Throughout the past year, I’ve fallen in love with France and French culture. So much so that I’m sad I won’t be continuing my formal study of it next semester since I’ll have graduated. Thankfully, I listened to reason and took two French classes this semester though 🙂 I’ve even had the opportunity to use the knowledge from one class (Learning French Culture through Cuisine) in the other (Third Semester French).
Earlier in the semester, my French language class was assigned to write a single-page composition on one of three topics. Loving food and seeing a perfect opportunity to combine my knowledge of French culture with my own life, I chose to write about my ideal meal. Below is my English translation, followed by the original French version (for anyone who’s interested). Note: I’ve taken the liberty of translating more eloquently than my knowledge of French permits me to actually write (and I didn’t want to exceed a page)—while staying true to the general content.
A French Style Dinner
For my ideal dinner, I want to have a big meal, similar to a formal dinner in France. The meal would contain an appetizer, a main course, a salad, a cheese platter, and a dessert with a drink to match each course. Lots of people will enjoy this delicious meal with me including my older sister, my two nieces, my brother-in-law, my mom, my three younger sisters, and my grandma.
For the appetizer, there will be brie and honey crêpes or strawberry crêpes both with a red wine and grape juice as a non-alcoholic drink. Crêpes are delicious and while I haven’t had the first type, I’m certain these crêpes will be tasty.
I love the lasagna my older sister and I cook together. Thus, this is the main course. For the occasion, we add sausages to the red peppers, greens peppers, onions, and cubed tomatoes. Plus the lasagna has cheddar, mozzarella, and ricotta cheeses with red sauce. We drink Beaujolais with our main course. Everything is delicious!
The third course is a salad, specifically an Auvergne salad with a white wine from Burgundy. Auvergne salad is typically made with walnut, but I don’t like walnuts. Therefore this salad has a modification: almonds are used, and not walnuts, with the ham, Cantal cheese, cherry tomatoes, shallots, and vinaigrette.
A cheese platter is the fourth course with red Bordeaux to compliment the cheeses. This platter has Roquefort, Saint Marcellin, Comté, and Délice (from Burgundy) with French bread. For my picky family members (and the little children), provolone and cheddar are served.
Finally, for dessert, chocolate cheesecake and champagne are enjoyed immensely. I love chocolate, but cheesecake and chocolate are a perfect combination! They are an ideal end to an ideal meal. End.
While we’re on the topic of French cuisine, last week was my French cuisine instructor’s birthday. Since we had class on his birthday, a friend and I made a small to-do. She made an absolutely delicious carrot cake (which we learned during the second week of class is his favorite). I made a card which tied the entire surprise back to class because I used (not) Marie-Antoinette’s famous line “Ils mangent de la brioche” (pronounced bree-oh-sh—long ‘e’ and long ‘o’). This line is famously mistranslated to “Let them eat cake.” Two misconceptions here: 1) Marie-Antoinette didn’t say this and 2) brioche isn’t really cake. Marie-Antoinette wasn’t yet Queen of France when she supposedly airily said the line; and technically brioche is a type of bread.
Although the cake was magnificent (I ate two slices), seeing how pleasantly surprised our instructor was at our thoughtfulness (or cleverness as he put it) definitely takes the cake 😛 (pun intended). Relearned Lesson: doing nice things for others is a great idea.
Un dîner dans le style français-La Version Originale
For the next post: running!
Bethany Blount 