The other thing is that, to me, French women seem so thin and the older they get, the more they take care of their thinness. They also devote serious time to hiding wrinkles behind immaculately pancaked faces, white silk neck scarves and eye-distracting jewellery.
How strange it was then that I recently went to two dinners in french households to consume a winter-only Raclette and a Tarteflette. Back in the sixties in England fondues were the big thing. So sophisticated, we thought, balancing bits of meat onto forks and thrusting them into boiling oil and dipping the cooked meat into noxious coloured sauces. The alternative version was thick cheese melted with sparkling wine and kept liquid over the little stove while bits of crusty bread were dipped into the mix. Burnt mouths invariably ensued and a feeling of sickness from cheese overload.
Taking Raclette first, we sat round the table looking at a sort of double hotplate with grill filaments in between. The tools for each person consisted of a little trowel, a tiny wooden spatular and a plate of thinly sliced raclette cheese. There was a bowl of freshly boiled waxy potatoes and little dishes of mini gherkins for general use.
The machine was plugged in, the grill heated up and a guest tripped over the wire bringing the whole thing crashing to the tiled floor. The equipment was obviously made to survive such attacks because when plugged in again, the grill came on to rapturous applause. The plan is to put a slice of cheese onto your trowel and slide it under the grill. Then you put some boiled potatoes on your plate and when the cheese is a running cholesterol trap, you pour it over the potatoes. Gherkins are essential, I was informed, to prevent digestive problems from the richness of the fayre.
As for Tarteflette – well that’s pre-prepared and delivered to the table in a large dish and you spoon it onto your plate. It is made up of layers of waxy potatoes, chunks of bacon (lardons), a full cream sauce and a whole sliced reblochon cheese on top which, during oven cooking, melts down into the potatoes while leaving a crusty topping. Again, vinegar is needed for digestive purposes, so there’s a bowl of lettuce with vinegar/oil dressing.
Reblochon is a mountain cheese originally from the Alps. In the 16th century milk production was taxed so the morning milk paid the taxes and the evening milk was used by the farmers. This evening milk was rich and creamy and often turned into reblochon, a delicate cheese with a pale yellow rind which. Today it can be bought in supermarkets.
Raclette cheese comes from the French and Swiss Alps and is made according to ancestral methods. It’s a semi-hard cheese made from unpasturised cow’s milk with a distinctive aromatic flavour. Its creamy texture with scattered holes has an ideal fat and moisture ratio that prevents the cheese from separating when melted under the grill.
My surprise then is how these winter dishes are popular in France where women and FAC educated people appear to me to be seriously style conscious. A further surprise is that the communal diving in, melting and scoffing extra thick food is a long way from the formal, and more usual, apero, entrée, main of meat or fish, green salad, cheese, dessert formula which is peppered with witty chat and lasts about three hours.
I don’t know which I prefer, I think it’s the latter only because the immense overload of cheese and potato is not really suitable for the retired. Perhaps if I had 40 cows to milk twice daily, or a barn to build, I would be grateful of such comfort and slow energy release food.
But the real secret is that while I might have my raclette with ten trowels and an equal number of potatoes, I notice my french female friends had two trowel loads and made it last two hours. While I had a tarteflette of three helpings of creamy bacon cheesy sauced potatoes, my friends had a small dessert spoon and chatted enthusiastically about which market sells the best cheese in between taking minute sips from a half-filled glass of white wine.
I’ve a lot to learn about food restraint in France.
posted by French Deal @ 10:06 am
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