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French come up with new flavour of ice cream: Glace aux rillettes anyone?

The Local France
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French come up with new flavour of ice cream: Glace aux rillettes anyone?
Photo: AFP

Forget about chocolate and vanilla ice cream, how about a scoop or two of rillettes flavour?

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With temperatures hitting the late twenties around France this week, you might be tempted to treat yourself to an ice cream.

Two dairy farmers from Parcé-sur-Sarthe in northwest France have created glace aux rillettes. And it’s a hit with the locals apparently.

The couple created the unusual flavour as a bit of fun for the local Printemps des Rillettes festival, which celebrates the Sarthe speciality of rillettes, a potted meat similar to pâté.

But it’s now being sold in local supermarkets and restaurants. A school cantine has even ordered 500 pots.

“It seems to work,” dairy farmer Catherine Riauté told France Bleu. “People clearly like it as you can really taste the rillettes”.

“It’s not sickly, it’s very light. People were surprised, but pleasantly surprised,” adds her partner Patrice.

The creation is made with rillettes, sugar, eggs and milk and is believed to have first been devoured in the historic Touraine province of central France back in the 15th century. 

Traditionally made from pork belly or shoulder, rillettes is meat chopped into small pieces and cooked slowly in fat before being made into a paste. It can also be made from duck, rabbit, salmon or tuna.

The spread is usually served with bread although it's not to be confused with pâté, which is generally smoother and made from organ meat such as liver.

It's a speciality of the central towns of Tours and Le Mans. 

READ ALSO: The French delicacies foreigners find hard to stomach

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