Memories of some French culinary culture – Part 1
At 4.20pm, there were a few random blobs of rain; and I was told that the cooking class was about to start, so I went over to the kitchen, we were all given aprons and chefs hats, and John Paul said lots of things in French about what would be happening this week, that Thursday would involve doing something with chocolate; and then the 3 of us younger people were mixed up with the 6 older people by him.
He got out a bottle of white rum, showed us a couple of sheets of gelatin, and got out a really really floppy ruler to point out to us all how small 5mm was, demonstrated how to take the skin off an orange with a knife, said (in French – I understood bits of it) we needed to put the sheets of gelatine in cold water otherwise it would all fall apart, then put it all into moulds (and said that the moulds are usually used for something – but I forgot what it was), and said that there were lots of possibilities with all these different fruits. The woman next to me (wearing peculiar purple trousers) kept making peculiar noises that I presume she thought were supposed to sound French; then John Paul said some stuff about the jam we could put on top and said more about varying flavours through the meal; we all chopped up pears, apples and satsumas, he stuck brown sugar in 2 frying pans on 2 little electric hob sort of things on the counter in front of us, and then we stuck the chopped fruit in them, they got cooked a bit, gelatine and rum were put in, and then spooning this stuff into small rectangular moulds was started.
After that, he mixed up gelatine and strawberries and stuck that stuff in some more rectangular moulds, one lady wasn’t sure what was going on either, but then John Paul took all the things in moulds away and told us we’d be doing the main course next; and at 5.50pm, brought out trays of cherry tomatoes, carrots, garlic, and some brown gungy stuff in a little plastic beaker that was apparently ‘de moustarde a l’ancienne’.
Alex was told to go and cut some rosemary from out in the garden (which he did), John Paul started slicing up what I think was a rack of lamb (and I noticed 1 of the women in the room was chewing gum), dumped a big lump of 1 of these slices on a board, the woman next to me got rather confused as to how to get rosemary off its stalks, the frying pans were switched on at 6.10pm, and John Paul told us to keep an inch of the carrot stalks on top of the carrots. The woman next to me kept going ‘aaahhh’ and ‘bon’, and then bits of foil were wrapped around the stalks of the carrots (which had been sliced in half), they were all put on a tray with what I think were sliced up spring onions and oil, various beeping noises came from somewhere, and then stuffing mixture was spread onto the cooked meat. John Paul got out a pot of ‘Fleur de Sel’ (I’m not sure what that is), and did something I forgot with it, said we’d lay the table and could then go and change and come back for dinner, people were still going ‘aaahhh’ and ‘bon’, and after laying the table and tidying up, we all took our aprons off, and Alex said to me (just after we’d gone outside) ‘that was the most stressful thing I’ve done in my life’ (and sounded reasonably serious about it – which made me grin).
At that point (6.40pm), Mum was still out somewhere and I couldn’t remember where our room was, so I sat in the garden, and then noticed ants crawling all over the table out there (and the chairs – 1 of which I was sat on). Alex came and sat with me, we chatted a bit, he asked what sort of stuff I write down – and asked if he could read a bit, so I let him read the previous page, he said ‘that’s so cool – I would’ve forgotten about half of this stuff’, and there was a bit more chatting before Mum returned, so I returned with her to our room.
She had had an hour and a half on her own with V being taught about conjugating verbs, and asked about my day, so I read out some excerpts of my notes, which made her giggle. The bell was rung for dinner, (by which time Alex was wondering if anyone might get food poisoning), we all went in, and were presented with salmon and balsamic vinegar mushy stuff. Mum told me I’d really caught the sun and began talking to the woman next to her about her inhaler; the main courses were given to us all (and eaten); then John Paul got out a cheese board with 3 different lumps of cheese on it (and told us all what they were – in French – while pointing at where they were made and saying various things about the places – on a small map), and the woman next to me asked everyone (in French – I did understand that) if they eat cheese regularly at home.
2 more cheese boards were placed on the table and smelt extremely odd (1 of these cheeses was a strange beigey colour on the outside) but they were still eaten, and then we got given the gelatine stuff that we’d put into moulds earlier, and were each asked (by John Paul) to get them out of their moulds and paint a pattern on to a plate with a red jam and a yellow jam (he said that the yellow jam was apricot and the red jam was ‘wood fruits’ – which has mures, framboises, myrtillies, and fraises in it)(I quietly asked him if he knew what those were in English and he was lovely and tried to think of the English names for me – framboises are raspberries, myrtillies are blueberries and mures are blackberries). He showed me the recipe for the gelatine stuff (it’s called ‘seasonal fruit aspic’), by which time it was getting late; so everyone – once with fully consumed plates – said goodnight.
John Paul died several months after our visit – all my notes and photos from our trip ensure he will always be brilliantly remembered.
