Lentils for lunch

I'm not sure Americans in general eat enough lentils. They are a standard item here in France, served hot with salt pork (lentilles au petit salé) or cold in salads with vinaigrette dressing. I made a batch yesterday to have with a Toulouse sausage, some "pulled" duck meat, and diced-up turnips — they are the brown cubes you see in the photo above. You can subsitute carrots, rutabagas, or parsnips for the turnips. One big advantage of cooking and eating dried lentils is that they cook quickly. I soaked the ones we ate yesterday for an hour or so in cold water and then cooked them for about 30 minutes with the meats, turnips, and duck (chicken or turkey would be a fine substitute).

I've blogged about lentils several times over the past 20 years. Here's a link to some of those posts. I remember being surprised to learn that Canada is the biggest producer worldwide . I wasn't surprised to learn that India consumes more lentils than any other country (as dahl). The lentils I cooked yesterday were green lentils. They were probably grown in central France (in the Berry province or in the Auvergne). Green lentils grown around the town of Le Puy-en-Velay in Auvergne have  a European Union AOP quality label. Other varieties are marketed as red, brown, coral (yellow) or black lentils.