Show Notes
Cantal — the ancient pressed cow's milk cheese of the Massif Central and one of the oldest cheeses in the world — has a history that stretches back further than almost anything else in French food culture. Today's Food Tour de France episode starts in Aurillac — the capital of the Cantal department, right in the heart of the volcanic Auvergne — and tells the story of a cheese that Pliny the Elder was writing about in his Historia Naturalis in the first century AD, that officially bears its name since 1298, and that received its AOC in 1956. A full-size wheel weighs between 35 and 45 kilograms and requires 400 litres of milk to produce. It comes in three ages — young, between, and old — that are genuinely different cheeses in character. And it has been made in the same landscape, from the milk of cows grazing on the same volcanic pastures, for two thousand years. Before we go any further — I want to say that I have done a full dedicated episode on Cantal with the wonderful Jennifer Greco, who knows more about this cheese than almost anyone. Go and find that episode in the catalogue. Today is the introduction. She delivers the complete picture. The episode covers the essential story of Cantal — the volcanic Massif Central landscape that produces grass of extraordinary quality, with more than sixty different plant species grazed by the cows in summer whose botanical diversity ends up directly in the milk and the cheese. The three ages — Cantal Jeune, mild and buttery at 30 to 60 days; Cantal Entre-Deux, complex and nutty at 90 to 210 days; and Cantal Vieux, bold, deeply flavoured and occasionally slightly crumbly at a minimum of 240 days — and the extraordinary double-pressing technique that sets Cantal apart from almost every other pressed cheese in France. We also cover the historic burons — the stone summer shelters on the high chaumes where the buronniers spent months in complete isolation making cheese — and the royal connection, when the Marshal Henri de La Ferté-Senneterre brought Cantal to the court of Louis XIV and changed French cheese culture forever. 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 Cantal episode connects directly to the pachade episode finishing at Le Lioran — the two episodes together give a complete picture of the food culture of the Cantal mountains, the volcanic landscape that has been producing extraordinary food since before the Romans arrived. And for the full story of Cantal cheese told with genuine expertise and passion, go and find the episode with Jennifer Greco in the main Fabulously Delicious catalogue. 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! Newsletter Youtube Instagram Facebook Website #FrenchFoodPodcast #FabulouslyDelicious #foodpodcast #CantalCheese #FrenchCheese #FoodTourDeFrance #TourDeFrance2026 #AuvergneCuisine
More from Fabulously Delicious: The French Food Podcast
This week's episode is a tribute. Teresa Kaufman was an American photographer and walking-tour guide in Chamonix, in the French Alps, and a guest on this podcast back in 2018. She passed away recently, and this is the first of two episodes dedicated to her memory. Teresa was a military child, born on a base in Texas, who fell in love with the French language at five years old near Orléans and never really let go of it. She studied journalism, spent a formative year abroad in Grenoble that started out lonely and isolating until she broke away from the other foreign students to volunteer, teach swimming and do theatre with French locals, and eventually settled permanently in Chamonix, at the base of Mont Blanc, where French, Swiss and Italian borders meet. She became a ski racer, then a professional alpine and rock climber, until a hip replacement at a young age forced her to reinvent herself as a photographer and the inventor of gentle walking tours, or "promenades," for travellers who wanted to actually experience the valley rather than just photograph it from a well-beaten tourist track. In this episode we revisit Teresa's own voice: her childhood, her philosophy that real integration into a place only comes through language and relationships (never through staying inside an expat bubble), her love of Stéphane Audran and the film Babette's Feast, and the story of how the Mer de Glace glacier above Chamonix got its name, from a visit by Mary Shelley and Lord Byron that found its way into Frankenstein. Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culture and the people who make a place what it is. Come back next week for part two, a revamped tartiflette episode featuring Teresa herself explaining everything you need to know about the greatest potato dish in the French Alps. Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history and the stories behind the plates. If this episode moved you, a rating and review makes a real difference to how many people find the show. New episodes are also on YouTube and Instagram, and there's more on Substack if you want to go further. 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! Instagram Newsletter Youtube Facebook Website
At 39 Rue de Bretagne in the Marais, behind an old iron gate, stood the oldest covered market in Paris: Le Marché des Enfants Rouges, established in 1615 under Louis XIII. A thousand square metres of fresh produce, cheese counters, florists and food stalls serving Moroccan couscous, Japanese bento, Lebanese specialities and a sandwich counter with queues stretching into the street. Listed as a historical monument in 1982, and ranked by Food and Wine magazine this year as the fifth greatest street food destination in the world. In the early hours of Monday the 12th of October 2026, it burned to the ground. This episode tells the full 411-year story: a market named for the orphans of a nearby hospice who wore red, the uniform colour of Christian charity; a neighbourhood that survived the French Revolution, two world wars and the decline of traditional markets; and a 1994 threat to demolish the site for a multi-storey car park, defeated by a residents' campaign backed by film director Bertrand Tavernier. We trace its 2000 reopening as a genuine crossroads of cuisines, and the recognition that followed, including a memorable visit from Anthony Bourdain in 2012. We also cover what's known about the fire itself: when it started, how quickly it spread, the fire brigade's assessment of the damage, and what the city of Paris has committed to for the displaced traders while the investigation into its cause continues and decisions are made about the market's historic protected status. Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history and the stories behind the plates. If this episode moved you, a rating and review makes a real difference to how many people find the show. New episodes are also on YouTube and Instagram, and there's more on Substack if you want to go further. 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! Instagram Newsletter Youtube Facebook Website
On the morning of 5 October 1789, a young woman picked up a drum in a Paris market and started beating it. Within hours, ten thousand people, mostly market women armed with kitchen knives and cannons taken from the Hôtel de Ville, were marching twelve miles through the rain toward Versailles. By the next morning they would force Louis XVI to leave his palace for Paris, never to freely return. It all started with bread. This episode traces the food crisis behind the march: a Parisian worker spending up to ninety percent of their income on bread by the summer of 1789, a king's well-intentioned 1774 deregulation of the grain market that backfired catastrophically in a crisis, and a genuinely surprising culprit, a severe El Niño event between 1788 and 1793 that historians have linked to the failed harvests and brutal winter that preceded the Revolution. We follow the day itself in detail: the banquet at Versailles on 1 October that the revolutionary press turned into proof of royal contempt, the march through the rain, Lafayette and his reluctant National Guard, the women who addressed the Assembly and met the king directly, the deadly storming of the palace at dawn, and the king's unexpected appearance on the balcony to the cry of "Vive le Roi." We close with why historians rank this as one of the two or three most consequential events of the entire Revolution, and why the forces behind it have not entirely gone away. Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history and the stories behind the plates. If this episode moved you, a rating and review makes a real difference to how many people find the show. New episodes are also on YouTube and Instagram, and there's more on Substack if you want to go further. 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! Instagram Newsletter Youtube Facebook Website
In the late 1940s, three young cooks worked side by side in the kitchen of La Pyramide under Fernand Point: Paul Bocuse and two brothers, Jean and Pierre Troisgros. Bocuse became the most famous chef in France. The brothers went home to Roanne, an industrial town in the Loire, and built a restaurant in a hotel directly opposite the railway station that held three Michelin stars for fifty-two consecutive years. Along the way they created the dish many food historians point to as the moment nouvelle cuisine stopped being a theory and became a revolution: a thin escalope of salmon, fifteen seconds a side in a non-stick pan, with a sauce of cream, vermouth, shallots and sorrel from their mother's garden. It was greeted with hostility at first. A decade later, it was the embodiment of a movement. This episode tells the full story of Pierre Troisgros, from his childhood in a Burgundy café family and his training under Point to his partnership with Jean, the three stars won in 1968, the tasting menu he brought back from China, the loss of his brother in 1983, and the four generations of the family still cooking at three stars today. And yes, he really did play gin rummy in the dining room while lunch guests finished their petits fours. Fabulously Delicious is the podcast for anyone who loves French food, French culinary history and the lives behind the dishes. If Pierre's story moved you, a rating and review makes an enormous difference to how many people find the show. Subscribe for the rest of the French chefs series, and find full video episodes on YouTube and extras on Substack. 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! Newsletter Youtube Instagram Facebook Website #PierreTroisgros #NouvelleCuisine #MichelinStars #FrenchCuisine #FoodPodcast
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! Newsletter Youtube Instagram Facebook Website #FoieGras #FrenchFood #FrenchCuisine #FoodHistory #FoodPodcast