How we feasted over the fête.

There was great debate this year on our Christmas and holiday feasting.  As it was going to be our first Christmas in France we were keen to embrace our new culture as well as keep some good old traditions going.

Before we moved here I was told that the French ‘don’t do Christmas’ well nothing could be further from the truth and yes they do not do Christmas in a ‘in your face, overly commercial way’ but let’s face it the French never turn down a chance to party.

On the day of Noel it would just be the four of us with our constant companion Skype we decided we would not go the turkey route and possibly just do duck or goose with most of the trimmings. However we never got past the entree and left overs! For Christmas Eve we chose to go with slow roast lamb which was simply delicious.  We ate this before Midnight Mass which was at 9pm, not midnight.  Mass was a really interesting experience, especially as it was in French and and as we are not catholic,  it's not our usual form of worship.

Traditionally we always have champagne and panettone on Christmas morning and this year was no exception.  After the mass unwrapping and a bit of Skyping it was such a beautiful day we decided to go for a walk around the town which ended up so hot we were down to shirt sleeves.  On our return I started to prepare the foie gras which was our constant entree over the fete season.  Delicious as we know with aged biscuity champagne, Muscat doux or possibly my favourite an Alsace Gewürztraminer. We had all three at one time or another. The kids enjoyed the foie gras but preferred the chocolate given by Papa Noel, no restrictions on Christmas day.

The traditional starters here during this time are foie gras, smoked salmon and oysters and who were we to buck tradition?  As we love all three we embraced this but possibly overdid it on the oysters just a touch, I love them but gluttony does spring to mind, needless to say we had more than our fair share.

Boxing day (which doesn’t exist here) was all about the sanglier, it was too large for us to have ‘en familie’ so we invited our good friends around to share it with us.  I had marinated the meat for 2 days in red wine and herbs and then cooked it really slowly, mainly on top of the fire.  I served it with the traditional haricot beans.  It was rich and delicious and accompanied with a magnum of the local Cote du Roussillon village red it was a real feast and felt good; like we could taste the ‘earth’ on our plate and in our glass, could I feel, just a little root growing?

Hubby had kindly brought back a really good Christmas pudding and mince pies from England. (I hadn’t realised you could not buy them here or the get most of the ingredients either, next year I will be more organised.)  They were delicious as was the shop bought bûche au chocolate, which is the more traditional dessert here. Of course the fromage, oh the fromage we should have just lived on the fromage.

On the Sunday we decided to explore a local market at Esperanza, about 30 minutes up the valley and it was a good market but we didn’t need anything which was almost disappointing, however one always needs bread and the hazel nut and raisin baguette never made it back home, it was so good.  On the way out I noticed an old ice cream box holding some treasure, local truffles; I had to have one. Hubby paled and was scared to ask the price but I came away with a small one and for truffle was a very reasonable price.  Shaved on top of scrambled eggs, simply delicious. Even a thumbs from the kids but I think that was more about the eggs than the truffle itself.

Suddenly it was New Year’s Eve and what to eat then? Ma fille was really determined that we did most of our traditions – dress up naturally, with lots of bling..... and watch a certain appropriate ‘Holiday’ film.  So we had an early dinner of magret de canard with a black cherry jus, really good.  We then left the house at 9ish to go up the mountain to join our friends for a New Years Eve party.  The kids played in the cold on the tennis courts and we dance up a ‘petite tempête.’  Good fun had by all.

We had many delicious meals at various friends, made some fun stuff together like our ‘four seasons’ pizza, (we all had our own corner), and generally feasted.  Thank goodness for the almost daily walks to shift a bit of those calories.

All too soon it was the 5^th and the Gallette des Rois needed to be had, we had a savoury one on the Saturday night which was delicious with jambon and cheese sauce all encased in pastry (it was worth those millions of calories) then two brioche types; one with caramel and one with candied fruits, all very delicious. The kids had one at school on the 6^th as well.  I was sad to take down the decorations and put out our beautiful tree but at least we will use it again for our summer braais, along with the vine wood we have collected.

So now it’s time to work off those extra calories like most after a period of feasting but I have just heard the French celebrate the new year all of January and there is bound to be more feasting..... not sure I can cope! Bonne année!