Bouillon

Bouillon [French pronunciation: ​[bu.jɔ̃]] (Walloon: Bouyon) a is a municipality in Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region and Luxembourg Province. The municipality, which covers 149.09 km², had 5,477 inhabitants, giving a population density of 36.7 inhabitants per km².

Bouillon has a few schools, a lycée (middle school) and a gymnasium (high school), banks and a town square. Bouillon Castle still sits above the town centre, and is a popular tourist attraction.

History

In the Middle Ages Bouillon was a lordship within the Duchy of Lower Lorraine and the principal seat of the Ardennes-Bouillon dynasty in the 10th and 11th century. In the 11th century they dominated the area, and held the ducal title along with many other titles in the region. Bouillon was the location of the ducal mint and the dominant urban concentration in the dukes' possession.

There is a common misconception that Bouillon was a County. While the lords of Bouillon often were counts and dukes, Bouillon itself was not a county. The fortification of Bouillon Castle was, along with the County of Verdun, the core of the possessions of the Ardennes-Bouillon dynasty, and their combined territory was a complex mixture of fiefs, allodial land and other hereditary rights throughout the area. An example of the latter is the Advocacy of the monastery of Saint-Hubert en Ardennes, which was granted to Godfrey II by the Bishop of Liège.

Folle blanche

Folle blanche was the traditional grape variety of the Cognac and Armagnac regions of France. It is also known as Picpoule (with various variations of spelling (Piquepoul, Picpoul), although it is in fact unrelated to the Picpoul of the Languedoc) as well as Gros Plant and Enrageat blanc. Folle blanche is an offspring of Gouais blanc, with the other parent so far unidentified.

It has been mostly replaced by its hybrid offspring Baco blanc due to phylloxera damage. Baco blanc (also known as Baco 22 A) is a cross of Folle blanche and the Vitis riparia × Vitis labrusca hybrid Noah. Folle blanche is also the parent of the very hardy and disease-resistant Baco 1 (or Baco noir), a cross of Folle blanche and a Vitis riparia variety. Baco noir and Baco 22 A, like Folle blanche and their other parents, produce a very acid wine. This makes them more suited to distillation than less acidic grapes.

Folle blanche is used in the Loire Valley area and in Brittanny around Nantes to produce Gros Plant du Pays Nantais, a very dry and often tartly acidic wine that pairs well with shellfish. There it is used both in the production of table wine as well as eau de vie.

Bouillon (soup)

Bouillon (/ˈbuːjɒn/) is a Haitian soup traditionally cooked on Saturday. This name comes from the French verb bouillir, meaning to boil. It is made with sliced meat, potatoes, sliced plantains, yam, kelp, cabbage, and celery (other ingredient variations exist), and cooked as a mildly thick soup.

See also

References