Norman Cuisine

It is the regional cooking of Normandy in northern France. While Norman settlers carried their culinary influence to England after the 1066 conquest, the tradition itself — roasted meats, stews, and simply prepared fish — belongs to France.

Normandy is renowned for Camembert cheese, butter and cream, apples, cider, and the apple brandy Calvados. Its long Channel coastline also supplies seafood and freshwater fish that the cuisine prepares simply with herbs.

Signature dishes include tripes à la mode de Caen, a slow-cooked tripe specialty of Caen, and chicken simmered in cream and cider in the poulet à la normande style. Rich dairy sauces over meat and fish define much of the repertoire.

Normandy's cool, damp climate is better suited to orchards than vineyards, so apples became the region's signature crop. That tradition produced cider and Calvados as local answers to wine and grape brandy.