Pot-au-feu is a slowly simmered meat and vegetable dish that appears on most home tables in France. Pot au Feu, which literally translates to ‘pot in the fire’, started its life in working-class homes as a way to make less expensive cuts of beef more tender and palatable. Think the original crockpot. The long slow cooking resulted in 2 dishes: a clear nourishing broth and a rich meal of beef and vegetables.

No other dish better defines Provence than soupe au pistou, the famous vegetable, bean, and pasta soup. Within a bowl you will discover the edible history of the ‘arrière-pays’, or hinterlands of Provence. A region where thrifty farmers have long tended their fields, growing some of France’s most amazing vegetables and fruits. It is a soup born from austerity and frugality; making the best use of what is in season and what is on hand.

Duck à l’Orange is probably one of the most classic, yet sadly most bastardized dishes of all of French cuisine. Done right, it’s incredible; crunchy skin with incredibly juicy meat offset by a semi-sweet orange sauce. Done wrong, you’ll end up eating fatty rubbery skin, tough meat drowned in an overly sweet sauce.

Versions of duck à l’orange have been around forever. Just this morning I was reading a cookbook written by Louis Eustache Ude in the early 1800s. His version featured roasting a duck with a small bitter orange variety known as ‘bigarade’ in France, or marmalade oranges. The idea was to keep a sweet and sour balance to the sauce. This trend continued in the 1940s and 50s in France. But somewhere during the 1970s and 80s duck à l’orange became known as duck cooked in any method buried under an overly sweet sticky sauce. And then disappeared into the lost annals of great cuisine.