Pâté Of The Week

There is an art to making the meaty and fruity pâtés known as pâtés en croûte, which have graced dining tables since the Middle Ages. The pastry must retain a crunch, the meat should be moist, almost wet, and the jelly neither too prominent nor too subtle. Making them takes over twenty hours and requires the mastery of three techniques, that of pork butchery for the filling, pastry-making for making the crust, and cookery for the stock and the jus.

The fortunes of this form of pâté hit rock bottom in the 1980s but a few enthusiasts in the Lyon region, where it is known as pâté croûte, kept the flame alive to the extent that it is now enjoying a renaissance. There is even a world championship, which was started in 2009.

Symptomatic of the fall of France from grace, French chefs are not having it all their own way. The first and second places in the 2024 World Pâté en Croûte Championships held in Lyon last month were won by Japanese chefs, the fourth time in the last five years that they beaten their French rivals. As one disappointed French chef commented, “it’s my fourth final and each time it’s a Japanese who has won. They are very good”.

C’est vrai, mon ami!    

Philistine as I am, I much prefer a Pork pie.