Lamprey à la bordelaise has disappeared from many Bordeaux restaurant menus since April 2023, most notably from Brasserie Le Noailles and La Tupina where it was formerly a big hit with diners.
It follows a ban on lamprey fishing by the administrative court of Bordeaux at the request of Défense des milieux aquatiques (DMA), an association for the preservation of marine life. DMA argues the species is nearing extinction as a result of overfishing.
Restaurants that have kept the dish on the menu source their lamprey from nearby Loire-Atlantique, where judges have maintained an authorisation delivered by the prefecture last February. Such is the case at Le Cochon Volant in Les Capucins district.
Rewind 11 years, and Pascale Bouldy, owner of the Château Bellegrave vineyards in Pomerol, had told Le Point in 2014: “My mother-in-law gave me the recipe. It's a lot of work, but I'm lucky enough to know a fisherman who supplies me with the cleaned lamprey, so all I have to do is cook it.”
However, when The Connexion reached out to her for this article, she reflected: “All that is gone now.”
She speculated that the fisherman she had used was most probably retired by now. And, if not, that he would no longer be fishing lamprey.
The number of lamprey fishermen has shrunk over decades. Some 37 are registered in Gironde, with a third of them described as earning a living exclusively from lamprey. They used to be fished from early January to late April. However, this period reduced over time.
Lamproie à la bordelaise has been around since at least the Middle Ages – the recipe passed down through generations.
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The cornerstone of the dish, the bleeding of the lamprey, appears in Le Ménagier de Paris, a French medieval guidebook from 1393, as noted by French food historian Patrick Rambourg.
Recipes until the 18th Century advised cooking lamprey in sauce rousse, a mix of fried flour, spring onion, parsley, chopped mushrooms, capers, anchovies, salt and pepper.
Gourmet lamprey with potatoes and leeksredzen2/Shutterstock
À la bordelaise, meanwhile, means that it is cooked in red wine.
The following recipe was shared by chefs Maïté and Micheline Banzet, who co-hosted legendary 1980s TV show La Cuisine des mousquetaires, in one of their episodes.
Lamprey recipe
Ingredients:
a lamprey,
one large white onion,
three to four leeks,
three tablespoons of duck fat,
two tablespoons of flour,
olive oil,
herbs: laurel, thyme, parsley,
three garlic cloves,
salt, butter, pepper and sugar.
It is best cooked with wine with a soft tannin and fruity taste, usually aged three to five years.
Method
1. You will need to hang the lamprey over a hook and bleed it for two to three hours. Save the blood in a plate with a little of the wine to avoid coagulation. Boil the lamprey for three minutes. Skin and gut the lamprey and cut it roughly into four of five.
2. Put, in three separate dishes, the duck fat, the olive oil and the wine. Place the onion with the duck fat. Chop your leeks separately while it simmers. Put them in the olive oil and simmer. Add salt and pepper. Once the onion is cooked, add flour. Let it simmer for a few minutes. Flambé the wine as it boils, then extinguish the flame with the lid and turn off the heat. Add the wine to the dish with the onions and flour. Add the leeks and mix together. Next, add the garlic and the herbs and a pinch of salt and pepper. Leave to simmer for two hours, covered with a lid. Add the lamprey pieces and cook for 45 minutes.
3. Once it has cooked, add the blood of the lamprey, mixed with wine, and turn off the heat. Add butter to bring out the flavour and then serve.
“Some people add squares of chocolate to thicken the sauce,” said Ms Banzet. “This is my stepmother’s secret ingredient, actually,” said Ms Bouldy.
