France Deuxième Partie
OK... So I
guess we are officially a part of the village now. The night of
January second, we were invited to a "Welcome 2016" house
party at Jean-Pierre and Katarine's house. Well... this is no
exaggeration, the entire village of Vaux was there, along with friends
of the hosts and some people from a few of the surrounding
villages!!! About 50-60 people with all the kids too!!! It started at
7pm, we left at 1:30am and it was still raging! Of course it started
with cremant, the local sparkling wine, when you walked in the
door. The hosts and a few friends had been cooking all day so at
about 8pm the announcement was made to grab a plate and step up to
the finger food table… deviled eggs, pâtes, sausages,
pickles of all sorts, white endive salad, cheeses, olives… At this
point we had moved on from cremant to our choice of the local
white or red wine. The Bourguignon
people are
very, very passionate about their wine, very, very passionate. When I
mentioned to the little group we were sitting with that I bought and
enjoyed the inexpensive “Bag in the Box”, Vin du France… Boy
did I get the business! Natalie, the neighbour across the street,
upon hearing
the translation of
my wine find, leaned over and
assailed me for quite some time with
the superiority of all things Bourguignon,
especially
the wine. I made a feeble attempt to redeem myself citing it was
decent, inexpensive “French”
wine
which was dismissed with a wave of the hand a French version of
“Harumph”. The conversation was thusly
closed.
About ten or so, we progressed from
finger food to frankfurters served with warm Alsatian potato salad, a
mountain of it and a huge pot of frankfurters. Of course, served with
lashings of moutarde du Dijon. Ma oui! The conversation
was lively and interesting, a number of people translated both to us
and for us. The folks here in Vaux and surrounds are extremely
friendly and hospitable. We came to learn that not all the villages
share the camaraderie of Vaux and it would be strange to see a
similar gathering in any of the surrounding ones. And the wine
flowed!
Eleven thirty or so the dessert came
out, or should I say the plates and plates and plates of galettes
and tarte tatins arrived. The
tarte tatins were from
people around the village and were fantastic! The galettes
on the other hand, came from a number of different bakeries and there
is an interesting history to them this time of year as they are
linked to Twelfth Night and Epiphany. Here
is a great article on Wikipedia on it…
Galette des
rois, king cake, is
baked with a small ceramic king, bear or something in it (in the days
of old, it was a bean or a pea) and if you get it, then you the king
or the queen of the evening. Katarine almost broke a molar on
the one she found and was named reine
for the night!
Then we
started cooking, by this time as you might have surmised I had nosed
into the kitchen, the onions for French onion soup. Yes… It's
almost midnight and the final course of the night is just being
started. There was a huge pot of beef stock going and lots of
emmental cheese and home made croutons. I showed the guys how to flip
the onions in the pan without a spat, which led a rousing rendition
of a Burgundean traditional song of exclamation (it gets sung at
dishes broken, glasses dropped, a faux pas, or anything out of the
ordinary LOL) It is quite fun! As soon as the onions were nice and
brown, everyone was given a bowl which was then filled with a few
croutons, then some cheese, then a pile of cooked onions and finally
the beef stock. It was really, really good! We have come to find out
that this was a very early time for the onion soup. At many other
soirées,
they did not start cooking the onions until
at least 3am!!! And yes, the wine flowed.
Next came the mistletoe hats, one for a
man and one for a woman that were randomly placed on peoples heads.
Oolala!!! What a hoot! And cameras to boot! Nope, ya ain't getting
any of those stories or pics...
WOW! what a beautiful slice of
Burgundian life. The hospitality, the friendliness, the camaraderie,
it was all amazing!!! Thanks to all our new friends here in Vaux for
a grand time!
Next time… more on food, not just food
but gastronomy! Get them taste buds cleansed...
No comments:
Post a Comment