Corsica

Corsica, the Île de Beauté is one of the last McDonald’s-free zones in the world. Although it’s never included among the great gourmet regions of France, you will dine very well on the big island. Its sunny, unpolluted climate, its clear rivers and seas, its combination of Mediterranean and alpine climates and soils are brimful of character and uniquely influence its produce: this is what the French call terroir, and you can really taste it.

In spite of being an island, Corsica is so mountainous, its villages so historically isolated, that its traditional economy was pastoral. Free range sheep and goats are the source of Brocciu, the cheese that goes into about half of the island’s dishes. Semi-wild native black pigs (porcu nustrale) foraging on roots, grasses, acorns, chestnuts and maquis make the island’s excellent charcuterie, its prisuttu, coppa de Corse, lonzu, salamu (dried salami) and figatellu, much of it smoked on scented wood.