TEST DE MOLIENDA STARKEY SAG

An astounding variety of foods are eaten in France. This is due to the diversity of agricultural production, to long-standing traditions of cultiva- tion and of practices such as hunting, and, more recently, to the many imports. Americans are of course quite familiar with items such as beef, the common orchard fruits, and eponymous exports such as Champagne. Even so, different butchering practices, for instance, as well as the typical preparations give beef a special fl avor in France. Horse is not treated as food in the United States. The taste for, say, grated raw celery root salad with a cream dressing—a favorite bistro lunch—may come as a a surprise. To present the major foods and ingredients, this chapter broadly follows the structure of the traditional meal in courses. Bread, wine, and meat come fi rst, followed by vegetables, then cheese. Dessert—fruits, baked goods—and the digestif (after-dinner drink) appear at the end.

BREAD

For centuries, bread was a staple of the diet, as well as a powerful reli- gious symbol. The language has numerous expressions that refer to bread. A slang word for a job is gagne-pain, because it is how you earn ( gagner ) the bread that keeps you alive. To “take the bread out of someone’s mouth” is to rob him of his livelihood. Your pain quotidien (daily bread) is the food that you count on eating every day. Only a century ago, each person ate 500 grams (on the order of a half-pound) daily. Today, about three

or four slices of bread is average. Bread—no matter how small the quan- tity—makes a meal complete. In cafés, bistros, and restaurants, slices of bread are placed on the table in a basket to accompany food, as a matter of course.

Breads are identifi ed by name and, for country-style loaves, by weight. Bread is rarely made at home, rather in boulangeries (bakery shops) or industrial bakeries. The long (70 cm or 27.5 inches), thin, crusty white

baguette is typical of Paris, although it is eaten all over the country. At

best, the crust is crispy, and the crumb chewy and delicate. In a bakery the baguette can be purchased bien cuite (well cooked), that is, darker and dryer, or pas trop cuite (baked less), that is, taken out of the oven when it is still pale gold, delicately crispy, and moister on the inside. A slim relative of the baguette is the fi celle (string), similarly long but half the diameter. Large round boules used to be a staple, and darker bread made from unrefi ned wheat or rye was typical for the poor. Recent interest in eating whole grains for health has brought dark breads back into fashion. The bâtard (bastard) is a free-form loaf named for the mixed leavening agents—both yeast and a sour-dough starter—used to make it. Rustic

Buying a baguette at the boulangerie Au pain chô in Sainte Maxime. The dough rising on the racks at the back of the shop awaits baking. Courtesy of Hervé Depoil.

pains de campagne (country breads) can be enriched with dried fi gs, olives,

and nuts. In Paris, Metz, and other cities with Jewish communities, Jewish bakeries sell challah, the braided loaf fortifi ed with eggs that is eaten on the Sabbath, as well as bagels covered with poppy or sesame seeds.

Most bread is sliced in the kitchen or at table, or else broken off in chunks, to eat with a meal. Bread and crumbs have numerous uses in cooking. Sprinkled on top of a dish of meat, vegetables, or potatoes that is baked in the oven, they form an attractive crust. Panade is a carryover from poorer days and peasant traditions, when adding bread to soup made a heartier meal. The taste for croûtons (toasted slices of bread) with soup remains. Croûtons are placed in the bottom of onion soup bowls, and they accompany fi sh soups.

When bread-baking practices were standardized and mechanized in the second half of the twentieth century, quality declined. Recently, some bakers have begun to reverse this trend. They use older processes, such as proofi ng with sourdough or wheat fl our starter instead of with fast- rising yeast. They choose better ingredients, such as organic, unrefi ned, or stone- ground fl ours. The old-style processes are slower. They require more labor, skill, and attention from the baker, however, the artisanal methods result in bread that has a deeper fl avor, a silkier and more elastic crumb, and better keeping qualities. The old-style breads cost more than industrially produced loaves but taste so much better that people seek them out.

WINE

Wine has been produced on French soil since antiquity. Today, France is the premier producer in the world, responsible for a fi fth of global production. Wine has long been thought of as hygienic and nourishing, a safe beverage that gives life and strength. Before the modern understand- ing of water cleanliness and contamination, it really was often safer to drink wine, beer, and cider, effectively sterilized through the presence of alcohol. Wine was usually mixed with water. In the mid-nineteenth cen- tury, poet Charles Baudelaire evoked the infi nitely variable “soul” of wine in a series of poems. The “different” wines drunk by rag-pickers, assassins,

and lovers, not to mention poets 1 _{lead variously to drunkenness (either}

divine or simply boorish), spiritual transcendence, poetic inspiration, earthly contentment, and deep sleep. As recently as the late 1930s, wine consumption averaged 170 liters (45 gallons) per person yearly, about a half-liter (the better part of a pint) each day. It usually was drunk mixed with water. The high level of alcohol consumption led to high levels of liver problems and alcoholism. In certain métiers or trades, such as among

tannery workers, old drinking traditions have not disappeared. This causes concern for colleagues, as heavy drinking is now understood to threaten health and safety. Today, wine is drunk undiluted but in smaller quanti- ties. The average stands at approximately 60 liters (15.75 gallons) of wine per person each year, or less than one glass each day. Although only one in four French men and women regularly drinks wine, it is essential to the culture of the table.

Alcoholic beverages generally are always accompanied by food, and wine is integrated into meals. For an everyday meal, people drink water and wine, taking them separately; diluting wine with water is now quite rare. A separate wine for each course is de rigueur for formal and celebration meals. Wine sets off food, and vice versa; each brings out the tastes and textures of the other to best advantage. It is one of the components that contributes to making a meal complete—structured, harmonious, and balanced—and as enjoyable as possible. The individual fl avor and character of each wine de- rives from the grapes as well as from the production processes. Some wines are dryer, having less sugar, and others sweeter. Some are lighter and sim- pler in fl avor, others richer and more complex. Tradition and experiment suggest rules of thumb for pairing wine and food, although combinations ultimately depend on personal preference. Dry Champagne marries well

Historical, economic, and religious signifi - cance contribute to the importance of wine, the national beverage. Courtesy of Christian Verdet/regard public-unpact.

with just about anything and may be drunk throughout an entire meal. Sweet white wines such as Sauternes, any Muscat, and Monbazillac pair with foie gras or with a salty appetizer at the beginning of a meal. Dry white wines accompany fi sh or seafood to good effect. Red wines that are light in character complement chicken dishes, veal, and charcuterie. Full-bodied red wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Languedoc set off sturdy or rich savory foods, such as red meats and cheese.

Although wine drinking overall has declined, the trend is to drink better quality wines. Standards and methods of production vastly improved throughout the twentieth century. Today, even the cheapest vin ordinaire (everyday wine) tends to be of decent quality. The gut-searing piquette of days past has practically disappeared. Since 1975, the consumption of fi ne wines has doubled. These are the exceptional wines that mature and develop over time (measured in years), improving over a long, although fi nite, period. Of course, most people simply purchase inexpensive bottles along with the rest of the groceries. Such bottles are not meant to be kept or aged after bottling. They are best drunk within at most a few months.

Cooking assigns wine a large number of tasks. Both whites and reds are used for fl avoring. In larger amounts, wine is a cooking medium for meat stews and bean dishes. After a piece of meat is sautéed in a pan, wine is poured in over high heat to deglaze the pan and mix with the meat juices to form a sauce. The alcohol cooks off, leaving only the fl avor (and color, if red). Poured cold over fruit or berries, wine forms a marinade. Fruit macerated or soaked in wine acquires tenderness as well as fl avor.

MEAT

In today’s affl uent society, consumption of la viande (meat) is high. Concerns for health are causing perceptible shifts in this pattern, although for the moment the trend to eat signifi cantly less meat occurs largely at the highest rungs of the economic ladder; there are few vegetarians in France. France is the foremost producer of meat in the European Union. It raises more than enough for its own population, but imports to meet the large demand for cuts such as steaks and roasts. On average, each person eats 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of meat yearly, only slightly behind Australians (110 kilograms or 242 pounds yearly) and Americans (105 kilograms or 231 pounds) as the biggest consumers of meat in the world. Meat is the centerpiece for most main meals. French cooks have the reputation of being creative and frugal, ingenious and resourceful. They have invented succulent dishes that use all parts of animals slaughtered for meat, wasting nothing, although the modern lifestyle prefers fast, simple preparations.