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Joyeux Noël

December 22, 2010

Image from iStockphoto.com

One of my favorite holiday memories is my French Christmas.  I was living in France, working for the Zundels caring for their four children, cooking and cleaning, as an au pair, or mother’s helper.  Throughout the year I lived in their home they welcomed me fully into their lives.  The winter holidays were no exception.  Christmas in France is an occasion.  Social, familial, religious if one chooses, full of festivity, food and eating.  Le réveillon is the crowning moment of the Christmas holiday.  “Réveillon” is based on the word “réveil” meaning “waking” as participation in le réveillon requires staying awake until midnight.  It takes place on Christmas eve, and begins with a meal that usually involves more extravagant foods than eaten everyday like champagne, oysters, lobster and foie gras.  The traditional dessert is a bûche de Noël.  The meal starts late, nine-thirty or ten o’clock at night, and is long.  Presents are opened after the meal, the children are allowed to stay up late.  For those that wish to, after all the presents are open, attending midnight mass is the final act of the evening.

Carina Zundel, age 6, and a Paris cousin amidst the spoils. Note the real candles on the Christmas tree!

My réveillon was all that it should have been.  As I’ve written before in other posts I lived for a year with the Zundel family in Colmar, a medium-sized city in the Alsace region of France.  Winters in Alsace are cold, wet and often snowy.  This Christmas eve in 1978 was no exception.  To me, a California boy, the cold, snowy weather added to the Christmas atmosphere.  The Zundel home was a large, four story house overlooking a canal.  The main living quarters included a dining room, a large kitchen and a nice sized living room with a fireplace; bedrooms were on the upper floors .  The Christmas tree was tastefully decorated with real candles instead of electric lights.  Family came in from Paris, the South of France; friends from the area were also invited.  The house was full of people, full of life.  Madame Zundel and I cooked a number of dishes together that were consumed over several days of Christmas celebrations.  I helped her with the réveillon dinner.  My memory of what we made, and ate, is fuzzy at this point but I am certain there was champagne, foie gras, and a bûche de Noël. I’m also sure that we did not make the bûche at home.  In France during this time of year every bakery and pastry shop has them available to purchase.

The four Zundel children I cared for: left to right, Carina, age 6, Grégoire, age 8, Nancy, age 9, Marc, age 5.

I wouldn’t consider myself a religious person, and I wasn’t raised Catholic but that evening I did join a few of the other guests at midnight mass.  Catholicism in France is an interesting subject to me as I see the French as a live and let live people.  Meaning if you choose to observe, please do so but don’t necessarily expect me to as well.  Yet in the center of every French town and village is a Catholic church, or most often a cathedral.  Large and imposing, they anchor the town and everything else is, or was, built around it.  Colmar was no different.  The cathedral sits in the center of town.  The Zundels lived within walking distance.  The few of us attending mass left the house at 11:55 p.m., full and sated from an amazing meal, and leisurely walked through the silent streets of Colmar as it lightly snowed.  It was the perfect end to an amazing evening.  My réveiilon was a Christmas I’ll never forget.

Rue de la Herse, Colmar, France. The Zundel house is on the left. Across the street Madame Zundel owned a yarn shop called 'La Lainerie.' A light snow was falling the day this was taken.

Me knitting! Madame Zundel owned a yarn shop so she taught me to knit. During the Christmas holidays, and all through the cold winter months, we sat before the fireplace knitting. I came home with a number of scarves.

Happy holidays and bon appétit!

*Sadly, and with apologies, due to time and other commitments I did not make the bûche de Nöel pictured above.  There are plenty of recipes on the Internet like this one from Martha Stewart ~ http://tinyurl.com/yz88ok3, or I also recommend the recipe in ‘Bon Appétit Desserts.’

My Status: 10 days of unheard of rain in California.  Wet, soggy and cold!  My mind is still on winter dishes; fun, interesting things like fondue bourguignonne, pieces of raw beef cooked in a fondue pot of hot oil.  Or a cheese fondue, those are always fun.  Then there’s the Swiss dish of raclette, set a whole half of a raclette cheese next to a fireplace, as it slowly melts, scrape it off onto your plate, then eat it with boiled new potatoes, and cornichons.  Or a choucroute garnie, or a cassoulet. Dishes I learned to make in France.

I’m (still) published!! My recipe ‘Chef Wally’s Baked Papaya’ was selected to be in the cookbook: ‘Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voices.’  You may order it here.  I am thrilled (still).

Upcoming Posts: a write up on Jennifer Piette and Erik Stenberg’s local, sustainable grocery delivery service Out of the Box Collective.  More on my great-grandmother’s garden, and my California childhood.  Cookbook Reviews: The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders, and Biscotti by Mona Talbott and Mirella Misenti.

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