Here the technique is out there – strawberries and cream starring different textures of the fruit and a cloud-light sheep's milk; almost toffeed prune ice-cream with a sorbet made from the kernels – but it's stuff you actually want to eat.
Macerating dried fruits makes them plump and tender, as in prune Armagnac ice cream.
At lunch, a parfait of prune-Armagnac ice cream and crumbled cookies might appear; at dinner, a tarte tatin.
The Sudistes (Southerners) section offers a deservedly popular starter of a boudin noir napoleon layered with apples and topped with a dusting of mustard breadcrumbs; ample pork shoulder braised with vegetables; and a buttery crepelike apple tourtière with prune-Armagnac ice cream.
I could not resist a dish of prune and Armagnac ice cream or a glass of spectacular 1973 St.-Aubin Armagnac from Le Houga with my coffee.
Warm apple tart is flawless, but the prune and Armagnac ice cream that comes with it is almost fiery with alcohol, and Black Forest cherry cake may be one of those desserts best left to the Germans and Austrians.
RECOMMENDED DISHES -- Borscht, mushroom dumpling soup (pelmeni), potato pancakes, pork schnitzel, beef stroganoff, stuffed cabbage, chicken paprikas, sauerbraten, apple strudel, prune and caraway ice cream, gingerbread cake, marzipan pound cake, Jersey blueberry pie.
Desserts include warm raspberry and chocolate tart, cacao nougatine and pure Venezuelan chuao chocolate sorbet; pineapple carpaccio, crystalized coriander and lime sorbet; and hot chocolate brioche pudding with chocolate sorbet and prune Armagnac and maple ice creams.
There are more home-cook-friendly recipes, like salt- and sugar-roasted pork belly from a New York chef or prune cake with buttermilk icing from a ranch wife in Oklahoma.
