Happy New Year!
The 2014 holiday season has come to a close. Nick and I spent most of our vacation time off at home in Toulouse. We did take a trip for several days before Christmas to a small town called Gourdon, 1.75 hours north of Toulouse in the department of Lot.
We stayed at the apartment of another language assistant who invited others without plans to travel home for Christmas to come visit her and discover her small countryside town. Gourdon was quaint and cute. We enjoyed going for long walks through town, a hike around a lake, preparing Christmas-time French meals at home, visiting a café or two, and ultimately attending a Christmas Eve mass in a very old French cathedral in town.
The 9:30pm Christmas Eve service was well attended by the town-folk. It opened with a 30 minute children’s pageant (though not at all the same content as those I know in the US!), followed by a formal service that must have lasted at least 2 hours itself. I was struck by how freezing cold the church was! Apparently I’ve never sat in an unheated church at night/in winter before. But of course these 600+ year old churches have no heat… I guess I just never realized heating would never have been added? In any case, after 2 hours I was frozen and ready to go home so I confess we slipped out early… after all Santa comes around midnight, doesn’t he? We ended the night with a toast among new friends and tried to get some shuteye.
On Christmas morning we took an early morning train back to Toulouse. Back at our place we were able to enjoy gift opening, coffee, and some breakfast. Nothing in town was open on Christmas day so we set ourselves up at home and had our own “French Christmas feast” of raclette, oysters, artichokes, buche de noel, and clementines. Traditional French meals are served in courses. You may start with an appetizer course, then have an entrée (in French called the plat), then perhaps a salad, next a cheese plate followed by coffee and dessert, then fruit at the finish. I won’t pretend we established all the required courses for just the two of us, but we emulated a French Christmas dinner as it suited us.
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- The clearly american food items pictured on the right above were a gift from some good american friends back home. Nothing like receiving a package stuffed with peanut butter for Americans in France 😉
I asked my students and colleagues before Christmas what is typically eaten here on Christmas. Among the items listed were some easy ones I would cross off our list like turkey and fois gras, but the tradition of eating seafood (especially oysters) appeals to Nick especially so we were sure to include it.
Insert note about our dear French friend Bernie : a Toulousain Americanaphile with a welcoming home and hugely generous spirit, Bernie is our friend who loves all things American. He invites all visiting Americans to join him and discover for themselves the glory that is his self-constructed American Western Saloon behind his house. It is without a doubt the best place to go for a drink here in Toulouse. He has adopted us during our sejour to be his American regulars, always invited to join him for drinks in his private saloon out back and even to join the occasional meal with his family (yes, complete with all the French courses).
Having never before experienced French raclette—and thanks to Bernie who kindly lent us his raclette machine over Christmas while he travels with his family for the holidays—we decided Christmas was the perfect time to try it out.
Raclette is a type of cheese but also refers to a meal of grilled things topped with said melted cheese. What I call the “raclette machine” is just a table-top grill with small pans. You grill things like veggies (and charcuterie if you’re a carnivore) on the top surface, while you melt sliced raclette cheese below in the little trays. Then you pour your melted cheese over your grilled things and enjoy. I’ve been hearing my students talk about raclette for months and now I understand why it is so popular. It is fun and delicious!
Finally, bûche de noel (or yule log cake) is the traditional dessert served on Christmas. I’m told that the cake originates from the idea that the French would all leave their homes on Christmas Eve to go to evening church services. They would leave one log on the fire to keep the house warm and welcome them upon their return home. The bûche de noel therefore represents the log in the Christmas Eve hearth that welcomes cold, hungry people home as they embark upon the hour of Christmas Eve feasting and celebration.
The first buche shown here was an ice cream cake version, the second is a sampler of 4 flavors: vanilla, buttercream, coffee, and chocolate, and the third buche is perhaps the most traditional as your standard chocolate ganache. We recommend the real cake and not the ice cream version. Preferred flavors: coffee and chocolate. I’m not a cake lover, but the buche is nice.
The huge Christmas feast in France takes place on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day as it is in my family. I know American families who do it one way or the other. I think I wouldn’t mind doing a bit of both; I say the more feasts and traditions the better!
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Life-Pause in Toulouse 