Even more on French food.

Do French people eat croissants every morning? …Drink coffee all day; Drink wine at each meal; Eat baguettes every day? The answer is most likely ‘no not really’

But one thing they certainly do is to eat a Galette des Rois every 6th of  January! (and nowadays, practically any other time during the month of January). It celebrates the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem. It is composed of puff pastry with a small porcelain charm, the ‘fève’, hidden inside the filling of  almonds, butter, eggs and sugar (although other flavors such as apple are available). There is the tradition of crowning the one who finds the fève (the ‘king’ or ‘roi’) with a paper crown. Despite enjoying this cake as much as the British Christmas pudding (which is not that much at all) I eat some anyway to join in the festivities and in hope of being the king/queen.

My daughter decided that she’d like one as her birthday cake which was fun. The treasure hunt clues that I mentioned my last post went down well and the group of friends were able to find the treasure (the birthday cake) in the oven.

And without even having the time to recover from the gluttony of December and January, It is time to eat crêpes on February 2nd – and all through the Mardi Gras season. The date marks when Jesus was presented at the temple in Jerusalem and is known  as ‘La Chandeleur’. About 2 weeks ago I started to notice supermarkets displaying flour, uht milk (so common here), eggs, jam, and Nutella and so I knew that the Chandeleur was coming.

Just while we’re on the topic of crepes, in France savory crepes (not to be confused with ‘crepes’) are known as ‘galettes’ (not to be confused with ‘galettes des rois’) and are made of buckwheat flour and served with a variety of fillings, the most common being ham, egg and cheese such as in this photo.

There is also another thing that most French people eat whilst dining out and that is whatever is on the ‘fixed menu‘ (known as ‘le menu’. The menu, as we anglo-saxons know it, is called ‘la carte’). All restaurants/bistros offer fixed menus at very attractive prices. Here is the menu that we discovered last month for €15.40  at a lovely restaurant in Nantes:

An entree of rare tuna, beets and lambs lettuce, a main course of sea bream with courgettes and carrots and a dessert (… the least inspired dish of the meal which I find is often the case in this country).  That’s what I call amazing value for money! And the children’s menu – at a little more than €8.00 – offered fish or a homemade burger served with jerusalem artichoke puree and then a chocolate lava cake or some homemade ice-cream or sorbet for dessert. Yum!

Bonjour 2017…where will it take us?

 

This cartoon sums up how I’m feeling as we start the new year – ‘My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane’.

So instead of ruminating ….my intention here is to write about something obscure: Rebuses. Rebus = a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. Perhaps they are used as often in Australia as they are here…but I don’t think so.

Children in France are usually very familiar with the concept of rebuses (and other word puzzles….I repeat what I’ve written in the past – May 2016 for example – that the nuts and bolts of language are an extremely important part of the French culture). Rebuses make regular appearances in school lessons, in books and magazines and next week-end, they will show up in my daughter’s 9th birthday party treasure hunt.

One of the rebus clues that the kids will have to solve in order to find the next clue:  r+oeufs+f+riz+jeux+rat+heure = refrigerateur (refrigerator)

French words lend themselves very well to creating rebuses such as this one above  (which uses pictures to represent each syllable) because the last sound in words is often not pronounced…so that a number of very different words end up sounding exactly the same (such as ‘vers’ – towards, ‘verre’ – glass, and ‘vert’ – green). And also perhaps because French is a syllable-timed language (a language whose syllables take approximately equal amounts of time to pronounce). That being said, I didn’t even try to make my own rebuses but rather I cheated and used this web-site to create the clues for the words that I wanted to represent. Out of curiosity I tried an equivalent site for English words and it generated such obscure puzzles for words that I doubt many adults (let alone 9-year-olds) would be able to decipher them. English phrases (which exploit whole words instead of syllables) rather than single words lend themselves better to rebuses. Here is a picture of one in English:

can+you+see+well

 

 

 

 

Look out! Big changes ahead…..(again).

My husband organized a nice vacation in a converted wind mill in Brittany for a few days between Christmas and New Year. He was able to ‘recharge his batteries’ which is just what he needed before heading off to Toulouse to start his new job in his own company (yes, he ‘received’ his Christmas wish!). Toulouse is about a 5-6 hour-drive south from where we are currently living. He plans to come back most weekends and then at the end of the school-year (in July) the kids and I will join him…..providing we find housing and schooling.

More about this to come as we discover the south of France.