The Loire and the rivers of France

The Loire rises on the Mont Gerbier de Jonc in the Ardèche, in the Massif Central, and runs some 1,000 kilometres to the Atlantic below Nantes, making it the longest river in France. With the Seine, the Rhône and the Garonne it forms the hydrographic frame within which French cooking developed, each valley holding its own produce, wines and habits of the table.

The Loire is often called the garden of France, and the name rests on the orchards, vegetable plots and vineyards of its middle valley, between Orléans and Angers, where the river's alluvial soils and mild, tempered climate favour fruit and early vegetables. Asparagus, mushrooms grown in the tuffeau caves, pears, apples and cherries are all associated with the valley, and the cooking built on them is light in manner and exact in seasoning. The river itself supplies the classic freshwater fish of the French kitchen: pike (Esox lucius), zander (Sander lucioperca), shad (Alosa alosa) and eel (Anguilla anguilla). The traditional sauce for pike and zander is the beurre blanc, an emulsion of shallot, vinegar or white wine and butter, long associated with Nantes and the lower Loire. The wines of the valley follow the river and give the fish and white meats of its cooking their natural companions. Muscadet is made near the estuary, Anjou and Saumur in the centre, and Touraine, Vouvray and Chinon upstream, while Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé lie at the eastern end. The range runs from dry, mineral whites of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc to the reds of Cabernet Franc, and the cheeses of the region, above all the goat cheeses of Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine and Crottin de Chavignol, belong to the same landscape. The other great rivers give France a comparable division of the table. The Seine and its tributaries serve the Île-de-France and Normandy, where cream, butter and orchard fruit dominate. The Rhône carries the cooking of Lyon southward towards Provence, with its river fish, charcuterie and the produce of the valley's orchards and vineyards. The Garonne, running from the Pyrenees to the Gironde, links the south-west to Bordeaux, where the estuary has been known for its lamprey, shad and sturgeon-derived caviar. The Rhine marks the Alsatian border and shapes a cuisine of river fish, pork, cabbage and white wine. The rivers also ordered trade. Wine, salt, grain and produce travelled by water to the great markets and to Paris, and the towns on the banks became centres of cooking in their own right. The valley of the Loire, long the seat of the court, left a tradition of refined and unhurried cooking that the classical authorities treat as a standard of French restraint.

The taste of the Loire table is one of freshness and balance: the clean flesh of river fish, the acidity of the valley's white wines and the sharpness of its goat cheeses. Beurre blanc, with its shallot and vinegar reduction mounted with butter, shows the principle, for the sauce supports the fish with acidity and richness in measure and does not mask it.