A Week in Couptrain

A week full of villages and meadows, of chateaux and towns, of intermittent sunshine and charming people and .. oh, my goodness .. of food with a capital F!
I longed for my tripes, for my andouilettes, for those cheeses that this country makes like no-one else, for food the way the French served it up when I was a lad in Monte Carlo forty years ago and red wine was 85 centimes a bottle, and .. well, there’s no other way to put it, I have had it. Nay, I have stuffed myself with variegated goodies from Alençon to Bagnoles de l’Orne, and from St Aignan de Couptrain to Lassay les châteaux, as well as right here in Brian’s dining room at 15 rue du Moulin, the little pink house in Couptrain …
The highlights?…
The Ganzl memorability medals go to …
Wondrous andouilette for breakfast … through to Médoc with Pont l’Eveque (or was it the other way round?) for late-night supper, at home base
The huge covered platter of tripes, oh so slowly imbibed, whilst sitting overlooking the lake at the atmospheric Café de Paris, alongside the Casino at Bagnoles…
and the grand, real, old-fashioned ‘petit restaurant français’ meal (charcuterie, épaule de rôti d’agneau, plateau de fromages, home-made flan … plus a joli calva to finish!) at the restaurant at St Aignan. Thank you, Madame la patronne, who is pictured here below with fellow customer, Georges, who won my heart by telling me my French was ‘impeccable’.



Of course, it wasn’t all food. Not quite. And just to prove it, here’s a happy snap of me by the village lake, under the walls of the château at the pretty village of Lassay.