The Nantua sauce and the missing crawfishes

What’s this?

A yummy recipe from Lyon area.

Traditionally, you can eat the Nantua sauce with pike quenelles: it’s an orange sauce, made with crawfishes butter and béchamel.

The little history

Aah, Nantua, its lovely lake, its mountain and little rivers...

The small city was named after nant which means "stream" in Celtic language.

Indeed, the city was founded near a stream running into the lake!

But crawfishes disappeared from Nantua water... they started to die in the 19th century, owing to a plant parasite. People tried to restock the lake, in vain...