Calvados

Calvados is one of the honoured products of France, being the spirit distilled from cider. Of the various appellations controlées the Pays d’Auge in the department of Calvados is reckoned the best (check the label before you buy, and be careful if you are handed a glass of private, unlabelled Calvados; it can be rough). Un calva is sometimes drunk between the courses of a copious meal as a digestif: it is supposed to clear the stomach and make more room. This is le trou - hole - normand. In our earliest days in France, we visited Bee Hellouin one day on our way home, to see the monastery from which so many of our great medieval clerics had come. Cash was limited, enough for a simple lunch and petrol to Le Havre. At the inn we ordered tripe, very cheap, very good. ‘Ah,’ I said full of new knowledge, ‘Now we must have some Calvados, le trou normand.’ So we did. When the bill came, the exquisite Calvados cost quite a bit more than the tripe. We drove on nervously through the beautiful autumn weather. Our luck held, and we laughed afterwards, but I certainly learned a lesson or two.