Here is another recipe from my grandma’s favorite cookbook, “The Lilly Wallace New American Cookbook”. For those of you who are too young to remember apple butter, there is no butter in apple butter. It is, instead, like apple sauce reduced to the consistency and sweetness of jam.  My grandma flavored hers with warm spices, like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. When I was a kid, my favorite sandwich was peanut butter and home-made apple butter.

Orthez, France  January 10, 2014

Another case where a traditional combination proves to be right on the money:  Sheep’s milk cheese from the Pyrenees served with confiture made from the local sour black cherries.

It’s a combination that one sees so often in this part of  France that it is easy to forget to look for it.  When a cheese plate is available at a restaurant here, 8 times out or 10, it will be exactly this combination that will be on offer.  And, unfortunately, it is completely possible that what will be served will be young, flavorless, industrial cheese and and over-sweet factory jam.

Like a lot of traditional dishes, we have had them poorly made so often that it is easy to just dismiss them. However, when they are done right, they can restore your confidence in the value of tradition.

This beautiful specimen of AOC Ossau Iraty was purchased from an old man at the farmers market in Naverenx;  raw milk, hand made cheese, aged between 12 and 16 months.  Smelling of grass and barnyard, with a taste like very ripe English cheddar, only  less sharp and more gamey.

His farm table held only 3 wheels of cheese, each weighing about 15 pounds, a scale and a cash box.  When I inquired as to the difference between the wheels, he replied “Pas de difference, touts le meme”, which is roughly “no difference”.  His asking price was 15 euro the kilo – don’t do the math on that unless you want to be sad next time you visit the farmer’s market or cheese store in Seattle.

The jam was from the table next to the Monsieur with the cheese.  This table was minded by a grandmotherly woman selling eggs, butter and jam – I am not sure if she is the “Mamie” referred to on the label, but she assured me that this was her confiture “extra”, meaning it has a higher fruit content and that it is made only with cherries and cane sugar.

The combination reminds once again that the old timers who began these culinary traditions knew what they were on about.  Good grief its good!