Guy de Maupassant at the table

At a 19th-century Norman table, courses are not separated into starter-main-dessert: one follows a copious sequence punctuated by cream, butter, and the sea. Midway through the feast comes the *trou normand*, a glass of apple brandy meant to whet the appetite and reignite the eating. The meal opens with a product of the Seine or the English Channel, peaks with a roast fowl, and closes with a dairy-based entremets cooked for hours. For Maupassant, a Parisian socialite as much as a son of the Alabaster Coast, this meal oscillates between the inn at Étretat and the restaurant of the grand boulevards.

Maupassant's Norman cooking rests entirely on the dairy wealth of the Pays de Caux and Bessin: everything is napped, bound, and melted with butter and thick cream. This is the rich, pearly signature that links the Seine eel to the Rouen duckling and even to the sweet teurgoule.