OLIVE TREES IN France thrive in regions far south of Paris, but in nearby Burgundy, the Huilerie Artisanale J. Leblanc et Fils specializes in another culinary item of note: nut oils. Though I’ve not visited the mill, I’ve been regularly visiting the tiny Leblanc shop in Paris’s sixth arrondissement for many years (6 rue Jacob). In addition to a variety of nut oils (I always select my favorite, hazelnut), there are very good mustards and vinegars, and the service is always friendly and helpful.
SUSAN HERRMANN LOOMIS is the author of numerous books, including On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town (Broadway, 2001), Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin (William Morrow, 2005), and French Farmhouse Cookbook (Workman, 1996). Most recently, she published Nuts in the Kitchen: More than 100 Recipes for Every Taste and Occasion (Morrow, 2010), which is filled with creative, uncommon recipes from around the world. (I particularly like the Parmigiano-Reggiano Seed Sticks, Mushroom and Walnut Tarte Tatin, and the hazelnut financiers, based on the recipe she helped develop when she was working on The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris with Patricia Wells.) She includes an essay in her book devoted to the Leblanc family.
Loomis founded and runs the On Rue Tatin cooking school (see this page) at her home in Normandy, and for several weeks each year the school moves to Paris, where she offers “another dimension of my passion for France.” One-day classes are also offered in Paris, as well as French country lunches in Louviers. Loomis maintains a blog, Life Is Nuts (nutsin.wordpress.com), and is a partner in NoTakeOut.com, a nifty Web site that helps users plan, prep, and cook an entire meal with fresh, seasonal ingredients.
PLACED BEFORE YOU is that exquisitely simple French creation: a mélange of fresh, tender lettuce leaves dressed lightly in a tangy vinaigrette. The buttery aroma of hazelnuts wafts up from the crisp green salad, yet there isn’t a nut to be seen. Where oh where is that divine smell coming from?
Jean-Charles Leblanc, from the village of Iguerande in Burgundy, is the sorcerer behind this olfactory trick. Head of the family enterprise Huilerie Artisanale J. Leblanc et Fils, he supplies France and beyond with some of the world’s finest nut oils. Their products, which come from just about every nut in the world including the rare Moroccan argan nut, make their way into more than just salads: almond oil may be drizzled over a tender fish fillet, walnut oil incorporated into a moist cake, pine nut oil added to a bowl of pasta, pistachio oil tossed with avocado and grapefruit.
The Leblancs are far from being the only nut oil producers in France—indeed, there are too many to count, given that nearly every region that grows nuts has small mills that produce oil for local consumption. But Leblanc oils are considered the pinnacle of this culinary art.
Jean-Charles follows in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, who started the mill in 1878. Back then, local farmers brought their walnuts and rapeseed to the mill, which sits in the family barn located on the D982. Jean-Charles’s sister Anne—who grew up in the house next to the barn and now runs the family shop in Paris—describes Iguerande as paumé, or lost, in the middle of nowhere. But nowhere has become somewhere because of the family oil mill.
The minute you turn onto the D982, you know you’ve arrived—the air is redolent of toasted nuts. Jean-Charles’s mother minds the boutique, which was recently expanded, while his brother handles accounting and communications. The business has grown, but once inside the mill, you realize that the heart of this operation has changed little since great-grandfather Leblanc’s day. The only significant difference is that the huge stone that slowly grinds nuts beneath its bulk is no longer powered by a horse; a system of pulleys and belts suspended from the ceiling now keeps it turning. These many years later, that old stone wheel is still the best way to crush nuts without compacting them.
Daniel Demours, one of the company’s two employees who aren’t family members, scoops the coarsely ground nuts into a blackened kettle that sits over a gas flame. “We cook them to add flavor and allow the oil to separate,” he explains.
Demours checks the cooking nuts every few minutes—timing is everything. “These are pine nuts, and they cook fast,” he says, opening the lid and deftly stirring the mash, which has already turned from solid to almost liquid in the heat. “Most nuts should be cooked for about twenty minutes, but you’ve got to watch these carefully—they’re ready in about five.”
He walks over to the presses and checks the flow of oil coming from them. It has slowed to a mere trickle, signaling that it is time to add more nuts. He runs back to the kettle, takes off the lid, and inhales, tipping the runny mass into a container. He opens a press and removes the flat disks of compressed, nearly dry nut paste left after the oil is extracted. Each is separated by a woven mat used to filter the oil. “Mats used to be made of human hair,” notes Demours. “Now they are woven from synthetic fibers.”
He pours more pine nuts into the press, covers them with a filter, and repeats the process until the press is nearly full. He then cinches it closed, puts a barrel under the spigot, and waits for the golden liquid to flow. “We press in small batches—no more than twenty-five kilos,” says Jean-Charles. “That is the only way to get the highest quality.”
Once a barrel is full, it sits in the cool barn long enough for the oil to decant, a period of several days. It is then bottled, labeled, and stocked in a warehouse behind the mill. At least in theory. “We don’t really have any stock because we sell everything as quickly as we make it,” laughs Jean-Charles.
As if on cue, a farmer and his wife walk into the barn with a sack of walnuts. Jean-Charles weighs it on an old scale. “This is the last of this year’s harvest,” the farmer says. “I bring them in when I need more oil.” The couple leaves with a gallon jug.
The Leblancs now get only one-third of their walnuts locally; the rest come from the Périgord region. As for the other nuts that go into the dozen or so varieties of oils they produce, their provenance reads like a map of the world. Hazelnuts are from Italy and Turkey, pine nuts from China (the ones from Italy don’t yield as much oil), almonds and pecans from California, pistachios from Iran, poppy and squash seeds from Austria, peanuts from the southern United States. But only the highest quality nuts make it into the Leblanc presses.
The mill produces about three hundred liters of oil per day, 365 days a year. Leblanc père, now eighty-two, still delivers to clients within a fifty-mile radius. One is Franck Lesaige, chef and owner of Le Relais de Saint Julien in nearby Saint-Julien-de-Jonzy.
“I use Leblanc oils primarily in first courses,” says Lesaige. “One of my favorites now is a royale de foie gras. I dress artichoke hearts in pistachio oil, balsamic vinegar, shallots, and chives, then top it all with a foie gras cream.” He adds hazelnut oil to tête de veau, or boiled head cheese, and generally slips nut oils in whenever he has the inspiration.
Given their delicate flavor, nut oils are generally used for seasoning rather than cooking, although they are sometimes used in baking. Once opened, they must be refrigerated and will keep for about three months. Unopened bottles will wait indefinitely as long as they are kept in a cool dry place.
Huilerie Artisanale J. Leblanc et Fils, Le Bas, Iguerande, Burgundy (+33 03 85 84 07 83 / huile-leblanc.com). The Paris shop is located at 6 rue Jacob, 6ème / (+3301 46 34 61 55).
Chocolat
The great correspondent of the seventeenth century Madame de Sévigné counseled, “Take chocolate in order that even the most tiresome company seems acceptable to you,” which is also sound advice today! For me, fine chocolate is one of life’s supreme pleasures, and when I wanted to learn more about it I turned to what I think is the best book ever published on the subject: Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum (North Point, 2004), which was honored with an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for literary food writing in 2006. The historic and contemporary story of chocolate is global, but how sweet for visitors to France that much of it is written in the chocolate shops of Paris. Rosenblum pleads that “if anyone ever banishes me to a desert island with only one style of chocolate, please make it French.” He also recommends The Chocolate Connoisseur by Chloé Doutre-Roussel (Tarcher, 2006), which I of course had to read as well.
For me, no trip to Paris is complete without visits to as many chocolatiers as I can fit in my schedule. Each boutique is different from the next, selling varied and often inventive creations, so each visit is a fresh experience.
My number one favorite chocolate stop is Pierre Hermé (72 rue Bonaparte, 6ème / 185 rue de Vaugirard, 15ème / pierreherme.com), which is a pâtisserie that also offers an outstanding selection of chocolates. Hermé began his career as an apprentice to Gaston Lenôtre, and he went on to stints at Fauchon and Ladurée before earning such accolades as “the Picasso of Pastry” (Vogue), “pastry provocateur” (Food & Wine), “the Kitchen Emperor” (New York Times), and “an avant-garde pastry chef and magician with tastes” (Paris Match). He was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2007, and is the youngest person ever to be named France’s pastry chef of the year. If you have a reason to buy pastries—you’ve been invited to someone’s house, you’re renting an apartment and you’ve invited friends for dinner, you’re putting together a pique-nique, or simply that it’s Monday—Hermé is a great stop as you can buy both pastry and chocolate, as well as other gifts. The pastries here are stunning and really stand out, especially in the sleek sliver of a space at the rue Bonaparte location. There are several chocolate assortments in various-sized boxes, and the knowledgeable staff can help you decide among them. (And don’t hesitate to try the délicieuses gourmandises à croquer—chocolate-covered candied grapefruit peels, my favorite!) I even love the bags your purchases come in: sturdy white paper with a die-cut design. Ambitious home bakers may want to try their hand at some of Hermé’s recipes in Desserts by Pierre Hermé (1998) and Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé (2001), both written by Dorie Greenspan and published by Little, Brown.
As much as I love Pierre Hermé, I also love the chocolates at other Parisian shops:
Jean-Paul Hévin (231 rue Saint-Honoré, 1er / 3 rue Vavin, 6ème / 23 bis avenue de la Motte-Picquet, 7ème / jphevin.com). At the rue Saint-Honoré shop chocolates may be purchased to take away or enjoyed in the salon de thé upstairs.
Aoki (25 rue Pérignon, 15ème / 35 rue de Vaugirard, 6ème / 56 boulevard de Port-Royal, 5ème, with a salon de thé / Lafayette Gourmet, 40 boulevard Haussmann, 9ème, sada haruaoki.com). Like Pierre Hermé, Sadaharu Aoki is also a pastry chef, and he brings a matchless Japanese sense of order and aesthetics to classic French pâtissier.
La Maison du Chocolat (nine locations; its first, since 1977, is at 52 rue François-1er, 1er / lamaisonduchocolat.com). Though Maison now has stores elsewhere in the world, including New York, I still think the quality of the chocolates is excellent, and Maison hot chocolate is still the best. (Many folks say the best is at Angelina, 226 rue de Rivoli, but they’ve probably just never had it at La Maison du Chocolat.)
Debauve & Gallais (30 rue des Saint-Pères, 7ème / 33 rue Vivienne, 2ème / debauve-et-gallais.com). Paris’s oldest chocolate maker retains a soft spot in my heart even though I prefer the other chocolatiers here—I love the interior of the rue des Saint-Pères shop, dating from 1800. The old-fashioned, though exquisite, selections and packaging make better gifts for more traditional palates.
La Chocolaterie de Jacques Genin (133 rue de Turenne, 3ème). Genin’s creations were praised by Mort Rosenblum in Chocolate as his favorite chocolates in the world.) Before Genin’s Marais shop opened in 2008, he supplied Alain Ducasse’s restaurants, hotels like the George V and Le Crillon, and shops like Hédiard. Anyone else who wanted to try his chocolates had to make an appointment at his fifteenth arrondissement lab and agree to purchase a minimum order of one kilogram. In an interview with Lennox Morrison for the Wall Street Journal, Genin described himself as a rebel. “I don’t even want to be called a master chocolate maker. I call myself a foundry man who works with chocolate because that is what I do. I melt down chocolate to create fresh products.” In 1991 he went to La Maison du Chocolat and worked as head pâtissier, then left five years later to go off on his own. I know I’m not alone in being grateful for the new shop. Many people rave about the caramels, but I myself am partial to the chestnut-flavored sucre d’or, and I love the JG-monogrammed silver boxes—very classy.
