The Good Life France Magazine




The Good Life France Magazine brings you the best of France - inspirational and exclusive features, fabulous photos, mouth-watering recipes, tips, guides, ideas and much more...


Published by the award winning team at The Good Life France

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1 year ago

Winter 2022

  • Text
  • Giveaways
  • Recipes
  • Christmas
  • France
  • Vineyards
  • Villages
  • Medieval
  • Provence
Discover France’s magical winter wonderland destinations - from the French Alps to the French Riviera. Read about the biggest bûche de Noël, Christmas log cake, in the world and see Paris when it snows. Head to the sweet village of Flavigny in Burgundy where the film Chocolat was filmed and to Rouen, the Ardèche region and Côtes du Rhône. Go gaga for gorgeous Gascony and feel festive at the colourful Christmas market of Metz, Lorraine.Toulouse, feel good films, recipes, guides and giveaways…

Need help finding a

Need help finding a property to buy in France? Let our Property Finders do it for you! FOR MORE INFORMATION SCAN ME We take care of finding your new home worry free A FREE all-inclusive nationwide service with one point of contact leggettfrance.com +33 (0)5 53 60 84 88 info@leggett.com So, what’s the French influence you might ask. Well first, the ingredients include dried fruit and since the mid-1800s, the best Christmas puddings used glace cherries and candied fruit from Apt in Provence. Apt has been famous for its crystalised fruit production since medieval times. The Popes of Avignon were fans and the dried fruit has long been a key part of the famous 13 Desserts of Provence, a southern French Christmas tradition. When British pudding maker Matthew Wood visited France in the mid-1800s he fell head over heels for the quality of Apt’s dried fruit and imported it for use in cakes and of course Christmas puddings where it gained a reputation for being the crème de la crème and all the best British cake producers sourced their dried fruit from Apt for many years. Today crystallised fruit from Apt has Intangible Cultural Heritage status, and the town has “Site Remarquable du Goût” (Remarkable Site of Flavour) status. And at the Maison du Fruit Confit, you can discover all about the history of the sweet, sugared fruit. In the 1920s, King George V commissioned a Frenchman to reinvent the Christmas pudding. The King’s chef was a Frenchman called Henri Cédard and he was asked to adapt the Royal family’s traditional pudding recipe so that it could be shared with the public. It was an enormous success and to this day, it’s a recipe with a French connection that is made in thousands of homes in the UK. For the last few years, on “stir-up Sunday”, the last Sunday before Advent Sunday The Royal Family have shared the recipe for their Christmas Pudding on Twitter – which caused quite a stir! 26 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 27