{"id":56,"date":"2020-07-21T22:07:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T20:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/obccenvadrouille.wordpress.com\/?p=56"},"modified":"2020-08-02T22:06:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-02T20:06:58","slug":"food-and-agriculture-in-escrennes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/?p=56&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Food and agriculture in Escrennes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The four of us like going to the restaurant and test new things, so having a trip in France, known for its \u00ab\u00a0gastronomie\u00a0\u00bb should be a blast… but we are not your typical French people: we are gluten-free and we tend to avoid lactose (though we love cheese) and reduce sugar and meat; Cedric has been a vegetarian for almost 15 years (but I have an exception for mussels, only with fries and friends around), the girls still have fish every now and then, Basile still enjoys a steak or a sausage. We also try to eat organic products, which, depending on where you stay, can be a challenge. In this regard, it’s very close to what we experienced in California: as soon as you escape from big cities’ posh neighborhoods, it’s almost impossible to find organic products. It also feels like a political thing, seems like some territories are more willing to promote organic farming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On our first stop in Escrennes, the closest farmer’s market is in Pithiviers. There’s not many local fruits or vegetables on display, and nothing is organic. We bring some nice strawberries though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you look at the fields around, all you see is large, flat squares of wheat, beets or corn. At the supermarket, the organic products are over packaged and come from exotic destinations: avocados from Kenya, kiwis from New Zealand… so if you buy organic products here, you’ve got dirty hands. We’ve found at the Office du Tourisme an address for an organic farm in a village nearby, we’ll try that instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the fields there are sprinklers for the corn and the beets, sending water into the air under the sun, which is utter stupidity, especially considering that 150 villages were considered under state of natural catastrophe no longer than last year because of drought. The wheat and oats around are dry, they are white and the grain is thin. It’s also a bit scary considering this place has the largest aquifer basin in Europe<\/a>! When cycling around you can also smell the products put on the crops, it’s pretty aggressive on corn and beets, there’s a lot to be found in the tap water… We hope at some point we realise that this agriculture uses our most precious resources, water and land, to produce cereals and sugar for industrial food and corn for cattle feeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As for the local restaurant, there used to be a vegetarian place, but it’s closed, same for the organic grocery. We’re pretty much left with a crepe place that has a veggie buckwheat \u00ab\u00a0galette\u00a0\u00bb option. In a lot of small cities in France you’ll be challenged to find a traditional French place that really cooks things, in best case you would have a posh place that serves local traditional specialties and the rest would be pizza places, Chinese and kabob restaurants, and some \u00ab\u00a0brasserie\u00a0\u00bb that serves burgers, fries and other industrial frozen stuff cooked in nice sauce. But some Gaulois always resist and you can find amazing places with great food. We hope to be surprised on our future stops!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The four of us like going to the restaurant and test new things, so having a trip in France, known… read more Food and agriculture in Escrennes<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/img_9502.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.obcc.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}