Beef with Balzac by Clive Tully

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Le Prieure

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I'm seated in the sumptuously furnished dining room of the Michelin-starred La Cognette in Issoudun, in central France, and the dish that's set before me looks like a slice of chocolate pudding drizzled, or should I say glazed, in a yummy chocolate sauce. But this is no mere pudding. Actually, it isn't a dessert at all. What's lurking beneath the Pinot Noir de Reuilly and cocoa-flavoured sauce is in fact braised beef. Surely some mis-steak?

Maître Cuisinier de France Alain Nonnet laughs. "Honoré de Balzac used to come here," he explains, "and this is just the kind of dish he would have eaten. The meat comes from the leg of the animal, which is not a normal cut."

Balzac managed to outdo Charles Dickens in the detailed descriptions of places he'd visited which were worked into his novels, and La Cognette - which the author frequented between 1823 and 1830 - features at length in his novel La Rabouilleuse.

Nonnet held a special event to commemorate the bicentenary of Balzac's birth in May of last year, and the menu was such a success that he decided to continue with it, tempting diners with the aforementioned tranche de macreuse au chocolat, but not before tantalising their tastebuds with omelette à la Rabouilleuse, a delicate soufflé with crayfish, and finishing off with massepain d'Issoudun, an orange-flavoured marzipan.

At Euro 50 for a three-course meal plus dessert, you're not exactly looking at remortgaging the house, and the whole experience - the delicious meal and the intimate setting - is definitely one to relish. Which is no doubt the reason why La Cognette has played host to such celebrity diners as the late François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and Sasha Distel.

Even if your wallet won't stretch to the 1964 Chinon or very rare 1959 Vouvray, a bottle of wine with your meal is essential, and something local makes a lot of sense – after all, this is the Loire Valley, a prime centre of wine. So perhaps a Sancerre or Reuilly? With a very favourable exchange rate at the moment, you're also going to want to take some home. The wineries of the region are very accessible to visitors, with most offering tastings to help you make your choice.

Roughly the same distance from Issoudun, on the other side of the ancient city of Bourges, is Sancerre, a prominent wine-producing area for many hundreds of years. In Bué, Jean-Paul Balland and his wife cultivate 24 hectares of vineyards, producing mainly Sauvignon grapes. Here I sample some highlights from the past 10 years of wines, starting with the very latest, the 1999 Sauvignon blanc, young and fruity. “After two or three years, the acidity will go down," Balland explains. "Then the taste develops."

By the time I've worked my way back to the memorable 1990 vintage, I begin to see why the pros use the spittoon…

If you're a chocoholic, don't miss the city of Blois, perched on a steep-sided bank of the Loire. Once you've done the château, cathedral and the fascinating Maison de la Magie, a museum of magic dedicated to the legendary inventor and conjuror Robert Houdin, born in Blois in 1805, you have numerous chocolatiers to tempt you.

Blois is home to the Poulain chocolate factory, established more than 150 years ago when Auguste Poulain set out to produce the finest chocolate in France. We're talking the real thing here. The 100g bar of Chocolat Noir, which I scoffed in one heady moment of shameless indulgence, was chock-a-block with cocoa solids – a whopping 76 per cent. Not far from the château is L'Orangerie du Château, which has recently earned its first Michelin star. Their attention to detail is wonderful, and at around £15 for a meal to remember, incredible value for money.

There's nothing like a good cheese to complement a fine wine, and past experience has led me to conclude that the ultra-pungent goat's variety is definitely nothing like a good cheese. But in homage to human endeavour, I sample one or two types at the Fromagerie Jacquin in Valençay.

The Appellation d'origine contrôlée-rated Sainte Maure de Touraine cheese has its own legend from ages past which says that the straw down the middle of its cylindrical shape allows it to fly when the wind is blowing. The truth is, it's there to assist the drying process, and to help it keep its shape. It has a fairly goaty taste, but not overpowering, while the skin, slightly blued with a sprinkling of charcoal, adds extra texture. Not bad at all. As with the wineries, you can do a tour here and try a selection. If you're into mould in a seriously Stilton kind of way, don't miss the Petit Valençay, recognised by its characteristic truncated pyramid shape.

In the heart of the Sologne region is the Château du Moulin, which dates from the late 1600s. Not all of it survived the centuries, but what remains is full of character, its kitchen equipped with a roasting jack once turned by a dog-powered treadmill. Now that's what I call walkies. The château has a sole inhabitant, Nicole de Marcheville, whose family has owned it since 1901. Her husband was an industrialist in Paris, and after he died in 1960, she chose to live here on her own. Now a sprightly 82, she has no qualms about the long, lonely winters. "But I look forward to meeting visitors when the château is open in the summer," she adds with a smile.

Clearly it's a lifestyle I need to try. Château hotels abound throughout the Loire Valley – from the likes of the very grand Château de la Verrerie near Aubigny-sur-Nère, to more intimate stately homes such as the nearby Château d'Ivoy, both dating back to the old alliance with Scotland. Restored from a former drab existance, the Château d'Ivoy has six guest rooms, each equipped in individual styles with four-poster beds and antique furniture. The place even has its own ghost, which, as the owner Marie-France Gouëffon-de-Vaivre explains as I tuck into a breakfast with some delicious local conserves, walks two or three times a year with loud footfalls along the upstairs gallery. "He was a very unpopular tax collector at the time of the revolution," she tells me. "And so afraid of the guillotine that he decided to cheat it by hanging himself in the tower."

Tax cuts, it would seem, don't appeal to everybody.