Thanksgiving à la française

Sunrise: 8:30
Vocab: avoir le mal du pays - to be homesick

Well, and I will be honest. I've been hard pressed to work up the gumption to write this blog post. Officially three weeks away, my imminent return home has fostered a lot of reflection and not a little lethargy. The Mal du Pays struck pretty hard after Thanksgiving and I needed to spend a lot of Friday locked in my room going on facebook and pretending to be in America. Don't get me wrong, I had an amazing birthday and the food at Thanksgiving was delicious (both to be discussed!), but the distance between me and my friends and family just seemed that much greater when I realized how separate our experiences of this week had been; for me, Thanksgiving was more or less just another day with a fancy dinner at the end, and for them, my birthday was just a 24-hour window in which they had an excuse to write on my facebook wall. Well, maybe that's a bit much, but you see what I mean -- inverse experiences.

I'm eager to get home for Christmas, but my looming departure has also induced a certain amount of clinging; I still have so much left to see and do, it seems, and French friends who I may not see again for a long time once I leave. No question about it, I will return, but it won't be the same. This desire to see and do has not combined well with my approaching finals -- not a lot of work, but more work than I have been doing, to be honest. Mixing two such volatile ingredients in a vessel primed with homesickness has led to lethargy and a generally sedentary lifestyle these past few days. I'm overwhelmed. And thus the W descends again. This is a study abroad blog, after all, and I ought to document every aspect of this experience -- which includes the occasional period of emotional turmoil. During my solitary Friday, I watched L'auberge espagnole, a really fantastic French film with Audrey Tautou (in a role much smaller than and different from Amélie) that follows a young French university student on his year abroad in Spain with ERASMUS. He cries all the time.

But, on to happier things. My birthday was incredible; I was on such a high then that I guess my current crash was somewhat inevitable (again, tragedy?). Turning 21, for some unexplained reason, induced a day of delirious happiness. In between my two classes at the fac, as I was sitting in the open study space in the lobby Censive (the humanities building, basically), I could hardly control my impulse to laugh. Fortunately, that night I found an outlet for all of my suppressed mirth: Nantes Comedy Club. Naturally, it was Angèle's suggestion, and so after my inaugural G&T, we headed over to the show. Well, to make a long story short, it didn't take long for the MC to discover that I was an American student celebrating her 21st birthday, and naturally he started to tease me -- and I bantered back! I don't know what came over me, but I was actually funny, and that discovery was probably the best birthday gift I could have received. Other comedians that night seemed to pick up on my willingness to play with them and to speak in English and French, but the moral of the story is: I have a French sense of humor!

Two days later, it was Thursday, time for Thanksgiving à la française. IES had booked a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere -- on the outskirts of town, if you will -- because they had to find somewhere large enough to accommodate a group as formidable as ours: IES students, French host families, and visiting American parents. Marie couldn't make it because of another obligation, so I was really all alone in the midst of so many families and pseudo-families. Luckily, I found a place at the table with my friend Lauren and her host siblings: Comb, Elois, and Fauste (approximated spellings). Comb and Elois, the two older brothers, are 17 and 15 respectively, leaving their 13-year-old sister Fauste rather at a disadvantage when it comes to teasing. She holds her own though, and the three of them put on quite a show over dinner. I spent the most time speaking with Comb because he is absolutely obsessed with America; no sooner had I mentioned my New York upbringing when he began to grill me with Gossip Girl related questions ("is it really like that?").

I can't say I minded, though. French kids are funny. Most of the ones I've met have been incredibly poised and gracious, good conversationalists, and sharp dressers, but there are always little details here and there that give away how young they are -- the way they fidget when the conversation gets boring, or bite their nails, or laugh too loud. I was lucky to spend my Thanksgiving with such a lively group of siblings. But even these America-fixated, Abercrombie-American-Eagle-Hollister-wearing French adolescents had never experienced Thanksgiving before. I think the menu puzzled them a bit...it confused me, too, honestly, because all of the right ingredients were there, but it just didn't feel like home. The dishes were too polished. Here is what we ate...

The evening started with...how to describe it...I suppose it was something like bruschetta (only monster sized) with roasted peppers and vinaigrette dressing. (Sorry the photo quality is not wonderful; I blame the ambient lighting and my aversion to flash photography.):



After the appetizer came the true test, though -- the turkey. I have to say, I was impressed with my dinde à la française. The perfectly cooked meat was tender and juicy, dribbled over with a cranberry (wine?) sauce that artfully combined savory and sweet. Also on the plate were cooked chestnuts (a recurring theme here that I'm beginning to enjoy) and mushrooms...perhaps an attempt at stuffing. What I really missed though, was mashed potatoes. I guess purée de pommes de terre just doesn't fly in the land of wine and cheese, and each plate came with two measly, scrawny boiled potatos. Alas (oh, but note the red wine):



We rounded out our night of French portions with an insufficient amount of dessert; then again, when the primary confection is pumpkin flan, perhaps it's better to have only a sliver. I've never been a huge pumpkin pie fan, but this Thanksgiving, I finally came to appreciate the art of the pumpkin pie (although, as Garrison Keillor so accurately states, "The best pumpkin pie you eat isn't much different from the worst"). Our pumpkin flan wouldn't have been that bad if it hadn't been for one very out of place spice; we suspect it may have been curry, and I, personally, suspect that they based their pumpkin flan recipe on a recipe for pumpkin soup (a much more common dish in France):



Well and there you have it. In spite of my semi-sarcastic commentary, it really was a lovely meal -- if for no other reason than the company!

Addendum: And how could I forget to mention another amazing birthday present?! I was sitting next to Lauren's host dad at dinner, so naturally we chatted a little bit about my studies and experiences in Nantes. And, do you know what he told me? "You speak French very well. You have no accent." YES!

To Market, To Market...too soon?

Sunrise: 8:22
Vocab: boudin - blood sausage

Farm attire.

At long last! The entry about my experiences as a murderer of small animals. Well, to be fair, they were large animals, and it wasn't me who killed them, and nothing was wasted. Seeing as I wrote 10 pages in my notebook when it was all fresh in my mind, I've decided to excerpt a few snippets for your reading pleasure. For purposes of discretion I will not: (1) post all of my notes, (2) include any names, or (3) post photos of the piggies. (Yes, I justified the text of this entry; trust me, it looks much better this way.)

Sunday, October 15, 2009

We had stumbled into an immense family gathering. Over the course of the weekend, I kissed easily over 40 people between hellos & goodbyes; you acknowledge everyone present when you arrive and when you leave. I am omniscient because I had no responsibilities and could bounce from inside to outside as the different family members proudly displayed and explained their roles.

We killed 4 pigs. I'm not a squeamish person, but I thought I might lose my proverbial lunch. The pig is terrified, seeing he must confront his own mortality. She struggles and screams -- not squeals, screams. Every fiber of her existence tenses and converges into one simple message: I am alive and I do not want to die. And that's what pretty much all of us want, isn't it? Her death is inevitable, though, planned by the human arbiters of life and death...the only gods in the pig world. I understand more than ever why the base of tragedy -- the most ancient and fundamental tragedies -- is inevitability. I felt myself in a completely alien world, watching a woman easily in her mid-60s eagerly place a bucket under the cascade of blood, while the men held the pig still in the throes of its death tremors.

After killing the pigs, the next step was griller... in other words, to light them on fire to clean the skin and slightly cook the insides before cutting them open. It was raining. Hard. And the bonfires felt oddly funerary as the pigs transitioned to meat (as Angèle said). The human role in all this requires a strong stomach and a hearty constitution: You have to face your role as a killer, but you also have to have respect for the whole process underway. The man who butchered the pigs had been doing so since he was eight. One fluid motion after another, he opened the animals, separating head from body, organs from flesh, and later, separating the different cuts of meat.

While the work was clearly divided according to sex, all the work for men and women alike takes a toll on the hands. The men worked outside in the rain, scrubbing down the charred carcasses, and setting up spigots to run cold water through the organs of the animals. The women worked inside to separate the intestines, finessing them out of their tangles, tugging and tearing at the connective tissue. Cold water, warm blood, hot insides. Even with hands no doubt numbed by the spigot water, though, the men still came inside periodically to roll themselves the perfect (filterless) cigarettes in zero seconds flat.

If the French are efficient in nothing else, they work quickly when preparing food. Within minutes the assembly line was whirring away. Ladies tearing at innards, an older mustachioed gentleman grinding away at the sausage machine, and the other men outside in the rain cleaning shit out of intestines that only minutes before had been inside, steaming with the heat of a recently-killed corpse.

After several hours of hard labor, we sat for lunch, which lasted easily two hours. With the efficiency of the day, we had converted the meat prep. room into a kitchen. Warmed by the fire, we passed around huge loaves of crusty country bread before partking of salads that people had made the night before. For the main course, we had sausage (not from our pigs) & pasta. I wasn't brave enough to try any of the recently killed cuts that we had cooked for lunch, but I did try a bite of the blood sausage. Never again. The taste was fine, but the texture reminded me too much of the substance recently flushed out of those same intestines. We wrapped up with strong country camembert, roasted chestnuts, & clementines.

That night, we had dinner with another part of the family. Again, there were at least 20 (une vingtaine) of us. This meal lasted around four hours. We took our time, starting with aperitifs & cold appetizers that we passed around on platters, then the warm appetizers -- a small plate of mini tarts for everyone. The main course, which came out in pre-arranged plates, consisted of three types of sausage, a cut of ham, half a baked potato, and a sauerkraut-like cabbage mélange. We three girls split a plate amongst ourselves and it was just the right amount of food for each. After the cheese course came dessert and digestifs. Angèle's uncle challenged us girls to try Calvados (affectionately: "calva"), a locally made apple brandy that you drink from a spoon, poured over a sugar cube. The other two didn't much care for it, but I appreciated the burning sweetness of the combination, which amused the family to no end.

I know Angèle and Anaïs said it depends on the family, but the French seem to thrive on family collectivity... certainly in the countryside.

Julie & Julia (& food...ia...)

So, today I went to see Julie & Julia with my mom, my sister, and our neighbors. I promise not to go into full-out movie review mode (although I did think it was a perfectly acceptable summer flick...but what do I know about film, anyway...nothing, that's what), but for some reason just seeing all that French food in combination with all those fake French accents just amped up my excitement for Nantes.

Do they really use that much butter? Considering I managed to gain five pounds (no, really) on the cafeteria fare at Amherst this summer, I'm slightly concerned about my upcoming calorie intake. On the other hand, I hear that portions are smaller over yonder. The French word for moderation? Modération. (So, I'm guessing the correct way to phrase that would have been, "The English word for modération? Moderation." Wutevz.)

I've been reading the Michelin guide to Brittany in my spare time and have thus far ascertained that I have a lot to look forward to cuisine-wise. First of all, muscadet -- the wine of Brittany. According to Michelin, "The people of Nantes guard it jealously and have founded a brotherhood [a brotherhood, I tell you!], the Ordre des Chevaliers Bretvins, after la petite brette (the little rapier), the nickname given to Anne of Brittany" (Michelin, 76). Anyway, it's a "dry and fruity white wine" that apparently makes seafood go down real nice. So, while the seafood thing looms as a constant anxiety, the thought of muscadet is a constant comfort, plus Brittany is a hugely agricultural region. The stats in Michelin cast Brittany as the main producer of meat, veggies, and cheese (!). There's also a whole section on Breton sweets...not that I have much of a sweet tooth, but I've been known to enjoy the occasional flaky cookie or piece of chocolate.

I've just realized how much I write about food on this blog. Apparently it's a fixation, but I know it's very important in France, and I can only imagine that I will experience some gastronomical culture shock when I get there. As a picky eater who (oxymoronically? ironically? moronically?) loves to eat, I think I can pretty much guarantee that.

On the host mom front: still no reply from Marie-Annick. Breath remains bated.