The Notion of a gastronomic guide to the French provinces is far from a new or novel one. More than four centuries ago travelers were using an informative little book entitled Chemin de Paris à Lyon à Venise, which contained all they needed to know about stagecoach schedules, village taverns, city hostelries, and suitable stabling for horses.
In the seventeenth century there appeared special guides for each province. Some of these contained advice which is quite applicable today, especially this: “Don’t be seduced by pompous publicity.” The traveler is warned that he will do much better in the city of Nancy by stopping at the Auberge du Grand Cerf rather than at the Hostellerie d’Appolon, where “an irascible host will persecute you without motive.”
The most detailed guide book of the nineteenth century advised voyagers to bring with them rope, a jack, a hammer, a pot of grease, candles, firearms, padlocks, a complete bed with pillows, traversins, sheets, and a deerskin, which was to be inserted between the hotel mattress and the sheets to discourage voracious nocturnal visitors.
A final and disquieting bit of advice makes it clear that travel had its perils long before the advent of the automobile. It was: “Be sure to draw up your last testament before departing.”
But although the idea of an epicurean guide is centuries old, the need for newly edited information is constant, a fact which has led to this modest series of articles. Incessant change occurs in the status of country inns and hotels, especially when the upsets and hardships of a war intervene. Each of the French provinces now offers new inducements and also, sadly enough, a defunct group of former gastronomic glories. In common with certain wine years which have gone over the top, some strongholds of fine food inevitably fade into oblivion. There are many savory exceptions, of course, and it is gratifying to find two noteworthy ones in the Dèpartement of the Yonne, the vine-clad northern wing of Burgundy which is our subject for this beguiling month of May. The names of these two country hotels alone will justify this chapter to those persons who are traveling in France this summer. If you are about to dash madly for an ocean liner, jot down these names in your notebook and skip the rest of my story: Hôtel de l’Etoile in Chablis and Hôtel de la Poste in Avallon.
But if you have a few more minutes to spare, read on, as the Yonne holds other rich rewards, particularly in the realm of wine, idyllic landscape, and architecture.
The great Carême did not make many friends among the architects when he ventured his definition of the arts. “The fine arts,” he stated flatly, “are five, as follows: Painting, Poetry, Music, Sculpture, and Architecture, which has for its principal branch La Pâtisserie.” Despite this master’s skill at concocting minarets, pagodas, and Roman towers out of spun sugar and pastry, one feels that he hit architecture a little below the belt, or should I say below the dado. The province of the Basse-Bourgogne will refute his naïve slur with a vengeance, without losing any stature as a principality of noble food. For this gracious, decorous parcel of ancient France is filled with a succession of beautiful towns which read like pages from an architect’s sketchbook… Sens, Joigny, Auxerre, Vézelay, Avallon. By a pleasant coincidence, each of them provides a better-than-average country inn. Add to this the famed town of Chablis and the undulating wealth of vineyards which surrounds it, and you have an epicurean magnet whose enticing pull is difficult to resist. The twin arts of architecture and gastronomy, adroitly aided by the fragrant vintages of Chablis, beckon to you, promising a memorable reward if you will but travel to Lower Burgundy! We recommend this calm, pastoral province with unhesitating enthusiasm.
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