December 2, 2013
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I hope your turkeys were plump, that the skin was crispy, that all your family showed up, and the abundant cocktails made them bearable. Thanksgiving in Paris is quite different from its American cousin. First of all let’s get one thing out in the open: Thanksgiving doesn’t exist in Paris, it’s an American holiday. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t celebrate it! In fact, I was quite surprised at the number of Thanksgiving or, as the French pronounce it, Sanksgivingg, meals that were being served throughout Paris last Thursday! I guess they’re just further proof of what I’ve been saying since I first arrived: Paris is rapidly changing and there are a lot of Americans here now. Most French that I talked with really didn’t understand the concept of Thanksgiving, but they like to eat and they like to party, so that’s a good start.
Quite a while back I broached the topic of doing a Thanksgiving to my host mother and she became far more interested in it than I ever imagined she would be! Before long it was a legitimate fête and lists were being made and preparations being obtained. My first provisions involved a trek to the American grocery store near the Eiffel Tower, “Real McCoy” where I bought two very over-priced cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce. Now, before any of you get all high and mighty telling me that I should have done my own cranberry sauce, I will explain my reasoning. First of all, cranberries don’t grow in France. In fact, I’ve never ever seen imported cranberries in French markets. Secondly (and this is my reasoning for always advocating for buying Ocean Spray in America): just as Land O Lakes makes butter and Reese’s makes peanut butter cups, Ocean Spray has (since 1930) made it their job to make cranberry sauce. I would hope, after 83 years, that they have it down pat, so who am I to compete with them? Luckily I’d already purchased my pumpkin pie materials some time back, so the sticker shock of two cans of cranberry sauce (9 euros aka $12.20) was somewhat lessened.
For the most part Thanksgiving week was uneventful. I started the cheese selection at the market on Tuesday and continued it until Thursday, making sure that I had a wide variety of cheeses that smelled strong and tasted stronger! My host mother, on the other hand, occupied herself with more important things: veggies, bird, and things that needed cooking. (Since I’m not much good in a kitchen it didn’t make any sense for me to even consider those things! I blame this inadequacy on my mother, who regards that big white shiny appliance as a piece of modern art: don’t touch it, just look at it.)
Like many French, my host mother is of the opinion that turkeys (la dinde) aren’t especially good eating. I’m not sure if French turkey is different than what we have in the States (obviously ours has been pumped with steroids and probably has more chromosomes that it was originally intended to have), but turkey is not a popular meal here. To substitute turkey for our Sanksgivingg we had volaille, which is just the French word for poultry. I honestly don’t know what kind of bird it was, but it was probably a very big chicken.
In the days just before Sanksgivingg we had to do a bit of spiffing up around the house. I stupidly ran my finger across the bottom of the one of the portrait frames in the hall one day and discovered that the frames weren’t grey, they were actually gilt! So down came all the artwork, followed by a discussion of who was who and what was what, and they all got a nice dusting and a stern talking to about how they had to behave on Turkey Day… After all, there’s nothing worse than a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving - especially those drunk uncles who died in 1744!
Thanskgiving Prep: We dust off the ancestors
On Wednesday I made my pumpkin pie, which came out okay, I guess. I don’t cook, and normally I don’t even pretend to cook. But there’s something about buying American ingredients at 12 times their normal price that just inspires me to take over the kitchen and see how big a mess I can make.
On Thanksgiving Day we arranged the table, changed the table linens, organized and hid all the chaos of everyday life, and then had a coffee. By the time the guests arrived, everything looked, as they say in French, nickel. The cheese was warm, the champagne was cold, the wines were airing… it was perfection.
White wine glass, red wine glass, water glass. Soooo many glasses.
Notice that all of the flatware is placed upside down. This is because, traditionally, the monogram is placed on the underside, while American monograms are on the top. The reason for placing the monogram on the bottom is due to the way that the French hold their forks. (See later photo.)
The drink selection
For guests we had, my wonderful host mother and me (I didn’t realize it but I was apparently the Maître of the evening - do you realize how stressful it is to be in charge of filling champagne glasses!), Ann Lawson, Cécile and Thierry, Régis (Cécile’s brother), and my host mother’s friend Nicole. Not a huge Thanksgiving group, but a nice crowd, and all excited about Sanksgivingg.
We started in the salon with nuts, champagne, and, for those who wanted it, some crème de cassis to make kir royals. The champagne came from Chalons and together we drank away the miseries of that wide spot in the road. As awful as Chalons was and is, I will give them credit for their champagne, which was very good.
You may question our champagne glasses and why they're not flutes. Well they're antiques. This is the old fashioned way of serving champagne. In fact, if you paid attention, Gatsby does the same thing at his parties. (I've always wanted to be a latter day Gatsby, old chap.)
Around 9 or 9:30 we moved from the salon to the salle à manger for dinner itself, which began with soupe de potiron (squash soupe). I don’t even like squash but this was good. Plenty of cream and crème fraîche. I guess it would be impossible to mess it up.
Following our bright orange soup (orange was definitely the color of the evening with the candles and table cloth also being orange), out came the next course: volaille, mashed potatoes (called a purée de pommes de terre in French), carrots, parsnips (also in purée form), really good Morgon red wine, and a white wine from Bourgogne which, although it had a good taste, was bouchonné (corked). There was no gravy in the American sense, but all of the fat and grease was saved and used as a sauce. I guess there’s no reason to hide what gravy really is, is there? Biggest mistake of the main meal: I forgot the cranberry sauce in the kitchen. Oh well, I ate it for breakfast over the next few days.
Notice how the French hold their forks - not like how most Americans do. It actually looks refined.
Got bread?
After the main course we had planned to have salad (salad always comes after the meal in France), but since everybody was so full and it was already edging toward 10:30 we went directly to cheese. With the exception of the Mont d’Or, which is normally very creamy, the cheeses were to die for! The Brillat Savarin was melt in your mouth and the brie that I chose was pretty damned good as well.
The little boy in the hallway watched over the cheese during the meal. Starting at the bottom and going clockwise we have: Compté, Brillat Savarin, Trèfle de Chèvre, Brie, and Mont d'Or in the center. Mont d'Or is served with a spoon because it becomes a liquid almost. This one wasn't very good, however.
Following the cheese course it was time for pumpkin pie. Being the only other American at the table, Ann Lawson had the arduous task of cutting and serving it. Although the innards were perfect (how can you screw up canned pumpkin pie filling?) the crust was bizarre. Look at how it separated into two parts! So strange. Oh well, nobody died from eating it and it didn’t taste weird.
Very strange pie.
By now well after 11pm, Régis had to leave to head home (since he lives just outside of Paris he had a bit of a drive ahead of him), but for everybody else there was another - very important - part of the meal which had to be addressed: coffee and after dinner conversation. So everybody went back to the salon and the Nespresso machine went to work on our little décas (the common term for café décaffiné.) Soon after midnight everybody went home, and like my American compatriots at the same time (it would be 6pm on the east coast) I looked down my front and considered when I should expect the birth of my food baby.
It goes without saying, however, that my Parisian Thanksgiving was amazing. I was surrounded by lots of people I enjoy, by food that was delicious, and enough wine to get the job done! It was wonderful!
Family portrait, minus Régis.
As luck would have it, however, Ann Lawson and I had been invited to another Thanksgiving that same week, this one being chez Romy and Charlie. Although it wasn’t quite as formal, it was every bit as chaleureux and enjoyable. 4 Frenchies, 2 Americans, and 1 Canadian sat down in an apartment in the center of Paris with turkey (I actually think it was turkey this time), mashed potatoes (which I made myself with plenty of heavy cream and butter), wine from the Salon du Vin (a future blog post on that), a bottle of Absolute, squash, salad, and desserts… how could it go wrong?
Unfortunately I didn’t take that many photos of that night, but the best part was BY FAR that we ended up climbing onto the roof of Romy and Charlie’s apartment. Because they live on the top floor, the skylight in the loft goes onto the roof. Although it might not have been the most OSHA approved activity in the world, we climbed through the skylight, across the metal roof (which was pitched, by the way), up the ladder on the side of the chimney, and then sat between the chimney pots as the view of Paris extended in every direction. Words can hardly describe how incredible this was. The next time I do it I will remember to take more photos with a real camera. The iPhone is great, but a view this good, with Notre Dame dominating the center, deserves a real camera.
Orange was also the color at this Thanksgiving: orange plate, orange cups, orange napkins. Here we have some turkey, some squash, some taters, and then a sort of cinnamon/cranberry chutney that was yummy.
Dessert: apple tart, apple cheesecake, and a chestnut bread, with a cinnamon apple sauce on top.
The view from the top of the chimney.
Brèf (as the French say), Thanksgiving was a huge success and I owe all my Froggie friends a massive Merci!
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