In Vinay, at the Grand Séchoir, it is the kingdom of the Franquette, Maillette and Parisian, three varieties of walnut that characterize the Grenoble walnut, but there are hundreds in France and thousands all over the world.

Rare fruit thus, and all the more so that this fine and fair unripe walnut, with buttered fresh bread aromas, gets all its qualities from its soil, but also from the pure water of the summits which irrigates the walnut orchards of the Southern Grésivaudan. This is its preferred ground that stretches between the Drôme and Savoie.

There the walnut has been at home since the Roman period and its history is told in the Gallo-Roman museum in Saint Romain en Gal in Isère.

For good health, it is a marvel. It is rich in Omega 3 and arginine (a vasodilator), excellent for the heart. Filled with phosphor, which is good for the memory, vitamin E anti-ageing and copper, iron, zinc, potassium and magnesium, which makes it an ideal food complement, much more delicious than the capsules sold in the pharmacy!

But it is in the kitchen that it completly blossoms. In the walnut cake, speciality of Grenoble; in salads with unripe walnut; and in the form of oil or transformed into walnut wine drunk as an apéritif.

Philippe Girardon, the Domaine de Clairefontaine chef in Chonas l’Amballan, who likes using it in all his dishes, such are its gastronomic resources infinite, covers mountain trout with a coating of ground walnut. Delicious.