Seafood is an important part of the cuisine of Poitou Charentes as a look at the quayside restaurants of La Rochelle with their menus of sea bass and turbot and Oleron oysters will confirm. Try a local favourite, ‘moules au Pineau’ - mussels cooked with tomatoes, Pineau, garlic and parsley.

Perhaps not so much to a visitor’s taste are ‘les petits gris’, the famous snails so popular with the Charentais.

From the Marais come melons, Parthenay beef, eels, frogs legs, white mojhettes beans and red onions from Niort along with small creamy Chabichou goats cheese and desserts flavoured with angelica.

Poitou is known for its leeks and yellow onions, goose and Poitou-Charentes lamb. Even Poitou Charentes butter is classified to an AOC standard. ‘Broye du Poitou’ is an interesting dessert (literally crushed of Poitou) as it is broken instead of cut to be served.

Sweet-toothed visitors will appreciate Poitou's chocolate shops where you will find sugar coated chocolates in the form of potatoes or seabird eggs.

Whatever your menu, a glass of Cognac, the amber nectar of Poitou Charentes will end it in style.