Rillettes - Potted porc meat from Tours
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Legend has it that the owner of an inn, eager to satisfy the appetite of her guest—the writer Rabelais— invented pork rillettes when she creatively used the only things left in her pantry. The pork butchers of the Tours region adopted the recipe in the 19th Century, making it their own, and worthy of the name Rillettes de Tours. Rabelais eventually dubbed them “la brune confiture de cochon”, or “brown jam of pork” and another illustrious French writer, Balzac, praised the delicious rillettes in his writings. What sets Tours’ rillettes apart from other regions’ is their caramel colour, long fibres of shredded meat and their rich roasted flavour. The pork butchers of the Tours region has held the designation Indication Geographique Protégée since 2013.
