Posts tagged w/ French food

French Food - Fondue

Posted by Chanda
Nov
18
2009

Ever since I had a delicious albeit overpriced fondue with a close friend in Le Quartier Latin eleven years ago in Paris, I have been in love with fondues and my fondue pot.


So, I thought I’d share a recipe for Fondue aux trois fromages:

Ingrédients

200 g de gruyère
200 g de fromage à raclette
100 g de mozzarella
1 gousse d’ail émincée
10 cl de lait et 20 cl de vin blanc
1 cuillerée à soupe de fécule de maïs
poivre noir du moulin
muscade râpée

Dice the cheese.  Heat up the milk, all but 4 tablespoons of the wine and the garlic in a caquelon (fondue pot).  Add the diced cheese all while stirring well.  In a separate bowl, mix the corn starch and the remaining white wine.  When the cheese has melted but is not liquid, pour this mixture into the caquelon while continuously whisking.  Simmer until smooth and creamy.  Bring to a boil and let it cook for a few minutes.  Add pepper and nutmeg.  Let the fondue simmer gently over a hot plate in the middle of the table as everyone dips their food into it.

You can dip breadsticks, little pieces of French baguette bread, small baked potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, apples or anything else you can think of in your fondue.

Bon appétit!

 
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French Cuisine - Fromage

Posted by Chanda
Aug
31
2009

A few things happened to me when I lived in France that made me begin to understand one of the major points of French culture - le fromage!  First of all, as a student who had to go out and get her own groceries for lunch, one of my first excursions was to a supermarket and the cheese aisle was about as long as the snacks aisle in the US (not just Roquefort, Camembert and Brie).  I later was told that there are over 1000 different kinds of cheese produced in France.  That’s a lot of cheese!  There are soft cheeses, hard cheeses, blues, goat’s cheeses (chèvre), herbed/garlic (Boursin) cheeses and much, much more.
Fromage

After about six months of living in France, I was invited to a friend’s house for lunch.  After the main course, out came the hostess with a large, round dish with several different cheeses on it.  My friend told me to take some of whichever I liked or to try them all.  So, I grabbed my knife and was just about to cut off the bottom of one of the cheese triangles, when his father waved me off and said, “On ne se coupe pas le fromage comme ça!” (You don’t cut cheese like that!).  After seeing how red I got in the face, he quickly laughed it off and said not to worry and explained to me that you are supposed to cut cheese in a way that everyone gets an equal part.  So instead of left/right (or just hacking the point off), you should cut the wedge from the top to the bottom.  In other words, with the large end of the wedge at the top, you cut a slice off vertically.  He then proceeded to explain the different taste of each of the cheeses and took great pleasure in getting me to try them all and discuss them.  Each different kind of cheese is cut in a different way, but always with the same principle behind the cut- that each person basically gets an equal part and for the cheese not to look demolished as it is served again and again after each meal on the cheese platter.  Custom is to pass the cheese platter around the table with each person carefully cutting a portion from each type of cheese and placing their portions on their own plate to eat them once everyone has been served.  You normally won’t see French people reaching to the center of the table to get more and more cheese.  If someone does want more, they usually take the platter to serve themselves more or ask someone to pass them the platter.
Years later when I again lived in France, a friend of mine would often invite me out to dinner and would always make a point to tell me to close my eyes and savor the cheese served after the meal and tell him if I could taste the grass the cheese-making animals had eaten prior to getting milked.  What???  Can you actually taste the grass in the cheese?  Is this true or is this just exaggerative French people for you again, I remember asking myself.  Needless to say, I never could taste the grass.  It just tasted like cheese to me, albeit delicious.

There’s a very complete and interesting website about French cheese that I found in English.  Take a look when you have time.  http://www.frencheese.co.uk/

 
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French Wedding Traditions

Posted by Chanda
Aug
15
2009

I was doing a wedding menu (menu mariage) translation today and I came across the word pièce montée, otherwise known as croquembouche.  I have to say that I hadn’t specifically remembered this dessert from the French wedding I attended back in the summer of 2003, but it is all sort of a blur now anyway.  I do remember however how the wedding took place in the city hall; then they held a separate, short ceremony right after that at the local church and then everyone moved on to a château some miles away for the reception and dinner.

The city hall ceremony is required in France as the church and state are strictly separated.  The wedding vows at these ceremonies have been set in stone by the government since Napoleon times.  A typical French wedding often lasts all day with the ceremonies, cocktails, four and five course meals, late night snacks and into the next with a day-after breakfast, a Sunday brunch or even continue on until Sunday lunch.

Just like the wedding I attended, many couples choose to hold their reception at one of France’s many, many beautiful chateaux.  The staffs at these castles prepare everything from the appetizers, to the meal, to the cake, to the photographer and much, much more.   Often times, these events include caricature artists who create and give guests free caricatures, gypsy dancers, magicians, children’s entertainment with babysitters, clowns, fairies and even videos and of course the dance entertainment may be provided by DJs, live orchestras or jazz musicians, just to name a few.  The dancing often begins between the meal courses so guests can work up an appetite for the next course.

Finally, the bride and groom can choose to have a traditional wedding cake or a pièce montée, which is a cream puff pastry that takes the form of a pyramid, basket, horn of plenty or dishes.  Bride and groom figurines are placed on top.  Some of them even feature lighted sparklers.  Tradition goes that the bride is to cut the first piece.  She can be assisted by her groom if she chooses.  The story goes that if this tradition was not kept, the bride would not be able to have children.  Also, it is supposedly bad luck if the figurines fall down.

Pièce montée

Reportedly, Eva Longoria had her pièce montée flown in to her Paris wedding from Los Angeles in first class accompanied by a body guard for just over $15,000.

Have any of you ever been to a French wedding?  We would love for you to share your experiences with us by writing a comment!

 
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French Cuisine - Coquilles Saint Jacques

Posted by Chanda
Jul
3
2009

The summer is underway and the pilgrims on St. James’ Way can be seen making their way to Santiago. One of my very favorite appetizers or first course dishes is Coquilles Saint Jacques or what is known in English as simply ’scallops’.  I don’t know about you, but I find Coquilles Saint Jacques much more elegant…but then again that seems to happen a lot with French cuisine. The funny thing about them is the fact that their history is actually tied to Spain and that they don’t have such an elegant name in Spanish…Saint Jacques or Saint James was one of the 12 Apostles and the scallop shell is the symbol of the crusaders of the Order of St. James, which was founded to protect pilgrims headed to Santiago de Compostela. The story goes that St. James saved a drowning knight’s life and the knight came out of the water covered in scallop shells. It is also said that the body of St. James, himself, was lost in the ocean on the way to Spain for burial and later washed ashore covered in scallops. There are also other versions. In any case, the order and the French dish were named in his honor.

I thought I would share this very simple Coquilles Saint Jacques recipe with all of you.

Ingredients:
1 lb. of scallops
2 pints mussels
10 oz. shrimp
3 shallots
1 glass of white whine
1 cup of fresh cream
2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 teaspoons of butter
2 small cans of mushrooms
salt
pepper

Mince the shallots and sauté them in the oil until clear. Add the scallops, mussels and shrimp and let them cook for 3 minutes on low heat. Then, add the mushrooms and again let it cook for a minute.
Pour the white wine over this and then pour in the fresh cream and let it cook for 5 more minutes. Thicken the sauce with butter. Salt and pepper.
Serve this in the scallop shells after you have cleaned them.

 
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Street French II - Food

Posted by Chanda
Jun
18
2009

French argot (slang) can be difficult to understand, but it’s really quite fun.  So, today, we’ll talk about some expressions involving food that don’t have so much to do with food really, but might be useful to know.  For example, if you want to say that you are a bit down in the dumps, you could say “J’en ai gros sur la patate” because ‘patate‘ although it really means ‘(potato) spud’ in English, is often used to refer to many other things when using French slang.  So, be careful, because ‘patate’ can also mean ‘idiot’ as in “Il est vraiment une patate”.  Or if you want to say that you have a friend who parties all night because he has a lot of energy or stamina, you could say “Il a la patate” or if you are wondering how you can get your energy back when you are sick with a cold, for example, you could ask “Qu’est-ce que je dois prendre pour avoir la patate?”.  If you’ve been overloaded with information and your head is going to explode, you could say “J’ai la tête comme une patate!“.  If you want to encourage someone by telling them to hang in there and not give up, you can say “Lâche pas la patate!” and although we could go on and on with the spuds (the French do grow 20 different varieties and perhaps for this reason, they seem to love using the word) finally, “patati patata” means ‘blah, blah, blah…’.
Moving on to sausages… If someone calls you “une andouille”, don’t thank them as they are calling you ‘a fool’.  If your mother or someone else tells you “Fais pas l’andouille!”, they are telling you not to be silly (or, rather, not to do silly things).
As for other foods, a really bad movie is referred to as “un navet” (a turnip). “Chou” (cabbage) can mean ‘honey’, ’sweatheart’, ‘granny’ and ‘love’ when talking about another person.  “Bête comme chou” refers to something that is really easy or ‘easy as pie’.  “Faire chou blanc” means to ‘draw a blank’.
And just to throw a few fruits in, ‘”une poire” (a pear) or even “une pomme” (an apple) can mean ‘a sucker’ as in someone who is gullible and falls for anything.  “Avoir la pêche” (peach) means to feel great and energetic just like “avoir la patate” above.
Well, I’m starting to get hungry, so until next time, je m’en vais (I’m outta here)!

 
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