a food market in Bordeaux

Canelés – a pastry made from egg yolks

A Canelé is a pastry from Bordeaux with a caramelized outside and a soft and chewy custard filling, and according to time magazine, the new Madeleine. Sweet, but not too sweet, it has a faint aroma of vanilla and rum and mostly, egg. Hard to believe that the recipe was created in search for waste minimalization: the wine production uses large amounts of egg whites (the beaten egg whites were put on top of the wine, as it sank to the bottom, the liquid was purified and filtered) with a resulting surplus of yolks. Thus, the canelés were born. Clever indeed.

In Bordeaux, I attended my very first wine tasting in the musée du vin et négoce, were I mended some major holes in my knowledge about wine. From having absolutely zero clues to at least understanding some basic differences between wines (like the existence of red and white wines…haha), I looked at the label, compared the color, I smelled (strawberries?), I swirled (just for show), I tasted (tasted like wine?) and I let the taste embrace my palate (meh). What can I say? Still not a great fan, unfortunately. I had to sheepishly toss the remaining bit of wine I could not force down my throat into a bucket, handed to me by a very disapproving employée.

Still, I learned a lot, I can now spot a château and a vin du négoce by looking at the label, although I am not ashamed to admit that I still pick out wine by the design of the bottle.