Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Dieppe - Maps, Ivory And Scallops


Famous for its scallops and the tragically botched Dieppe Operation during WWII, these days Dieppe is a pretty seaside town with the nearest beach to Paris and a photogenic marina typical for Normandy.


Its name derives from the Norse word djepp, deap, for its haven was such allowing it to become an important sea port: the expedition to found the Nouvelle France, French Canada set out from here. Owing to a rich maritime tradition and good connections with Portuguese explorers, Dieppe was home to Europe’s most famous cartographical school of the 16th century, renowned for its ornate, luxury-edition maps that mysteriously featured Australia before its “official” discovery in 1776 by Captain Cook.



Château de Dieppe sitting on the hill that overlooks the city houses a collection of ivory artefacts, a reminder of the city’s once prosperous trade with Africa. At one time there was even a French colony of Petit-Dieppe on the coast of the Gambia that supplied its big sister in Europe with elephant tusks.

Apart from the scallops, Dieppe’s trademark delicacy is the marmite dieppoise: fish and seafood stewed in cream, cider and onions, lightly flavoured with spices. Mussels and shrimp need to be featured prominently to classify for the appellation.

A few kilometres inland from Dieppe is the Château de Miromesnil – the likeliest birthplace of Guy de Maupassant, the scandalous author, whose books, in my childhood, were the equivalent of the modern-time Internet porn – something that parents wanted to keep as far away as possible from their children. They normally occupied the upper book shelves so that we could only reach them after a certain age. A vain precaution as we were smart enough to use chairs for that purpose.



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