French Food Safari

French Food Safari opens with a tour of the world's largest wholesale produce market Rungis on the outskirts of Paris - as big as a suburb and selling every food you can imagine - from Icelandic sea urchins to French forest mushrooms. It's a food lover's dream and Guillaume and Maeve are in heaven, tasting as they go.

French Food Safari journeys under the ground in Paris to the secret bakery of one of the great Parisian bakers - the rock star of bread Jean-Luc Poujaran, who supplies all the top restaurants in the city. A perfect loaf of his naturally leavened bread takes 3 days to prove and the results are golden crusted and fragrant.

French Food Safari explores the delicious relaxed style of eating of the bistro - the inexpensive way of eating that has been popular for hundreds of years. We spend time in the kitchen of St Germain bistro chef Yves Camdeborde who trained in the top restaurants but believed he would have more fun in a bistro - the diners love it too - his bistro Le Comptoir is now booked 6 months in advance.

Maeve and Guillaume travel to the mountainous Ardeche region of France to meet artisan goat cheese maker Jérôme Herphelin and his happy herd of goats. Then it's back into the cellars below the Parisian streets to see how beautiful cheeses like Jerome's are carefully tended to be at their delicious best for customers.

French Food Safari travels to Lyon and gets swept up in the fun of eating in the local bouchons - the relaxed eating houses which have existed for hundreds of years, starting as canteens for the local silk factory workers. One of the favourite bouchon dishes is a lentil salad and Guillaume makes his own easy delicious version, which lives up to the description of "the poor man's caviar".

French Food Safari spends a delightful day in a small French village in the Ardeche with top selling cookbook author Stephane Reynaud. This is a celebration of the butcher and the baker, the closeness to the land and the slow calm of village life, followed by a demonstration of warm French hospitality - from the groaning cheese platter with 16 different choices to the huge pot au feu.

French Food Safari experiences the thrill of the hunt amongst the oak trees of Perigord with trained dog Alfonse leading Guillaume, Maeve and France's truffle king Pierre-Jean Pebeyre to find the edible underground fungus referred to as the black diamond.

French Food Safari gets the lowdown on how a top class kitchen works by joining Guillaume Brahimi for a busy night at his restaurant to see how hundreds of exquisite meals are created and served. We discover why butchers are awarded France's highest culinary awards for their work and in Melbourne, chef Gerard Fabre shows how to cook a perfect steak with French fries.

French Food Safari is taken on a tour of one of the top Parisienne kitchens with 3 Michelin starred chef Guy Savoy who cooks up some of his signature dishes for Maeve and Guillaume to taste. We have a lesson in sauces from respected chef Tony Bilson who discusses the precision needed to create perfection. We visit one of Paris' most famous wood-fired bread maker Poilâne.