Pâté and Boudin

Last weekend I went to the farm for a very special occasion: Dominique and Cyril had butchered Peggy, their sow of 7 years, and were converting her into pate and boudin, or blood sausage.

They needed a hand, so I met Domi at the market in Muret on Saturday with Marissa and we stayed until Monday. They also had a very cool American couple of WWOOFers, Alana and Paul, staying with them that month, plus a French couple who came to help all day Sunday.

Friday night we went into Aurinac, the nearby town, because there was a short documentary that one of their friends had made that was being screened in the town's tiny theater. The documentary followed a week in the life of a typical farm family of the region, showing their daily customs in the hopes of immortalizing a way of life that is slowly disappearing. The film opened with 6 local men slaughtering a pig that they then boiled it and fiercely scrubbed off the fur.

After seeing that I had begun to question my capacities of what was in store for me the following morning. Thankfully, Dominique and Cyril had sent Peggy to a slaughterhouse for no other reason than they had, inevitably, become too attached over 7 years to do it themselves.

So Sunday morning we picked up the already halved and decapitated Peggy and went to work butchering the meat which lasted the entire morning and part of the afternoon, even with 6 people working at all times.

We separated the parts for the two dishes. Fat, flesh, and liver for the pate and essentially all the rest for the blood sausage: ears, tail, more fat and flesh, lungs, etc.

We used a meat grinder to make the pate to which we also added chicken livers and hearts, then made three batches of almost 20 lbs each which we seasoned with salt, pepper, bay leaves, cloves, ginger, rosemary, and thyme, placed in jars, and sterilized and sealed in a 2 hour bath.

For the boudin, we cooked all the aforementioned parts for about 2 hours in a giant pot with leeks, carrots and onions. We then separated the cooked fat from the meat, and put the cooked parts through the meat grinder. This too we seasoned with salt and pepper, and most importantly, several heaping ladles of blood. This too we placed in jars and sealed.

It was an all day affair that started at 8am and didn't end until well into the night. We stopped for a lovely lunch outside, there were 8 of us in total.

The photos are courtesy of Alana and Paul, who also have a blog of their just begun year of WWOOFing in France:  playbigball.tumblr.com

Paul with half the pig

Dominique after demonstrating how the lungs can be reinflated

Cross section

At work!

Cutting up vegetable for lunch

Cooking using a solar bowl and some spring flowers in bloom

A much needed lunch break

Spices for the pâté

Working the meat grinder 

Liver

Meat

Spices ready to be ground up

Pâté

Fun with stomach lining!

Paul and Alana jarring

Jars ready to be sealed

Dominique and I at sunset 

Corriander

Pâté cooking after sunset 

Jars ready for lids 

Millefeuille

I went to the Prefecture last week, before  my parents arrived, to pick up my visa. I had gone the week before, naively thinking that when they told me at the end of my interview in December that all that was left was to pick it up, meant just that, I was therefore not mentally prepared for the 3 hour wait and did the standard, walk in and walk back out.

I went back today with a book and when I approached information to ask the woman exactly where I needed to go, she told me to read a sign that I could see from where I was standing. I politely said that I came to information to ask her to explain what steps I needed to take. She told me to walk over and read the sign to answer my qestion then to come back tomorrow because the office that I needed was closed, although the hours were posted until 3pm, and it was not yet 1:30. I pointed this out, and she again told me to read the sign. I (furiously) walked over, came back, and told her I still did not unterstand, which was true. I even threw in a, "I work for the state too" card, no dice. She said; if you had read the sign you would have seen their are too many people today, so we aren't accpeting any other applications. WHY could she have not just said this in the first place? WHY?

Walking out (for then a second time), I noticed I've taken to muttering French expletives, not a good sign. Its now no small wonder to me why fonctionnaires are constantly verbally 'agressed' by french citizens, they are miserable humans who dont do their jobs competently. They cannot get fired which is really a shame for everyone involved - not just for me the customer, but really for them too. Someone should put them out of their misery, then maybe they'd be forced to do something really degrading.

Thank god the French have redeeming qualities, like their pastries. I got on my bike and headed to a new bakery I hadn't yet tried.

As always in the name of research for my Dad's visit, I give you the millefeuille:

Follow-up: The Friday before my parents arrived I returned, waited a quick 3 hours, and FINALLY picked up my titre de sejour, which expires in 2 months. The woman who handed it over was by far the nicest one I've encountered there and as she slid it over the counter to me, smiled in an understanding way that seemed to say, 'I know what you had to go though to get this'. Does she really though??

My Dad and I with the fruits of all my hard research

A bientôt.
Linz

Bonjour les parents

Well my parents came and went.

We had a great visit, albeit too short! They had wonderful weather and we packed a lot into just a few days. My Dad was here for only 2 days - Saturday and Sunday - then headed up to London for some business until Saturday. We made sure he got to taste all the pastries, charcuterie and wine in 2 days he would have in 5 before heading to the land of fish and chips. We did a day trip and picnic to Cordes-sur-Ciel, a beautiful little village about an hour and a half from Toulouse built on a hill with Gisèle and had a lovely dinner at home with Gaby, Gisèle and Gilou. After my Dad left my Mom and I spend a great 4 days in Toulouse before she left on Thursday just walking around the center. I had rearranged some classes so that I could spend as much time with her as possible.

Here are some more photos and cliff notes of their stay in Toulouse (if there are more pictures of food than people, don't worry that's normal):

First day in Toulouse grabbing a coffee at la place St Georges

Wine tasting with Gisèle

Day trip to Cordes-sur-Ciel

Stopped in L'isle sur Tarne, a cute village on the way home

Wine and various duck and sausage appetizers by the fire

Rooftop view of Toulouse with Alberto 

Toulousain sausage and wine from Burgundy dinner

Lunch outside with Gaby one beautiful Wednesday

Exploring an abandoned château with Alberto

A bientôt!
Linz

St. Honoré

So my parents are coming to visit next week and I could not be looking more forward to their visit.

Gisèle and I have been discussing all the things we want them to do and taste while they're here. Now that Gisèle has been to visit my parents in CT and has discovered my father's sweet tooth, she has lots of ideas.

We have decided that my father needs to do a sampling of all the traditional French desserts: Millefeuille, Paris-Brest, St. Honoré, etc, hand-selected from the patisseries that do them best. Naturally, this requires testing the aforementioned pastries at local bakeries to see who makes the best version.

Our first taste test was this Friday, I present to you the St. Honoré, apparently named after the patron saint of bakers (only the French). It's a small cluster of cream puffs dipped in caramelized sugar, topped with whipped cream:

A bientôt!

February Funk

So I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I'm not sure if it's the winter blues, all my crazy travel catching up to me, the disatisfactoin with my job, or what.

This week my classes have been so blasé. I know that not every class can be amazing, but I'm feeling like, hey, I'm only here for another few months, what awesome things about America can I bring into these kids lives? Music usually works pretty well, so I devised, in honor of Black History Month, (ok and maybe a little bit  the recent passing of Whitney Houston) a lesson featuring black American musicians that traces some of the different music genres (jazz, Motown, Stax, funk, rap, etc) throughout America's history with Civil Rights and segregation. Sounds good right?

As Gisèle would say, it's kind of like making mayonnaise (you know that can only be a French idiom because who in America makes their own mayonaise??): you can add the eggs, the mustard, and the oil, but sometimes it just doesn't take.

That was kind of how it went. We trudged through Louis Armstrong, Martha and the Vandellas, Otis Redding, thank god they perked up just a teeny bit for James Brown, then back to sleep for Etta James and even Whitney Houston. I was pretty bummed, but hey, at least I got to listen to Otis Redding for an hour of class, right?

So if singing funk wasn't going to get me out of my funk I moved on to the next logical thing:  food. What better pick-me-up than cooking something delicioso?

Now that I have only 2 months left here, I've started a list of things-I-must-do-before-I-leave and, like any self-respecting, die-hard foodie/gourmand a list of things I must learn to cook, I mean really nail down, before I leave. Included are: quiche, crêpes, madeleines, and savory cake.

Hold the phone. Savory cake? I know it sounds strange, but the French have this thing about savory baked goods, and I have to say, I think they're on to something. It's essentially like a loaf-cake that you can add whatever you want to; Olives, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, gruyere cheese, sausage, lardons, the list is quite extensive.

Yesterday was my roommate from last year, Gaby's, birthday so I decided to try my hand at this Frenchie party dish. I went with black olive, semi-dried tomatoes marinated in olive oil and garlic that I found at the market, and grated emmental cheese. Here is the recipe, it served about 12 slices, I appologise in advance for the metric and less than precise baking instructions (remember I'm working with a gas oven whose regulation consists of a dial numbered 1-10):

Cake Salé:

250g flour (I used ½ whole wheat, ½ white)

5 cl oil (I used olive but you can use vegetable)

20cl milk (again, here you can use juice from the olives, dry white wine or a mixture of both) 

4 eggs

About 100g grated emmental cheese, 100g tomatoes, 100g pitted black olives sliced in two

Zest from about a quarter of a lemon

11g of baking soda

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to about 200°C

2. Sift the flour into a bowl and break the eggs in the middle, incoprotaing the flour little by little 

3. Add the oil and 20cl of milk (or olive juice, or wine) 

4. Mix in your ingredients, add salt and pepper, zest, and finally your baking soda. 

5. Pour into your greased  pan

6. Tip: it looks pretty if you sprinkle some extra cheese and a few olives on top to brown-up in the oven. 

7. Bake for about 40-45 minutes until a knife inserted comes out clean

And voilà. 

"Soyez les Bienvenus"

Inside the médina in Meknes

A month since my last post, and to my credit its been because I've been on the moooove. The first weekend in February I went skiing again in the Alps, then two days after getting back it was the February holidays and I had bought tickets to go to Morocco with my friends Amy and Alberto from Toulouse.

Morocco is a place I had wanted to visit for some time. For me going Morocoo was exotic and just the name conjured up images of brightly colored emboridered fabrics, tiles, fountains, mint tea and deserts. Also, it was the home country of so many North Africains, or pieds-noirs, who live in France, flouting the typical and much protected "French" culture with their head scarves, arabic-tinged French, darker skin, and markets mannerisms that refuse to fit into the quiet and closed French mold. So, in a mixture of ambition and nativité I booked a week in Moroco and agreed to meet Emma and Helen (my American girlfriends from studying aborad who are also assistants in France) in Budapest for the second week. 

One of the babs in Meknes

In Morocco we split our time between Fez (a larger city) and Meknes (a smaller town) with two daytrips to villages of Sefrou and Moulay Idriss. The best way I think to describe a place like Morocoo is a Kerouacian-like stream of consciousness, as to put a place such as that into any kind of Cartesian order as an outsider would be contrived and nearly impossible. For me the best part of Morocco was the ambiance, people watching, and wandering around in the médina - or old city center. As far as monuments go, the mosques are closed to non-muslims, and the royal palaces tthe majority of all the cities and towns are closed to everyone but the King. We did however get to go into a few beautiful mausomeums and medreas or coranic schools.

We landed in Fez and took a cab to the city center. At the airport we were ushered into an old Mercedes by a man wearing basically a fleece snuggie with a pointed hood (think KKK meets Harry Potter) which I would later recognize as requisite tenue for all men, and gives you the impression you're at some wizarding convention. We bargained for the price as we had been instructed to do, reluctantly threw our luggage on top of the car, and were off into the setting sun. It wasn't quite the desert I was expecting, more rocky and hilly with tons of olive trees everywhere, almost like Southern Spain. The layout or Morocco is very medieval in the sense that the villages and cities end very suddenly and you find yourself in the countryside with fields and farms immediately after. From a high point in the towns you can clearly see the end of urbanism and are surrounded on all sides by rolling green hills.

Main square in Meknes

All the cities are centered around a médina which is a labyrnth of winding streets and alleys within old ramparts accessible through keyhold shaped "doors" or babs spaced throughout, usually with roads for cars and other commere expanding out from this center, yet still not in any kind of mappable order. Near the bigger main cities there is usually a nouvelle ville, or new city with bars and restaurants that are more lax about Muslim customs. 

The cab spit us out at one of the several Aladdin-like babs to the médina, since cars cannot pass through the tiny streets. It being impossible to pass as anything but a tourist (but at least French and not American tourists) we were immediately assailed by patrons of restaurants, hostels, stores, everyone is trying to entice you into their restraunt shoving a menu under your nose, calling you friend, offering up indiscriminating « bonjours » « hellos » and « holas » trying to guess your nationality. We plopped ourselves in the first hostel with running water we found.

Stalls at the food market in Meknes

The next day we had our introduction to the 1,300 year old médina. It's buzzing with activity in every cubit of air. It is an impossible labrynth resonating with the sound of life. Kids shreiking kicking an empty water bottle off walls that are 3 feet apart, men shouting « balak balak » as they push handcrafted pushcarts chock full of everything from blood oranges to bread to sardines jockeying with donkeys and pedestrians. Everyfew meters are intricately carved cedar doors set into dizzying mosiacs of colored tiles.  Everyone seems to be doing something: setting up or breaking down endless displays - handmade leather sandals next to knock off Nikes, platters or almonds and dates, barrels of olives, heaping piles of pastries dripping with honey,  shuttling trays of steaming mint tea from one boutique to the next, There are women and men squatting in every available space bundling mint, herbs and other greens I've neve seen before.  Veiled women order from sacs overflowing with couscous, rice, and other grains, men dole out change in scale encrusted hands over crates filled with silvery sardines surrounded by a gaggle of alley cats. People stop around pushcarts laden with steaming pots to eat a bowl of snails standing up, or drink a bowl of hot milk. A call to prayer sounds like a bomb drill at first to untrained ears. Then the giant key-shaped doors open and you catch a glimpse inside the unassuming facades that open into tiled courtyards, the sound of running water, green the color of life, shoes are taken off at the door, someone washing themself at the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Take another turn and you are among the ironworkers or ferroviaires with loud banging and sparks flying everywhere, another and the stench tells you youre in the tanneries district where they use pigeon droppings and ammonia to clean the raw leather, take another turn and webs of string criss-cross he length of the street. You are in the couturier district where kids with trained hands stand in the street holding colored strings making mechanical patterns in the air while their counterparts, operating out of tiny windowless workshops with doors ajar weave the fabrics.  

Crowded street in Meknes

What I found the most mesmerizing was how every meter was occupied, the spaced people work out of could be literally a single square meter, and if it is then that 's where you go to work for the day, everyday, probably for your entire life.

It is such a consumer society but the rapport is completely different than that in the US or Europe. It is so much more social, loud, unconfined. There are always tons of people in the streets, men women and lots of children – so much life. I couldn't stop thinking that all the North Africans who immigrate to France must have such a difficult time adapting to a place with comparatively fewer and muted social interactions. In France when in the street or in the metro you have the impression that people are just there to get to where they're going and rendez vous are always planned, in Morocoo the daily life plays out on the streets and in those spontaneous exchanges with neighbors and venders.

I much prefered Meknes to Fez as its a town much less accuspomed to having tourists, so while you still can't exactly « blend in », no one solicits you to buy things. We were lucky enough to have the chance to stay a few nights in a riad or typical Moroccan home with colored glass windows, high painted cedar ceilings, a roof terrace and an open patio with banana and orange trees in the middle. A man I give English lessons to in Toulouse lived there for 7 years and turned his families old house into an Inn now kept by a Moroccon couple. It was a much needed respite from a country where bathroom is a loose term that encompasses anything from a hole in the ground to an actualy bowl, and warm running water is a luxury.

Mint

Amy and I also tried a Moroccan bath, thinking that after Istanbul last winter we had seen it all, au contraire. The first thing we did afterwards was take showers, and I had visible scabs from how hard this woman scrubbed my dead skin away!!

Inevitably, I got sick from the water, the kind of sick where you don't know to sit or kneel when you get to the toilet. Of course this didn't happen while we were at the riad but the three of us sharing a tiny room in Fez. The local remedy is eating spoonfuls of dry cumin washed down with tea, so that was a first. 

Wandering around the médina

Dead end

Coranic school

Fez

Outside a mosque in Fez

Tanneries in Fez

Morocco was was my first experience in a place where so little for me is so much for someone else, and interactions with locals were often hard to judge. Overall people were incredibly nice, and always welcomed you with "soyez les bienvenus", literally: be the welcome ones. For me, this invitation seemed like an olive branch in such a foreign place, yet took on such a complicated sense. You  never knew if people were helping you only to demand money at the end, which leads to tourists being overly cautious and closed in my opinion, and that really limits the human interactionly and you feel especially badly when the person was actually just trying to give you some local advice, or talk to you about life in France. We experienced everything from a really uncomfortable encounter of having to, in no uncertain terms, tell a local boy to stop following us home, to playing soccer with a gang of kids who spoke no French, to exchanging addresses with an old man who ran a bathroom whose dream it was to come to France with promises to send him a postcard.

It was a beautiful place with an irreplicable culture, but by the end I was ready to be in a city where they use toilet paper, I didn't have to bargain the price of everything from water to a cab ride, I could open my mouth in the shower, and look at a legible map and know where I was.
On to Budapest...

View of Fez at sunset