On the evening of our day at Caudebec-en-Caux, we went for quite a long drive to the seaside town of Fecamp, where we had a most sumptuous dinner at what appeared to be a very impressive, historic Benedictine Abbey. Except it wasn't an abbey at all, and never was!
There was once an abbey in Fecamp, but this is not it.
This is a tale of someone who apparently was a very clever 19th century con man.
The story goes that a merchant called Alexandre Le Grand (1838-1898) invented a liqueur that he called Benedictine liqueur. He claimed that in his ancient book collection he had found a secret recipe for this liqueur which had been lost during the French revolution. He purchased or built an incredible building in Gothic and early Renaissance style, then set up displays of ancient books and works of art, and even installed sculptures of monks who supposedly served there. As a result, he created what looked like a genuine historic abbey, then installed his distillery in the building to give the impression that Benedictine monks were producing it, all for the purpose of promoting his liqueur. What an unbelievable story!
Nowadays the liqueur is still produced there and people can go on tours of the distillery and sample the liqueur.
The building also is used for functions, which is why we were there that night. And what a night it was. Music, an attractive though interesting (in the light of the story behind it) setting, and a gourmet dinner. Fascinating.
I have not captioned the photos, which include photos of our entree, my Mains (slow roasted lamb wrapped in what I think was very fine slices of eggplant), a vegetarian Mains, and our Dessert. You will see how people were fooled into thinking this was a real abbey. By the way, my fellow passengers who tried the liqueur were not particularly impressed with it, after all that.
No comments:
Post a Comment