I met Mary my freshman year of college. We quickly formed the sort of friendship I had only dreamed about up until that point. Yesterday, I called her to let her know I was back in the states and to catch up. She quickly asked me about our trip. I expressed that I always found this part of going on vacation the hardest- knowing what to tell people when you get back. Tom suggested I ask people, “Do you want the 5 minute, 30 minute, or 3 hour version?” When I told Mary this she quickly insisted on the three hour version. After a bit of short exchange about where we went, what we did, she said: “Tell me everything you ate!”
I still hesitate to call myself a “foodie.” I always think I’m too cheap to be a real foodie. But on this trip Tom and I discovered that there are two kinds of foodies- rustic and formal. We took a cooking class at our bed and breakfast in Arles, France, with our B&B owner Erick. It was an unforgettable experience. We spent the first hour at the local market (one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen. All sorts of vendors come up from North Africa to sell their goods- including impressive spice and olive collections.)
Erick bought nearly all the ingredients for our six course dinner there- all fresh! We, Tom, Jane, David and I, watched eagerly as Erick quietly went about buying his goods from numerous vendors. Organic tomate coeur from one vendor, a cooked beet from another, two kinds of fish and shrimp from a third, and parsley from someone else. We tried to ask him how he went about choosing who he bought what from. He just gave us this quizzical look as he blinked his dense eyelashes, trying to understand our scattered french- just as we latter tried to understand his fluent french, and talked about finding the best ingredients. After the ingredients had been purchased- all without a shopping list, we headed back to his stone kitchen where the class would take place.
Get a good look at this kitchen, the B&B we stayed was built in three stages, part during the medieval times, and the other two during the 15th and 16th centuries!
We then commenced to cook for nearly three hours. Erick taught mainly through example, showing us how to mash the garlic into the lemon juice using the end of a fork, or showing Tom how to push the fillet knife against the fish skeleton to get a clean fillet. (I was so proud of Tom for doing this!) Sometimes he gave directions in French, if he got to many blank stares he would use a bit of English, or sometimes Sylvia, his friend who came into to help keep things cleaned up would translate his French into Spanish which Jane, David and Tom understood, and then they would translate into English for me.
Erick
Somehow Erick managed to keep all six dishes progressing simaltaneously. First we sliced the eggplant that was then doused in coarse salt to pull out the bitter juices and set aside- nearly an hour later he would bring it back to the table- after rinsing it out and we would ring it out, pat it dry and then fry them in olive oil. (Might I just add, I have never seen so much olive oil used for one meal in my life. We seriously probably used six cups for this meal. He had a container of it larger than you can find at Costco!) While the eggplant were resting we cut up the shallot and tomatoes that were used for the tomato sauce that would then cook for the next three hours before it was poured over the fried eggplants to make the most amazing dish of the night: Aubergine avec tomate entrasse. I won’t outline the whole cooking process, but rather return to my original point that there was nothing formal about our preparation. Vegetables were cut in large chunks, measurements were rough, and the presentation was lax. The flavors were, however, amazing.
After the meal was finished, we all sat down and ate, and ate, and ate. For two hours we ate, chatted, laughed, sighed, and ate some more.
Our favorite dishes were the appetizer mille feuille de legumes– translated as “thousands of layers of vegetables”, with beet, tomato, eggplant, and zucchini layered with a spicy mustard and cumin sauce. (The French love their mustard!) Haricots verts– green beans cooked to perfection, aubergine entrasse, figue avec chevre et miel, et tart tartine au poire. We also had a fillet of fish rolled up around another type of fish, tied and poached and then covered in mustard aioli, and shrimp paella, neither of which were big hits for Tom nor I, but we aren’t big sea food lovers. After we ate we all just sat around listening to Erick’s fabulous collection of world music and talking in French, English and Spanish. Certainly aware that Erick’s cooking class was sure to be over by now and that good food was to be had, two of Erick’s friends dropped in to enjoy a glass of wine and piece of tart tartine au poire. We chatted with them in French and on occasioned scattered English and I even sang a bit per request. It was a delightful day focused on food and friendship.
So, am I a foodie? I can proudly say yes. I have witnessed time and time again how good food can bring people together. I learned this first around my own family’s dinner table, where though my Mother, was too busy at that point in her life to expose the real foodie within, always had food cooked from scratch at some point in the week that we could enjoy either fresh or as leftovers. Later, I witnessed this in a new way around the Sunday dinner table of the Huff’s, where each week Barb would provide a delightful meal that brought our random group of LDS Oberlin students together. Now I feel the power of a shared meal whenever we share dinner with Mary and Steve, or host dinner with friends at our house. The French and Italians are known for their passion for food, and the stereotype is real. Never have I seen so many restaurants and cafe’s so full than I did in France. Never have I has a complete stranger come up to me after learning I was Tom’s wife and tell me she would have me over and teach me how to cook Italian food as the aged Italian sister did in Milan. The point however is missed if the emphasis is placed alone on the food. The food is solely a tool to bring people together to enjoy real conversation and lasting relationships. I was so touched by the countless number of men and women I saw walking slowly with their aged mothers. I was impressed by how the French so thoroughly involved their children in their adult lives- treating them as equals and friends. I was thrilled by the conversations that took place via windows in upper story apartments across narrow streets. Life must be slowed to enjoy these precious moments and to develop such lasting relationships, and what better way than by sitting around enjoying a six course meal!
One response to “Just one reason why we're dear friends. . .”
Sounds great! Well I guess it doesn’t really ‘sound’ great because I have no idea what you just described, but I trust that it was!