Thanksgiving in France

Thanksgiving, a day for being home with family, eating ridiculous amounts of food and being thankful for what we have. I am very thankful for my experience here in France. I’ve successfully eaten my way through my sejour, gleaning a much broader French vocabulary and comfort with the language and the people. I’ve made my way through some truly amazing French culture, movies, books, classes and a bit of travel. And its not quite over yet!
Last night, the other California students and I were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner put on by our program along with the Association Bordeaux-USA and the consulate. It was held in a collège or junior high school, which caused some fear on my part with visions of cafeteria food and strange ladies in hairnets dolling out the day’s mystery meat on plastic trays. Unfortunately we were in the cafeteria and there cooks were wearing hairnets and white lab coats, but there were tablecloths, real silverware and we were served the meal at the table.
However, the idea of a traditional thanksgiving has not quite been perfected yet, despite our program’s long experience with Americans.
The meal began with mingling and aperitifs. We got to see our fellow students, most of who had disappeared into Bordeaux seemingly without a trace, and see how people have changed. There were many looking very French with new clothes and (for the girls) and newfound ability to wear heels. A few people were looking thinner, a few a bit plumper from the amazing French food. One guy is growing a moustache and had curled it up at the ends for the occasion.
We sat down for our meal, the Americans clustering together in groups, and the French in their groups. An undrinkable red wine was on the table, and in true college student fashion, my table-mates attacked the bottle without restraint. It is at this point that the “traditional” dinner was to begin.

First course: a salad. Seems normal, right? Not necessarily when there are crevettes (shrimp) with their heads and exoskeletons still attached sitting on the plate along with the carrots, cucumber and one leaf of lettuce.


Second course: the main dish with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, Brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce. This at least seemed slightly normal; sure the turkey was rather dry, as were the 3 tiny potatoes and no gravy in sight to cover it up, and the stuffing just wasn’t “like mama used to make” but at least they had the components right. It’s not like there aren’t many families in the States who badly cook their bird or who pull out an old family recipe for stuffing that makes you wonder if there is any history of mental illness in the family. That’s part of the charm of the holiday season.

Third course: a small bowl with a wedge of cheese artistically placed on a leaf of lettuce. Last time I checked, there was no cheese course at thanksgiving, but hey, “when in Rome” (or France, rather) ….

the french would be lost without the cheese course

Fourth and final course: a proudly presented pumpkin pie. We each receive our plate, confused. What is it? Looking around the room all the Americans have a strange look on their face, ranging from a hopeful puzzlement to near horror. It’s not the right color or texture, and what are those bits in the filling? Nuts? One of our program directors asks us plein d’espoir (full of hope), “Is this right? We try every year to make a traditional American pumpkin pie but it’s never quite right, did we get it right this year?” Unfortunately, no. And unfortunately many plates went back to the kitchen barely touched. (to be fair, it wasn't terrible, it just wasn't what we were expecting)

this is not pumpkin pie

Despite the deviations from what we might consider a normal Thanksgiving dinner, it was good to touch base with other people in the program, compare notes on our “French Experience.” It was an excellent validation that I’ve been doing things right and that it seems as if my sejour has been a greater success than many of my compatriots. For that, and for French pastries, I am truly thankful.

Eco-friendly France

Typically I struggle with the idea of eating rabbit, I can’t quite get over the fact that I love my friend’s pet rabbit, Penelope, and that I would someday like to have my very own bunny, cute and fluffy with long ears and a cotton-ball tail. But I have kept true to my decision to eat whatever is offered to me, no matter how frightening or saddening I might find it.
Over the weekend we were staying in Dordogne at a lodging place run by the church. The good sisters follow the rule of “waste not, want not.” Thus, they make their evening herbal tea from plants and herbs that they either find in the garden or that they collect when walking out in the countryside. So the first morning we were there, I was admiring the fog that had settled into the valley when my host father called me into the kitchen saying they needed help and to hurry. So I scurried into the kitchen in order to be confronted by the sight of a dead rabbit bleeding on the prep table in the kitchen. One of the sisters was prepping it so that we could eat it for dinner. Apparently she was left a note early that morning that the next meal was waiting out on the road. The poor rabbit had made an unfortunate choice when trying to cross the road and thus became meat for the pot. I got a front row seat at the spectacle of rabbit skinning, watching as the nun sliced around and up the legs to free the skin to be pulled off in one piece, revealing a broken front leg. As she did so I tried not to think and just listened as she explained what she was doing and added in an interesting anecdote.
Why do butchers leave the feet and head on a rabbit when they sell them at the market? It is in order to prove that they are indeed selling a rabbit and not a cat because apparently the two animals look the same without the head and feet.”
Apparently if you don’t know what you are eating, the taste is the same too. Who knew that cats taste somewhat gamey, as the rabbit did?
As difficult as it was to get over the idea that I was to eat road kill, I very much respect the fact that nothing is being wasted. In some ways you see this often in French cooking. Hard, old bread is used for making soups such as the famous French Onion Soup that you find in all the chic restaurants. The broth left over from a pot au feu is later used for a traditional soup to which vermicelli noodles are added. When we cut up vegetables for dinner, the left over ends are given to the family pet gerbil along with any boxes and cartons that are empty and will fit in his cage. My host mother considers it a great waste to throw out dried out bread or to feed it to the ducks at the park; if she doesn’t use the bread in soup she gives it to her father for his chickens. I wonder if the idea of the “lucky rabbit’s foot” came about because someone did not want to waste any part of the animal?

Medieval jardin potager (kitchen garden) in Dordogne

It is strange to remember that that my hippie-ecological side was slightly afraid to come to France thinking that they had no consciousness for the environment. But it is not so at all. We are very good here about putting things in the recycling bin or in the box outside the door for glass. I get scolded if I rinse something before putting it in the dishwasher or before putting it in the recycling bin because that is a waste of water. Actually, it is encouraged to not wash anything by hand since the dishwasher is very efficient both in the sense of water usage and in the sense that it cleans extremely well. They are very big on saving energy and I was given the “suggestion” to turn off my surge protector whenever I was not charging something because even a surge protector wastes energy with the current passing in and out of it. This advice was given along with the saying “il faut sauver les ours polairs.” In other words, we need to save the polar bears, and now every time I turn off my surge protector I think of polar bears.
Sure, the French do not embrace the idea of vegetarianism and they are still overenthusiastically feeding geese in order to get foie gras, but they are not unconscious of their impact on the world. They are more likely to eat local products, be it meat, poultry or cheese. A large portion of the French actually go to “le marché” (the equivalent to our farmer’s market) buying fruits, vegetables, meats and fish direct. If a fruit or vegetable is not in season, they probably will not buy it. Sure that means that my vegetable consumption is dropping as rapidly as the temperature, but at least fewer veggies are being shipped from all over the world which is rarely an efficient use of natural resources, namely oil. And then there is the key to the French staying thin despite being fearless in the face of butter: they walk! Or they take public transportation like the tram here in Bordeaux.
France: no longer just the gastronomic capital of the world, but now also eco-friendly!

foie gras anyone?