Normandy: gold medalist thanks to its dish in tribute to Flaubert

Within the Marcel-Sembat general and vocational high schools in Sotteville-lès-Rouen (Seine-Maritime), Bertrand Mazzolini usually prepares nearly 800 meals every noon and a hundred in the evening for interns. But this time, it is in a smaller committee that the head of the kitchens of the school won the gold medal in the competition organized by the Chamber of Agriculture in partnership with the Normandy region and entitled “To eat well in Normandy.” “.

“We met at CFA Georges-Baptiste in Mont-Saint-Aignan for a test, a bit like Top Chef. We were a dozen selected from Norman high schools and colleges. And we had four hours to revisit the salambo recipe ”.

A choice of event that owes nothing to chance since, this year, many institutions are celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Flaubert, author in particular of the novel Salammbô. A name, inspired by the goddess Astarté who wore it on occasion, and who would also have given this name to the famous pastry.

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To win the 1st prize, Bertrand Mazzolini was supported by an apprentice cook from the CFA, with whom he took the risk of including a few pieces of candied pumpkin in a diplomat cream (lighter than pastry cream) with white chocolate, with some prime some caramelized buckwheat seeds. An ideal mixture to garnish the choux pastry on which he then made an apple sugar cracker. A recipe visibly appreciated by the jury and that the students of the Marcel-Sembat high school were able to taste, before it closed due to the health crisis. “For a week, we prepared a hundred of them a day for the students and the feedback was very good,” assures the 46-year-old chef, happy to have taken on this professional challenge.

Priority to local producers

“All the products we had to work with were from Normandy. This also corresponds to the region’s desire to encourage us to source our supplies as locally as possible. For the time being, 34% of what we use in high school kitchens is produced in the regions. But in the long term, the objective is to reach 80%, ”continues Bertrand Mazzolini, delighted to see his profession take a more qualitative turn. “For example, the fresh fries that we use come from a producer in Yvetot, our cheeses are also from the region, as are our lentils … In total, we have thirty-two regional suppliers”. And he hopes to find new ones.