It’s La Chandeleur, Fête de la Lumière today. You might know it as Candlemas, and if you’re English, you’ve probably not given it a thought, or even knew it existed.
Here in France, you’ll certainly know all about it. If you’re Catholic, you’ll remember the day as the one in which the Virgin Mary was purified after giving birth, and Jesus himself was presented at the Temple.
Catholic or not, the French eat a lot of crêpes today. Apparently, whilst making them, it’s traditional to hold a coin in your writing hand and a pan in the other, and flip the crêpe into the air. If you manage to catch the pancake in the pan, your family will be prosperous for the rest of the year. It’s exactly half way though the official winter season, in any case. Pancakes perhaps look a little like the sun, so they stand in for the sun – ‘la lumière’.
Winter sunlight looking like a crêpe?
More important than eating however, is seeing what Winter is thinking. He pays the day a lot of attention. He has decisions to make. On this day, Winter will either pack his bags and disappear till the end of Autumn, or he’ll settle in, and make his presence thoroughly felt for quite a few more weeks. Hence the expression:
À la Chandeleur, l’hiver cesse ou reprend vigueur
At Candlemas, winter ends or strengthens.
It looks pretty much as though he’s decided though. Today the temperatures plunge from a high of minus 3, to a low of minus 10 (and feeling like minus 16), and the ten day forecast is worse. Tomorrow, for example, it promises to be minus 9 at 10.00 a.m. and feel like minus 16.
It’s quite nice not to have to wait till Shrove Tuesday for the first pancakes of the year though. Even better that we can be snug indoors today and hope for Winter to knock off duty.
View from the roof terrace at 8.00 a.m. It looks as though Winter’s really made up his mind
A good old-fashioned English Christmas has come early to Lavelanet. To the library (oops, mediathèque) to be exact. The librarian there enjoys children’s literature, and is a bit of an Anglophile. So she’s mounting a small festival of English Children’s literature featuring everyone from John Burningham and Quentin Blake to, of course, Charles Dickens and Beatrix Potter.
What a disappointment I am to her. I can’t produce a pretty tea set awash with rosebuds, and she can’t believe I really don’t like tea very much: and that when I do drink it, I decline to add milk.
Look what father Christmas left!
She’s wheeled in Découverte des Terres Lointaines to help with all the activities for schools, retirement homes, and the general public. And DTL have wheeled me in as Consultant on All Matters English. Together we’ve chosen recipes and we’re baking biscuits and cakes and we’ve planned craft activities round, for instance, our ‘so British’ Christmas cards. From tomorrow, I’ll be reading stories in English, helping pull crackers, and unpacking – many times – a stocking which dear old Father Christmas has delivered to me early.
Mass production of gingerbread men
My other job is to correct the misapprehensions learnt from French websites and children’s books about England. Who knew that the English enjoy tucking in to a huge plate of oysters at the beginning of Christmas dinner? Or that all British schoolchildren have a free bottle of milk every morning? Margaret Thatcher abolished that back in the early 70’s. And Sylvia misunderstood me, and thought we served stewed cherries, not sherry sauce, with our Christmas pudding (cherries – sherry: easy to confuse when you speak no English). And so on.
But it’s been fun transforming the community room in the library into an impossibly cosy snug, full of Christmas cheer. Let’s see what ‘le tout public’ think, when we open the doors tomorrow.
It’s town-twinning time again. Our Breton friends were here in Laroque for a few days, and a Good Time Was Had By All. It’s hard to describe the simple pleasure of this weekend. Re-discovering the region through Breton eyes and getting to know our northern friends a bit better: getting to know our Laroquais friends and acquaintances better too: music – lots of it – thanks to the talented and eclectic musicians who always form part of the group – a singer and bodhran player, a flautist and a keyboard player: and shared eating, lots of it.
If you still think France is the land of sophisticated and fine dining, you’ve yet to discover the Ariège. People lived close to the land, they were out with their stock, working the fields, or keeping the textile industry alive and successful. Busy women put a pot of food on the fire in the morning and expected it to look after itself till hungry workers came in demanding nourishment. And they were likely to get azinat. Azinat with rouzolle. That’s what about 80 of us sat down to on Saturday night,
I suggested it was a dish that was more than a bit troublesome to prepare. Joscelyne, in her 70’s and a life-long Ariègeoise was having none of it.
‘No, it’s easy! Take a large cabbage and blanch it for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop your onions or leeks, carrots and any root vegetables you fancy, and sauté them gently. Add some slices of belly pork, some sausages, a couple of bay leaves and the cabbage. Throw in a couple of litres of water and simmer gently for at least a couple of hours.
Now throw in some large chunks of potato, some dried sausage, and the duck leg confit (these are portions of duck which have been preserved by salting the meat and cooking it slowly in its own fats) which you’ve browned gently in a frying pan to remove the excess fat, and continue to cook gently for another half hour or so.
Meanwhile, make the rouzolle. Mix together chunky sausage meat, some chopped fatty bacon, eggs, milk, a couple of slices of bread, chives, parsley, garlic. Form into a flat cake and fry on both sides.’
According to Joscelyne, the hungry family would have as their lunch the bouillon from the dish, poured over slices of bread generously sprinkled with grated cheese. Cheap, filling and nourishing.
The deliciously soggy bouillon
Dinner, at the end of the day, would be all the meats and vegetables.
Azinat
That evening, we sat down to the soup, followed by the meats. Followed by cheese. Followed by croustade, the Ariègeois answer to apple pie. Followed by membrillo – quince paste – and coffee. Followed by an energetic evening of Breton dancing. We needed to burn off those calories.
It took a while to get us all on the floor. But we all made it eventually. Even me.
We’ve just got back from our weekend on the other side of the Pyrénées, and I’ve decided to post these ‘postcards’ to show a few happy days in Sant Cugat del Vallès, the very attractive town where Emily is now working; the not-Hallowe’en-but- la Castañada festivities; and a relaxing weekend.
Eating and drinking were important. Straight away, as we drove across the mist and rain shrouded Pyrénées from France, there was a decision to be made. Lunch on this side of the border? You can’t get fed much later than 12.30 here. Or wait till Spain? Nothing there is open much before 2.00 p.m.
We arrived in Catalonia just in time for la Castañada. Instead of Hallowe’en, they commemorate All Souls’ Tide. Roasted chestnuts are sold wrapped in cones of newspaper with roasted sweet potatoes and peddled from impromptu stalls, or by excited groups of children. Panellets are mashed potato, sugar syrup and ground almonds – maybe cocoa or dried fruits too, rolled in pine nuts and briefly baked till the nuts turn golden. It sounds odd, but they’re delicious accompanied by a shot of strong black coffee.
Coffee shops, with tables outside so you can enjoy the late October heat seem to be in every street, and we adjusted our bodies to Spain’s very different rhythms. Food generally seems cheaper in Spain. A pleasant pause for breakfast, after taking the children to school, after shopping or work, or just because it’s a nice idea and the sun is shining is an affordable treat, and cafés don’t seem to struggle for custom. Nor do lunch-stops. As in France, the 3 course lunch with wine and coffee is on offer in most restaurants, but cheaper here. And it’s a leisurely affair. We found ourselves spending an hour or two every day that we were there over the lunch table, eating, talking and simply people-watching.
Shopping seems less anonymous too. Whether in St. Cugat, or city-centre Barcelona, greengrocers and grocers, wine merchants and bakers – especially bakers – all seemed to be doing brisk business. The out-of-town supermarkets are there alright, but so far, they don’t seem to have won.
So here are my postcards. Have a glance at them over a lazy cup of coffee.
A few pumpkins on display last year at Belesta’s annual Fête de la Citrouille
Go to any veg. stall on a French market just now, and there’ll be at least one giant pumpkin. The stall holder will sell you a portion if you like, using a hefty cleaver to wrest a kilo or so of orange flesh from this magnificent vegetable. The market’s probably got at least one stall devoted to nothing but pumpkins: Turk’s head, musque de Provence, butternut, red kuri, rouge vif d’Etampes………
It’s not so very long ago in England that I’d be doing the rounds of all the supermarkets, the day after Hallowe’en, gathering up the last few Jack o’Lantern pumpkins at bargain-basement prices.
Jack o’Lantern dressed up for Hallowe’en
They’d been stocked for everyone to make their scarey Hallowe’en pumpkin faces with and that was all.
Hardly anybody used them to cook with (presumably not even the many Americans who live in Harrogate, with their apparent love of pumpkin pie), and Hallowe’en over, the unsold ones would be junked.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall et al have put paid to that, and now the English love pumpkins as much as the French always have.
Here’s an easy and long-established soupy stew from round these parts (though I learned about it from Nigel Slater) to warm you up after a chilly day in the Great Winter Outdoors.
Hmm. We made short work of that.
When we first tasted it, we thought it nice enough, not earth-shattering though. It’s grown on us, and now we think it’s comfort food par excellence: especially those pillows of bread, soaked in scalding hot flavoursome juices.
Garbure Catalane
Toast thick slices of bread- preferably sourdough, and layer them up in a casserole or slow cooker with fried onions, garlic, marjoram, sliced skinned tomatoes, and thin slices of pumpkin. Top the dish up with seasoned water and olive oil and bake for an hour or two in a slow oven (or most of the day in a slow cooker). Take the lid off the dish for the last half hour or so and return to the oven with a crust of grated cheeses (parmesan is good to include in the mix, as it provides a welcome crispiness) for the last half hour or so. Or grill for a few minutes if you’ve been using a slow cooker.
I often stop outside the local primary schools in Lavelanet and Laroque as I pass by, to read the week’s menus posted on the notice board: I think I’d really like an invitation to eat there at midday. There’s always an entrée, a main dish, a pudding and cheese or fruit, and it often sounds quite appetising stuff: roast turkey with sauce forestière, chicken wings à la dijonnais, stuffed tomatoes, velouté de legumes…..
But today I was horrified. What am I to make of the British Day they’re planning one day next month?
Betteraves* et raisins
Fish stick
Petits pois à l’anglaise
Crème anglaise
Crumble.
*beetroot
Apart from the crumble, the latest must-eat pudding in France, it all looks pretty dire. What exactly is this beetroot dish they’re starting with? Google doesn’t have a clue. No wonder the French think we English don’t have any good food.
Our wonderful HelpXers, Vicki and Marc, enjoyed spending time in the kitchen. They cooked and cooked and made memorable meals: here are just three.
Vicki was keen to introduce us to this Chinese dish. It’s fun to eat: use lettuce ‘wrapping’ to make your own pork parcels up, then garnish them with what you fancy from the bits and bobs on the side.
Sang choy bow
1 tbsp sunflower oil
Large piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 red chillies , deseeded and finely sliced
500g minced pork
85 g light brown sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
Juice from 1 lime
2 finely shredded lime leaves
Mix of lettuce leaves
Large handful mint and coriander leaves, very roughly chopped
handful toasted peanuts , roughly chopped
2 shallots finely sliced into rings shallots
1 lime, cut into wedges
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Fry the ginger, garlic and chillies for 1 min. Add the mince, then cook on a high heat until golden brown, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as you go. Sprinkle over the brown sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and shredded lime leaves, then cook everything down until sticky.
Tip the mince into a serving bowl, then serve with a bowl of lettuce leaves for wrapping the mince in; the herbs, shallots and peanuts for scattering over; and the lime wedges for squeezing.
Sang choy bow: a little lettuce parcel just waiting to be eaten
On their last evening, the night of the ‘Asian tapas-Smörgåsbord’ , Marc introduced us to the Vietnamese answer to crudités, Gado gado. I wasn’t watching while he was cooking, and I forgot to get his recipe from him, so … Marc, if you’re reading … is this version OK?
Gado gado consists of a plate of various raw or lightly cooked vegetables to dunk into a peanut sauce. Marc served raw cabbage and cucumber, lightly steamed potato slices and french beans, and quartered hard-boiled eggs.
1 fresh green chili chopped, (use 1/2 for milder sauce, or leave it out)
Salt
200 g roughly crushed peanuts
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoon lime juice
450ml hot water
Place the garlic cloves, green chili and salt in a mortar and pestle and pound into a paste.
In a small bowl, add the garlic paste, crushed peanuts, sugar and lime juice. Pour in hot water a little at a time, while whisking the peanut butter. Stop pouring the hot water when the peanut butter forms a smooth, dippable sauce. You may not need to use all of the hot water.
Taste the peanut sauce and adjust salt, sugar and lime juice if needed. Serve with your selection of vegetable crudités
Gado gado
Vicki found this recipe in my copy of Dennis Cotter’ s ‘Paradiso Seasons’, a wonderful vegetarian cookbook. If you explore the web, you’ll find he’s tweaked this recipe several times. The original is pretty damn’ good.
Chocolate-olive oil mousse
150g. good dark chocolate
140 ml. olive oil
4 eggs separated
125 g. golden caster sugar
(1 tbspn. Cointreau or other orange liqueur)
Pinch salt
In a bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and slowly stir in the olive oil. Beat the egg yolks with half the sugar until pale and fluffy. Stir in the chocolate oil mix (and Cointreau if used). Whisk the eggs with a pinch of salt until stiff, then continue whisking while adding the remaining sugar gradually in small batches. Fold the egg white mixture and put the mousse into the fridge to chill for at least four hours. It has a strong structure, and will easily keep overnight (but not if you taste it first…….)
It scarcely mattered that this chocolate mousse wasn't prettily presented: it disappeared rather quickly
I’m so chuffed to be in England for the blackberry season. Ariègeois blackberries baked in the hot sun are sweet, characterless and make a rather dull jam. But then who goes to southern France to go blackberrying?
So yesterday I went out, meandered down a few nearby lanes, and came back with a bowl filled with large glossy, juicy, sweet and yet tart berries, a stained T shirt and fingers stuffed with tiny spines and tingling from nettle stings. I was very happy.
I set my berries to simmer down with the early apples from Jonet and Richard’s tree, and then…. only then, remembered I had neither a jelly bag nor a cache of jam jars ready waiting for the next stage. Oddly, I do have a preserving pan.
So it’s been the moment for a little ingenuity. An old clean T shirt ripped up made a jelly bag, and this morning we’ve been piling our toast with a week’s ration of marmalade, decanting apricot jam into a bowl, and scraping clean an almost-finished jar of honey. So far so good. But what happens when I need to make the next lot?
Returning from England to France, there’s generally a bag or two of various kinds of flour in the luggage. ‘What?’ I hear you grumble. ‘That woman who’s always banging on about buying local? The one who’s got no time for the English abroad who can’t exist without their mug of builder’s tea and a custard cream?’ Yes. That’s me. Guilty as charged.
Melting Moments
But the thing is, when in France, I sometimes have a happy hour or two baking English goodies – Melting Moments, Gingernuts, Marmalade Loaf Cake, that sort of thing – with or for French friends. And as I discovered the other week, French flour is simply not right for the job. Not better, not worse, just different.
I’d run out of my own supplies, so I nipped out and got a bag of good quality baking flour (because even more than in England, it’s important to buy the right type of flour for the job). And my tried and trusted favourites turned out all wrong. Ginger biscuits, instead of being satisfyingly chewy, with a solid crunch between the teeth, were sandy and brittle. Marmalade loaf cake, though light, was close-textured and almost crumbly. It was so disappointing. The answer, it seems, lies in the gluten content. The average French flour is ‘softer’, and has a lower gluten content than the average English flour.
French baguette
So is it surprising that superior French bakers in England, such as Dumouchel, where my daughter used to work on Saturdays, send over to Normandy for supplies of authentic French flour? Or that the average French stick, bought from the average English baker, in no way resembles its chewy French antecedent, the baguette.
English wholemeal loaves, fresh out of the oven
On this visit to England, I’m appreciating the softer crust and slightly moister qualities of a well-made wholemeal loaf, just as over in France, I enjoy the the crustiness of crisply baked French bread. Best to accept, I think, that both countries produce fine bakers and cake makers. But neither could do a fine job using the flour preferred by the other.
If you want an introduction to some of the many flours on offer to the keen baker, Dan Lepard’s site is a good place to start
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