By Eric Van Vleet
We recently wrote on this blog about our obsession with the French reality TV show Un dîner presque parfait. After watching so many episode we had realized certain commonalities for throwing a quality French dinner party. While this was mainly academic interest at first, we had the ability to put these ideas into practice Saturday night. While we did not fully follow the format of having five consecutive parties for each participant, Lili and I hosted four French friends for our own dîner presque parfait. We had discussed this party with friends for a while and finally arranged it as our time in France was sadly coming to a close. Also, sorry about the photo quality. We need an actual camera...
For our dinner, we already had the theme of American Thanksgiving. Why not introduce our French friends to American food on its greatest culinary day? Yet some problems immediately arose. Our oven, if you would call it that, is a glorified toaster oven. A whole turkey could not fit in it. Sweet potatoes are available but only from large chain stores. Cranberries are not at all common. So we quickly realized that we could not replicate an American Thanksgiving for them. In a nod to the French, we decoded to serve the meal in courses and not all at once as in the American Thanksgiving tradition. Serving it in courses, made our meal last roughly four hours, which is almost un-American, but very common for French social gatherings.
Yet when in France, with the greatest produce, cheese and meat that anyone could hope for, why try to exactly replicate an American meal? So as our guests would recognize, we put a French twist on typical American Thanksgiving based largely on what was seasonal and available. I say we, but this was largely Lili’s effort in designing and executing the menu. In giving credit where credit is due, Jacques Pepin’s video on how to debone a chicken was invaluable.
The meal started with an aperitif of that Italo-American staple, meatballs and gravy. Lili used a combination of ground beef and pork from our local butcher, which she mixed with dried oregano, salt, pepper, fresh shallot, fresh garlic and hand grated day old baguette. As it is not the season for tomatoes, she used canned tomatoes, which she added to a sofrito of onions and garlic and then added homemade chicken stock and bits of chicken, which she reduced for 20 minutes. She then browned the meatballs on each side and let them simmer on low heat in the sauce to help absorb more flavor. We served the meatballs with an interesting aperitif called Le Fou d’Ecausses, which is a low alcohol sparkling wine that drinks much more like a sweet cider.These meatballs were the biggest hit of the night as was the drink. Lili had impressed them right from the start.
As on Un dîner presque parfait, we had our game or (animation) after the aperitif. I decided to have us play trivia about Thanksgiving and the history of some of the foods we would serve. While people in general like something with more physical activity, we were offering as a prize, sea salt infused with Piment d'Espelette, a French hot pepper. I decided to make the questions multiple choice, so people were shouting out answers quite rapidly, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. We made the mistake that many contestants make of not paying much attention to the decoration. We made no hand-drawn turkeys nor cornucopias. We just stuck with traditional Thanksgiving colors and focused almost entirely on the food.
For the appetizer Lili made a soup inspired by an American baked potato. She used homemade chicken stock, caramelized onions, cream, salt, pepper and potatoes. For the French twist, she added fried crispy duck skin (gratton) and put this on top instead of bacon. As we wanted to focus mainly on beer to bring a more American character, we served it with 3 Monts, a French beer in the bière de garde style, one of the few indigenous French beer styles.
During this course, talk shifted to politics with many Trump jokes abounding. They tried to reassure us that Marine Le Pen could not win in the second round of France’s run-off elections, but they remembered how Lili had assured them that Trump could win, even when almost no pollsters said it was possible. Since Lili has spent a lot of time volunteering with old conservative French ladies who see themselves in Marine Le Pen, while our friends are progressive university students in Toulouse who hang out with like-minded people, they cannot believe her victory is possible. Though we desperately hope they are right about the impossibility of her victory, after Trump and Brexit, one can never be so sure.
For the main course Lili, with Jacques Pepin’s help, had deboned and gallentine-d two chickens. She stuffed them with Toulouse sausages, fennel, French cornbread, turnips, butter, salt and pepper. She baked these in our counter top oven to serve as the turkey substitute. To make things even better, she added thinly-sliced potatoes in with the chickens to absorb their succulent fat. For the side we made a monster serving of mac and cheese made with Comté, young Cantal, young Gouda and an aged goat’s-milk Gouda cheese. For an extra French twist, we added day old croissants for the crust instead of the usual breadcrumbs. One common complaint by contestants of Un dîner presque parfait is that the food is too heavy and I fear our guests found mac and cheese far too heavy, while they appreciated the work Lili put into the gallentine. We served this course with what was to be the best beer produced in Lot and one of the best French beers that we have tried, called Walk on the Wine Side by a tiny brewery called Les Alcolytes. It is essentially a winter warmer aged in local Malbec wine barrels. There was a lot of delicious wine flavor in there, though it did not take on an almost black Malbec color.
For the dessert Lili made a Florentine Chocolate Tart, which includes a ganache of melted dark chocolate, egg yolks and cream. For the local twist we added hazelnuts and walnuts bought from the farmers market into the ganache. The crust was simply made of butter, digestive cookies and sugar. The good thing about the dessert is the dark chocolate cuts down on the sweetness. Contestants often complain on Un dîner presque parfait that the dessert is sweet and too copious. We were already handing out cups of American coffee and Armagnac to get the digestive processes started.
Yet, too critique Thanksgiving as being overblown and too heavy is to misunderstand the whole point of Thanksgiving. The point is to have everyone passed out on the couch a few hours later. No one should feel like taking a brisk jog after the meal or being able to contemplate eating again a few hours later. The fact that the entire family gathering is based around food is very French, I see now the heaviness of the meal though is fairly foreign in these parts. Eating American-inspired food is one thing for the French, eating it in American quantities is another.
Overall, we had a wonderful time entertaining our friends, who have previously shown us what French hospitality is all about. They have invited us to share Christmas, New Year’s and various village parties that resemble the most idealized portrayals of French rural life imaginable. It was nice to try to show our thanks for all they had done. Even if the food was a bit too heavy...
Overall, we had a wonderful time entertaining our friends, who have previously shown us what French hospitality is all about. They have invited us to share Christmas, New Year’s and various village parties that resemble the most idealized portrayals of French rural life imaginable. It was nice to try to show our thanks for all they had done. Even if the food was a bit too heavy...
