Culinary Lessons

I was told over a six-course French dinner last night that “Gastronomy is a religion in France”. Food, wine, cheese, bread and unhurried dinners continue to be regular parts of our experience and the one piece of French culture which many Parisians are inviting us to share with them, at their own kitchens and tables, which as anyone knows is the best place to learn about any country. It also is the only place where my limited vocabulary can keep up with conversation, so I’m extra grateful for the invitations.

This week I was invited to cook with Iris in her kitchen. Iris, in my mind, is the unpublished Julia Child and I would walk over fire for the chance to cook with her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to perform any extreme acts to receive the invitation, I just had to show up with a few ingredients that Iris requested: liquid cream and 200 grams of good grated cheese. I, of course, showed up with two different types of liquid cream fresh, and 400 grams of cheese—just to be safe.

The lessons (which doubled as a language lesson as well) had us making a homemade desert custard (which tasted good, but didn’t look quite as nice as we had hoped), gratin dauphinois (a classic French dish that is a bit like scalloped potatoes, but includes nutmeg), meatloaf (which included three types of meat ground fresh for me by the local butcher), and an apple tart (which is an Iris standard and I think I can finally replicate). It was a bilingual afternoon that also had two breaks—one for tea and one for wine.

One moment that speaks to the freshness of ingredients here was the making of the meatloaf and our collective checking of the spices. I was elbow deep in a kilo of ground meat while Iris was adding a bit of this and a bit of that and checking the seasoning by tasting the raw meat mixture (which is not something my mother does, so it was a bit shocking).

Then she told me to the same, and fool knows that it was NOT the time to explain you don't regularly eat mostly unrefrigerated raw meat mixed with a raw egg. So I tasted it, found it surprisingly good and decided that that salmonella was clearly an American problem, so we continued to talk about what else it needed.

That wasn’t the only time this week where I found myself eating something a bit unexpected in part for reasons of pride (more specifically not wanting to seem like the mostly mute American who only eats chicken nuggets) and for reasons of politeness. At last night’s dinner, which involved homemade pate, rabbit, and the strongest French cheese I have ever tasted, I was offered something by the host, I couldn’t quite tell what was going on because the meal was conducted entirely in French and it looked like I was being offered a large bean of some sort. I glanced over to Josh with our commonly used “Please translate” code and he explained “It’s the rabbit’s kidney”.

Everyone seemed happy to offer it to me, so of course, once again, I ate and thanked him profusely. It did taste surprisingly good, but I did find myself wondering—“Do rabbits only have one kidney? I also found myself feeling even less bad for serving rabbit sausage on Easter. Rabbits are clearly food here—bunnies are for cartoons—at least that’s how I justify that eating the kidney is a special treat.

And so the culinary adventures continue and I am already beginning to fret about how I will figure out how to make these recipes when we return stateside—and who will be an honored enough guest to be offered our rabbit kidney.

sPg