Maroilles, mussels and Marvelous on the menu of the Tour de France in the Nord – Pas-de-Calais
By Hervine Mahaud
Published on
Maroilles cheese, mussels and Cambrai nonsense on the menu at the Tour de France. The Sodexo companyin charge of catering on the Great Loop, met ahead of the local products during each step. For the 4th and 5th, which take place at Lillein the North and the Pas de Calaisthe chefs have reinterpreted great classics, such as the Merveilleux, to delight the professionals present during the Tour.
3,500 meals every day
Each year, the challenge is immense: preparing 3,500 culinary services, from the start village to the finish of the day’s stage, on the Tour de France. To achieve this Sodexo, official restaurateur of the Tour de France for 30 years, relies on a meticulous organization. “The logistics behind it must be very well oiled. On the day of a stage, we know what time the trucks leave and what time they arrive,” underlines Laurent Hetet, event manager at Sodexo.
To prepare the various dishes offered (meal trays, sandwich or salad formulas, petit fours), Sodexo receives the equivalent of 12 pallets of fresh produce every day. Orders are placed well in advance, “from October when the Tour route is unveiled”.
Subsequently, the dishes are prepared in the various Sodexo laboratories, based in four parts of France. For the Nord – Pas-de-Calais, the leader in collective catering has called on its structure located in the Oise. “On site, about fifty people who are busy preparing. It’s not huge but the teams are very structured. Some people specialize in preparing canapes, others in meal trays. »
Mussels and fries in Calais, Wonderful in Lille
The other challenge for Sodexo chefs is to surprise the palates of Tour guests at each stage. The group has therefore chosen to bet on local products and local recipes.
Thus for the stage from Dunkirk to Calais, Sodexo highlights mussels and fries. “The idea is to wink locally by reinterpreting in our own way. And also taking into account the technical constraints. As we are not in a traditional kitchen, we do not fry. We will donate ‘chti chips’, chips in the shape of fries that we put in a small cone, ”explains Laurent Hetet.
Among the other local products, we will find culinary speculoos, and also nonsense from Cambrai “which we will grind and use in an animation [au Village départ, ndlr] around the ice. In Lille, the famous maroilles will be the star of the main course. And the dessert will be a reinterpretation of Le Merveilleux. “We are not going to copy Fred’s Merveilleux and we cannot surprise a Lille resident with this pastry. So we’re going to reinterpret it with meringues in the colors of the Tour de France. »
Was this article helpful to you? Note that you can follow Lille Actu in the My Actu space. In one click, after registration, you will find all the news of your favorite cities and brands.