Our Christmas in Carpentras
We are in France for Christmas, seeing daughter-san and enjoying the hospitality of our friend who lives in Marseille.
Our connection with Martine started about 15 years ago when her 13-year old daughter Alice took a a three week USA trip with her French lycée class. The kids were bunked with different host families, and Alice happened to land with us. The next summer, at 14 years old, she came back for two months, traveling on her own this time. We took her on our family trips to the Pacific Northwest and around California, and then I took her to New York on my business trip, we spent a couple days exploring New York and I put her on her plane to Paris.
As she grew up, Alice kept returning to stay with us for a month or two at a time, even after we moved to Portland. We also stayed with Alice's family in Marseille, when her mother Martine got to met her daughter's "American family" for the first time. A couple years later, Martine's family and ours took a vacation together in Italy. Meanwhile, Alice finished high school, went to university, then studied at an ecole de commerce (business school) in France, between more stays with her American family.
A few years ago, she emailed me for help writing a CV in English. We researched the companies she would be applying to, and wrote a CV in nearly-but-not -too-perfect English. She got the first job she applied for, which was in New York City. So Alice started working in America, as well as getting a graduate degree from a US university.
(Warning: rant about the US immigration system. It drives me crazy that a young French woman, fluent in English, highly educated, already employed in the US, no hint of security issues, struggles to piece together a string of temporary visas just to stay in the US. We are a nation of immigrants, and we won't stay the dynamic, inventive, adaptable, wealthy country that we are without the best young talent that the world has to offer, those brave and ambitious enough to choose challenge over familiarity.)
Anyway, back to food. We arrived in Marseilles and had barely unpacked before we were bundled into Martine's car and headed to Carpentras, which is a small town near Avignon, the former seat of the Catholic Papacy in Southern France. We all stayed with our hosts Alain and Dominique, two big dogs, a farm cat, and a rotating coterie of friends in their big stone farmhouse at the corner of what used to be a large strawberry farm.
The house was fascinating. Initially built around 1854, it was a classic farmhouse from this region. The cold north wind, or mistral, dominates the local architecture. Houses were built long and narrow, with the ends pointed east and west, the living areas and large windows on the south side, and enclosed, windowless areas for storage of vegetables, wine, and animals along the north side. Living areas were only about 15 feet deep, that being as far as sunlight will reach through a window. Walls of cypress were planted close the the north side as windbreaks, deciduous trees were planted outside the main southern windows as shade for the summer. As the family grew with each generation, storage areas were converted to living space and eventually new sections added. One son became a local priest so a neighboring house was built with a prominent statue of the Virgin. Eventually the family did less farming.
The last farmer in the Nicolet family died in the 1960s. His papers and office were left exactly as he last touched them, and the family began selling the farm, parcel by parcel. His widow passed away in the early 1980s. Her daughter, then completing her degree in architecture, used the family farmhouse as one of the subjects in her graduate thesis, so when our new friends bought the house around 2000, they received not just all the tools, plows, baskets, and records of a long-shuttered strawberry, farm, a house full of old furniture, and a renter in the east wing, but also a detailed history of the house, its changes over the past 150 years, and the rural architecture of the region, which have been very useful as they convert the old farmhouse to a large and comfortable villa.
Even financially well-off French people haven't adopted the huge quasi-commercial kitchens of high-end American houses. For two days, around 16 people, plus or minus, were fed a more or less continuous flow of courses from a kitchen of about 100 square feet, including counters, one sink, a hard-working dishwasher, and a 30" range with four glass burners.
This French family didn't aspire to Iron Chef displays of technique. Very fine ingredients were cooked very simply, or not cooked at all, and plated in the most basic arrangements. They laughed at how I cut and folded the platter of smoked salmon, and no-one took pictures of the food - but me.
I lost track of what we ate, but it was something like this, and not exactly in this order:
smoked salmon, salmon eggs, bread
pate
slices of truffle with salt and olive oil
filet mignon, stuffed with truffles, wrapped with ham
seared foie gras, I had thirds because there was too much for everyone to finish
scallops in a saffron cream sauce
three scotches, as part of an attempt to work from lightest to darkest in my host's collection, but I gave it up early
mushroom soup
turkey slow cooked in champagne, in a dough-sealed cocotte
mushrooms in mushroom gravy
a Chateau Margaux 1999, which was told was this chateau's second wine
about 12 kinds of cheese
the best Buche de Noel (Yule Log) I have ever had, with a layer of puffed rice adding lightness and crisp
more pate
three or four dessert wines
rillettes, which is a sort of fatty, salty, mix of slow cooked pork fragments, mostly from the pig's face I think
grapes and curly crusty bread things
more smoked salmon, and some kind of white salty spread made from fish eggs
truffle potato chips
a couple more red wines
some sausages, that my son said were the best sausages he'd ever tasted
local walnuts
another buche de noel
a weird green dessert liqueur
a couple different kinds of bread, one homemade, one apparently rather fancy (but I've forgotten the name)
cream of vegetable soup
12 more kinds of cheese
more smoked salmon, rilettes and salmon eggs
soft cooked eggs with lots of truffles, served in the eggshell
more mushrooms in sauce
various white wines, for breakfast
also about 30 little cups of espresso
The is the region for truffles, hence there were a lot of truffleized foods. The soups were made with an interesting machine called a Thermomix which appears to be a programmable combination of cooker and Vitamix. For the searing, we used an electric pan. The Chateau Marguax was gravely introduced and carefully decanted but then we simply drank it, no declaimations or pontifications. The cat ate from the its food bowl on the counter as we cooked, and the dogs were constantly underfoot.
Eating all of this took pretty much every waking moment of two days and nights. Courses were usually at least half an hour apart. Breakfast was served around 10 am, lunch started around 4 pm, and dinner typically at 9 pm.
: )...exhausting story and so familiar. Lovely meals. I can taste every word in your descriptive copy... Happy Holidays to you and your family together. (is son with you?)
What a wonderful time you are all having with old and new friends. Please share any photos of the farm house, it sounds fantastic.
Your story reminds me of my trip to France in December.
Very Christmas-ey!
Beaujolais nouveau was the highlight, of course Black truffle was in season.
Street vendors purveying hot chestnuts roasting on open fire, "C’est chaud marron ici! C’est chaud marron ici!"
Merry Christmas!
dcarch
Just to reassure people that John and Family have been thoroughly spoiled by their wonderful hosts - we don't habitually drink wine for breakfast LOL Did they give you the 13 desserts?
http://www.cuisine-et-mets.com/desserts/fruits/treizes-desserts-de-provence.html
Most people were back at work on Monday. And I thought we had been particularly greedy!
Sounds so wonderful--the house, the food, the people. And you describe it wonderfully too.
This is the farmhouse.
Here it is around 1930 (?). Roger Nicolet, the prosperous strawberry farmer, and his wife are seated in the center's. One son is a soldier. Another must be a businessman. A third son is a priest. The family owns a car.
The house started in 1854 as a simple structure. It faces south, toward the sun, and the two large trees give shade in the summer. The back of the house is almost windowless, to stop the mistral (north) wind.
At the turn of the century, an attached barn was built on the west and a new living wing on the east.
Later a house was built to the east for the priest son. More outbuildings were added and a wall built around the compound (that wall no longer exists). The neighbor, across the road, competed building his house, in similar stages, around the 1940s.
The interior, ground floor, looked like this in the 1960s, when the house was still being used as a farmhouse. The two barns added on the west end are shown at the top of the page.
The original house has a south side, on the left side of the page, where there is a small stable ("ecurie"), the kitchen-sitting room ("cuisine-sejour"), the entry room ("entree"), the dining room ("salle a manger"), and a pantry ("placard"), as well as the stairs to the 1st floor (what we call the second floor).
The north side of the original house was for storing food and wine. These "caves" didn't have doorways to the living quarters, they were essentially sheltered outdoor storage.
The addition to the east end, shown at the bottom of the page, was probably for a son and his family. It is a separate living unit, with entrance, kitchen, and upstairs.
This is the 1st floor (the second floor, to Americans), between the wars. It was many small rooms, some windowless, usually just large enough for a small bed and a dresser or small nightstand.
When our friends bought the house, the widow had died, the family had been using the old farmhouse as a family vacation home for over a decade, and the east addition was rented out.
Our friends lived in the main house for several years, the renter finally left, they moved into the west addition and had the main house reworked. The storage areas on the north of the house were incorporated into the living areas, the stable became the kitchen and breakfast room, the kitchen became the living room, the entry room and dining room kept their roles. I'm not sure what was done upstairs, as I didn't explore there.
After they moved back into the main house, they reworked the east addition into home offices (his downstairs, hers upstairs), a couple of guest rooms where we stayed, and an exercise room.
I took few photos of the inside, because it seemed a bit weird to do so. Here is the dining table where we spent most of our waking hours.
And the dining room during a game of something, bingo maybe.
I'll post a few photos of the food later!
Here are a few food pictures. Basically I was faced with something like this every hour or so on average.
Cheese. A huge variety of hard, soft, and liquid cheeses. At every meal. You just eat a tiny taste of the cheeses that interest you. If they all interest you, then that's a problem . . .
Foie grad, seared
Scallops in saffron and cream
Smoked salmon, salmon eggs, and other stuff for a snack
Turkey studded with truffles and slow cooked in champagne (about 1.5 bottles, not rose),
Mushroom soup, sorry for the weird lighting
Eggs with truffles, the eggs have to soak up the truffle flavor like this before cooking, and apparently the eggs are stored with the truffles beforehand as well.
Finally, this is the only guest who was less than pleased about the proceedings. My son has not adjusted to jet lag, and was also really exhausted before he left Portland (high school + his dance school + rehearsals and performances in another school's Nutcracker), so he was tired and definitely didn't want to sit at a table for hours. We made him do it anyway. Some things are just good for building character.
What the French considers "food", very much different than what are commonly available to us here in the USA as "food".
dcarch
Thank-you for the pictures, John! The story was wonderful enough, but the pictures make for a mini-vacation right there!
Sumptuous for the eyes!
Thank you for sharing a glimpse of your hosts, their life and foods and your vacation. Your words and pictures are just wonderful.
Oh my, that looks and sounds wonderful. It seemed like you were getting spoiled indeed, and I'm glad Islay chimed in to say that wine for breakfast every day was not usual, LOL.
Even if your son wasn't all that thrilled to be sitting there for that length of time, what a wonderful experience for him.
Wishing you safe travels...
Annie
What a brilliant time you must have had! Wow! So lucky your family is (though truth be told it sounds like you've made most of your own luck through your generosity :-) ). Envy! Stay safe, all of you :-)
No, Annie, we DON'T drink wine for breakfast!!!
Beautiful house!
Wow -- what a wonderful holiday trip for your family! Incredible house... would love to sample the food. Makes me want to watch the movie 'French Kiss'. :)
Sorry, Islay, I went back and corrected that. Still, it was a fun thought, LOL.
Annie
You remind me of a memorable scene in an otherwise forgotten movie. Two girl roommates. College I suppose, but in an apartment. One asks the other what she wants on her cornflakes, vodka or gin. :)
I'm quite curious as to why. Usually, the French are sticklers for "mealtimes" and don't snack or eat throughout the day.
Anyway, lots of fresh veggies as have got to get ready for the next onslaught of new year's eve! LOL
The whole thing was sort of a blurry haze of eating, drinking, napping, smoking (whether first or second hand), conversing, eating, drinking, reading, playing games, eating, drinking, and wandering around looking at things.
There were sort of distinct "meal times", but there were so many courses, separated by such long periods, and eaten in such a leisurely manner, with little you-must-try-this things in between, that it ended up as more or less continuous grazing.
Sounds wonderful, John, and you must have had a great time! Poor thing, having to eat all that foie gras so it wouldn't go to waste. Believe me, my DH and I would have happily helped, LOL.
>>some kind of white salty spread made from fish eggs>> sounds like taramosalata (sometimes spelled taramasalata), mixed fish roe pureed with olive oil and bread. Greek/Turkish mezze, easily available in glass jars as it's popular in France.
>>weird green liqueur>> Chartreuse, perhaps? An acquired taste, IMHO.
I wouldn't read too much into the cultural implications. This kind of festive continuous leisurely grazing happens everywhere, I think, whether in African mud huts, French farmhouses, Midwest ramblers, South American city flats, Near East townhouses, etc. I'm guessing East Asia too, though I haven't been specifically informed. I think it comes of having a lot of guests, staying, perhaps a small kitchen, no real clock driven activities, certainly a lot of good will, etc. The cooks make all their best dishes and whatever their ingredients inspire and don't let themselves get bogged down by the idea that everyone has to eat the same thing at the same time in the same quantity. They just keep cooking stuff, and the people keep eating stuff.
It all sounds very fun, especially in such different surroundings!
jakkom, you are right, it was tamara. I had a tamara-onion sandwich in a cafe in Marseille later.
I think we are going to try doing a dinner party with similar leisurely timing. Instead of going nuts trying to time everything to be ready at the same moment.
Sticklers for mealtime are common during the year. Holidays are all-deals-off in celebration. Not that far off here, USA, or wherever. Many cultures go heavy when guests are expected. Just about everywhere i've lived or visited is excessive and when friends visit. My home in Newfoundland it is a bit over the top in hospitality. I've grilled mozzarella, pesto, tomato, fresh made boule on the wood cook stove at 2 am then served out under the stars, in snow, wrapped in blankets. (humans wrapped in blankets, not the grilled cheese)
That is after a big meal of Cod-Three-Ways and excess all day.
I was wondering if it isn't a more southern thing. Here, if it's not a "meal" then it could be an apéritif dinatoire like this
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=apéritif+dinatoire+noel&rlz=2Y3KTZR_enGB0695GB0695google.manta.mantaray&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIs5LovJvRAhUEBywKHRHiCdMQ_AUIBygB&biw=1280&bih=800
It sounds like you've had a great experience with wonderful friends.
Sorry I'm late, but adding my thanks for the detailed descriptions and a peak into a wonderful holiday! I loved hearing the history of the architecture. It's making me long for a provencal farmhouse :)
The dinde is inspiring me to try something with that variation of "cocotte lutee". And now I know they really do put something big into those large cocottes.
I understand from another source it is truffle season in Provence. Did you go hunting for them? It is on my wishlist someday. Hope you also enjoyed a bunch of Chateauneuf du Pape.
A taramosalata and onion sandwich sounds like one of those foods you need to have everyone around you eats or make sure mouthwash is nearby -- talk about pungent!.
John, our local PBS website had this article and I immediately thought of your "weird green dessert liqueur" ! There's several possibilities listed:
https://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2017/01/09/pining-for-a-cozy-winter-drink-try-an-evergreen-liqueur/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BayAreaBites+%28Bay+Area+Bites%29
I was thinking the green liquor could be absinthe, flavored with anise. Also called the "green fairy", it was forbidden/outlawed in America and most of Europe for some time, but now some brands are made in France. I don't think it's sweet, though, I think it's herbal...
Annie
Just noticed that it was one of those local 5 legged turkeys LOL