MIAM MIAM IN THE CEVENNES :

DISCOVER THE HUB OF THE FOODIE WORLD

A little cooking distance you from your country, a lot of cooking bring you back. This is what we are going to demonstrate.

If you are curious and interested in food you will no doubt realize that you eat better in the countries that were part of the birth of civilization. You enjoy eating in Baghdad in the country which invented writing and the first cities in the world 60 centuries ago. However, you do not eat well in New York, in a country 200 Years old under the influence of fast food and the processed food industry.

Lets continue the experience: If someone says “Chinese cuisine” (which one-there are four*!) and “Australian cuisine” which one tickles your taste buds? You could just as cruelly compare Indian cuisine (curries, biryani, tandoori etc**…) with Brazilian (beans and rice), Japanese or Mediterranean with African or Caribbean (rice, root vegetables, palm oil and peppers);

Obviously it’s a question of climate and available produce, but evidently recipes perfected over thousands of years have an advantage over those that have only existed for a few hundred.

The most important refinement is spices. The great cuisines include a lot of well chosen spices. Africa alas has not much to show apart pili-pili. The Maghreb however- it is closer to the Mediterranean and the Middle East than Africa. At the Maghreb*** you simmer, savour and tend the beautiful little dishes with saffron, cumin; ginger, paprika, coriander, turmeric and even harissa!

If you taste the great ancient cuisines of Indonesia****, Java, Bali, and Sumatra, spice islands since antiquity, caught over by the Dutch, Portuguese and the Spanish, you will discover unknown delights.

As for cooking them yourselves, you have two solutions.

A. Spend your life touring the islands and towns like a “tour de France” veteran to learn about their cooking skills.

B. Spend a week end learning about spices with the Miam Miam association in a delicious village in the Cevennes, in a beautiful ancient village house and its 12th century kitchen.

So there you have it! That is why Aulas is (with a pinch of salt) the hub of the foodie world.

* Peking cuisine is rustic, Sichuan is hot, Cantonese is sweet and sour or steamed, and Shanghai is marinated and cook slowly.
** For an Indian a curry is a main course with sauce (banquette of veal for example). What we call curry is known as massala in India, even a garam massala if it is hot.

*** Moroccan cuisine is rich and perfumed, Tunisian is hot (harissa and hot peppers) and Algerian is classical Mediterranean;

****The most elaborate cuisine in the world: with visits from passing merchant vessels over many centuries it has assimilated cooking cultures of China, India and Middle East

(Extract from our book: “cooking around the world with 80 spices” – in preparation.

Spices have existed since the mist of time

Spices have been first used in religious rites for their “magic powers”

Spices were soon used for their medicinal properties by the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, and Aztecs.

At a time when spices made food taste better more digestible. They also aided conserving (salting and peppering for example) and hid the taste of slightly rotting food at a time when refrigerators did not exist.

The Natural History by Pline mentions already all the spices we know today except three – The American spices (hot peppers, cocoa and vanilla)

Since antiquity spices have been worth their weight in gold.

World explorers are directly linked to the history of spices. Alexander the Great, and later the great navigators like Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama, Magellan, Christopher Columbus and others risked their lives to discover the world…and bring back the spices. Thus, new worlds were discovered, and a number of wars took place for control of the juicy spice markets.

As an hedonist I call “spice” any flavor which gives a taste in cooking. It’s no important if it’s a plant, a herb, a condiment or a real spice.

We class spices in:

0 Those used in particular countries for a particular type of cuisine

0 Those usable with a particular type of food

0 By categories of flavor. For thousands of years the Chinese have classified their cuisine into five tastes: salty, sweet, acidic, hot, and bitter.

Our cooking courses take you through 80 spices, spice by spice

Patrick T du Cros

Association Miam Miam pour découvrir 80 épices en cuisine

Un cadeau original personnalisé et gourmand

Nos stages ont été testés et salués par les plus grands media

Association Miam Miam

Aulas 30 120 le Vigan

04 67 81 75 74