cent, has, clearly, very little else in the way of additivesFrench and Belgian chocolate, such as Valrhona, Cluizel, Cacao Barry and Ca illebaut are very good, as are the chocolate bars you will find made by, individual chocolatiers. As a drink, we are accustomed in mixing chocolate with milk or water, but when it was first intrrduced in the 17th century, chocolate was often mixed with red wine.
Chocolate is often seen as an enemy to good wine, but I have come to the
conclusion that the enemy lies elsewhere. the Bissell theory on chocolate
with wine, after many years of experimentation, is that if you use chocolate
with a high percentage of cocoa, there are
It is the sugar and fat in lesser chocolate that causes the problem. And
then, of course, if one adds fruit in the chocolate dessert and sweet sponge,
ice or biscuit, the problem is compounded. If you want to serve a dessert
wine with chocolate, make a cream or mousse with chocolate of about 75 per
cent to 80 per cent cocoa content. Try the experiment for yourself, if you
have the time. Make three separate chocolate mousses with plain chocolate
of 34 per cent, 45 to 50 per cent and 70 per cent respectively. If you can
find an even higher cocoa content, so much the better. Then taste a range
of good-quality sweet wines against them. Recently 1 met a chocolatier in France who tackled the chocolate and wine question in a different way. Edouard Hirsinger, Meilleur Ouvrier de France 1996, is a fourth-generation chocolatier in Arbois, where he has taken over the business begun by his great-grandfather in 1900. He still makes the specialities for which the house is famous, but he has struck out on his own, seeking to develop chocolates that can be eaten with wine. His method is to isolate the sometimes intriguing flavours to be found in wine and then to use this flavour in his chocolate. Tea, liquorice, green peppercorns, sesame, gentian and aniseed are some of his flavours, but I was most impressed by his recent experiment with vin jaune, the unusual dry white flor-affected wine of the Jura region. Wine tasters detect hints of walnut and even the faintest hint of curry in the wine. And so mr hirsinger has made a walnut paste, flavoured with a touch of curry, which he enrobes in the finest, silkiest dark chocolate. His chocolates are the best I have ever tasted, and I look forward to the day when I can accept his invitation to go and spend some time in his laboratoire au chocolat, of which I had the briefest tour on my visit to the Jura. The smell is bewitching and permeates every corner of this charming 16th century building on the Place de la Liberté, which dates back to the Spanish occupation of Arbois. I also watched Mr Hirsinger give a cookery demonstration. Thick unpasteurised cream was scooped into a copper saucepan, heated, and ;in it was infused some liquorice. Later this was mixed with melted, tempered chocolate and the mixture was stirred in what looked like a vacuum-sealed food processor. The idea being to keep out as much air ;as possible. Mr Hirsinger says you can do this at home with a hand-held electric mixer (not a food processor), which should be held close to the base of the pan. His mixture or ganache, was then spread in a frame, and when chilled the ganache was cut into squares and dipped into the coating chocolate. Above all else, chocolate making requires patience. Yet another approach to chocolate and wine is taken by Roberlo Bava. the Piedmontese wine-maker. Red wine and chocolate go together, in his opinion, particularly Barolo, and mor particularly the Barolo Chinata that his family has made for generations. Fragrant with herbs and spices, this wine is sometimes drunk warm as a digestif, but Bava has persuaded a prize-winning chocolalier in Turin. Andrea Slitti, to make a chocolate filled with Barolo Chinat a-f1avoured ganache.
The use of chocolate as a spice or seasoning passed from Mexican into Spanish,
and then into Italian cooking, and survives to this day in a few rich
savoury somewhat baroque dishes. But it is only, relatively recently that
chocolate has become widely used as an ingredient in baking and desserts.
There is, for example, a Victorian recipe for a chocolate bread pudding,
on which I have based one of today's recipes, which can be made to taste
very good using the best chocolate and cream.
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** Article
"Country Life" by Raymond
BLANC
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SUGAR and spice and all things nice: that can truly be said of Edouard Hirsinger's inheritance. He grew. up in the Jura town of Arbois. It is a town bisected by the River Cuisance and lined with hanging houses reaching out over its clear mountain water. His childhood was steeped in three generations' tradition of pâtisserie-chocolaterie. This exceptional family runs the shop situated in a corner of the town's central square, demurely ensconced under the arches of a 14th century building. There are tables and chairs in the colonnade where one can bask in late-afternoon sunshine, enjoy the views, both of the town's life and of the spectacular window display: the Hirsinger shop front is entirely glass, offering up its riches for all to see. Today, there is a tumbling spring scene of ladybirds and caterpillars: they are enchanting as an episode from Alice in Wonderland. But behind this caprice there is an extremely serious craftsmanship. Since 1993, the operation has been run by Edouard, 35, and his wife, Sylvie, who works 'front of the house', not an easy task: with the continuous stream of customers, she is barely able to take a break. With prices starting at Ffl08 for 300g, the produce must speak for itself. Established on this site in 1900 by Auguste Hirsinger, Edouard's great- grandfather, the business has passed from father to son, with each generation cherishing the tradition while making its own marks of innovation. And it seems that M Hirsinger is rarely without plaudits. Nearly every year there is a Grand Prix or a Prix d'excellence to his name. The ancient specialities have never been neglected. Some sound outlandish but are firmly rooted in the local area's tastes. For example, chocolates 'aux noix et curry' may seem to be pushing the bounds of pleasurable experience, but it is a combination created particularly for the degustation of the local speciality, the vin jaune. Other house specialities include the palet gentiane, which is said to aid digestion. There are indeed chocolates of nearly every imaginable sort. And if you manage to dream up something that has not already been done, M Hirsinger declares that he will attempt to accommodate it. And in the world beyond chocolate, there are the famed galettes first made by his great-grandfather: delicate, melt-in-the mouth meringues; and intensely pure fruit confitures. This is also one of the last confiseries in France to make marrons glacés in the artisanal fashion. M Hirsinger prides himself on the rigour of the selection process for his ingredients: almonds from Spain and Provence, hazelnuts from Piémont, pistachios from Sicily, chestnuts from Haut-Var, the gentiane from the mountains nearby. One sees the Montbéliard or Comtois cattle grazing in the nearly alpine fields round Arbois, and there is a wholesome pleasure in knowing that only their milk is used in the chocolate-making process, bought exclusively from the local co-operatives of Arbois. Arbois aso happens to be the birth-place and home town of the famed chemist and microbiologist, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895). In homage to the great man, and in a display of his considerable artistic as well as culinary talents, M Hirsinger sculpted a bust of Pasteur as his entry to a national chocolate-makers' competition in 1993. At the level of national competition, M Hirsinger elevates chocolate to the realms of fantasy: his creations are the stuff of dreams-ladybirds to Classical Greek statues, leaping dolphins to jazz trumpeters (the trumpet accurately rendered in gold-leaf. But there is something for all tastes. The trouble is that one finds one's eyes to be bigger than one's appetite. The intensity of the seriously high cocoa content of these chocolates may defeat even the most serious chocoholic. Here, this craft is raised to the level of art. Sculpture, painting and creative spirit is applied to make a dazzling and tempting display... but one would expect nothing less from a Frenchman. Country Life May 27,1999 |
