Return

After very, very serious health problems, Amerloque is on his way back, but at a very reduced pace …

Not having kept up with anything on the internet (since there wasn’t any), Amerloque will be speaking in the near future to what he found in the traditional press and on TV, and plans a gradual return online ...

Amerloque is back … (smile)

L’Amerloque

Noel

France is nominally a Christian country. Although separation of Church and State is enshrined both in French law and in daily practice, some national holidays – as well as school vacations - are based on the traditional Roman Catholic Church calendar: for example, Easter Monday, Whitmonday (lundi de Pentecôte), the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (le 15 aout - Assomption), and All Saints' Day (Toussaint) spring immediately to mind.

Known in French as les fêtes de fin d'année, the holiday season at the end of the year encompasses both Christmas and New Year's and can be considered to extend to Epiphany on January 6th (yes, the Twelve Days of Christmas !). Upon arrival, the American expatriate here is surprised – even dismayed, sometimes dumbfounded - to find that some facets of the traditional American Christmas and New Year's are simply not reproduced here. The French celebrate in other ways and, of course, over the years a winnowing process takes place: just what will the expatriate keep for her/himself from the American festivities, and which French holiday traditions might s/he adopt ?

The short answer to the first question is that one preserves the holiday traditions that one is comfortable with. Frequently some modification takes place, due to local circumstances.


Take caroling, for example: the French are not prone to gathering in groups and moving from house to house while lustily belting out "We wish you a Merry Christmas !", "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen !" … or even Petit Papa Noel. On the weekends before Christmas, homesick Americans can find Carol services and gatherings at American churches (American Cathedral and American Church of Paris) and well as at least one English house of worship (Saint George's Anglican). There are also Christmas arts, crafts and bake sales at these institutions – and others, including the American Wives of Europeans Annual Holiday Bazaar - during the weeks preceding Christmas. For several years now the Choral Society at American Cathedral has put on a wonderful Handel's Messiah Singalong at the beginning of December. Clearly Americans looking for traditional Christmas activities can find them relatively easily and quickly, if they so desire. One need not remain isolated.


Sending Christmas cards to all and sundry is also a tradition unknown here. One will not find a huge selection in the shops, no matter how hard one tries. However, the French do traditionally send greeting cards (Bonne Année or Meilleurs Voeux only) during the month of January. By the way, here it is considered unlucky - as well as excruciatingly bad form - to wish someone a "Happy New Year" before the New Year has, in fact, rung in. However, one can extend one's New Year's greetings throughout the entire month of January – as long as they arrive before January 31st, that's OK. The French certainly know how to take the stress out of such things. In Amerloque's experience, American expats are quick to seize the advantages of the French system, even going so far as to send French New Year's cards back to the family in the States, much to the receiving family's disapproval.

Long term expat Americans en mal du pays equip themselves expeditiously with recipes for Christmas cookies (and appropriate traditional cookie cutters !), wassail and eggnog, all of which are absent from the French tradition … and the shops.

Ah, the shops, and the shopping ...

There is no Thanksgiving here, so there is no kickoff day to open the Christmas shopping season, such as Black Friday in the USA. Sometime in November, generally after Toussaint but before Armistice Day (le 11 novembre, a national holiday), department stores and shops begin unpacking, installing and unveiling their Christmas decorations and products. The increased commercialization of Christmas seen in America, the United Kingdom and other Western countries over the past few decades has been mirrored here. Hence the media is filled with items about best-selling gifts (le palmarès des ventes), dangerous toys (les produits non-conformes), addresses of the "best" places to shop, and other information designed to separate the consumer from her/his euros without too much pain. Shopping is very much an individual affair, and an expat can do in France exactly what he or she would do in the USA.


As in America, along with the shopping come the open-air Christmas decorations, of which there are many to be seen and appreciated, from simple Christmas trees (les sapins de Noel), with artificial snow and presents, to city-sponsored outdoor Christmas lights on lampposts and buildings. Some of the designs and colors are uniquely, inimitably French; in Paris the lights on the Champs-Elysées are always worth a visit. Nativity Scenes (les creches) and the associated figurines (les santons) are usually fairly elaborate. It's always enjoyable to view the decorations at the major Parisian department stores ... just like in New York, Chicago or LA !

Now, the second question: which French holiday traditions might an American expat adopt ?

In the USA, Thanksgiving is a time when families come together, while, in France, Christmas is that time. Hence the Christmas Eve dinner (le reveillon de Noel) is a special moment when all the members of the family gather 'round the table – perhaps after having attended a Midnight Mass or other service – to feast on traditional French dishes, ending up with the Yule log cake (la bûche de Noël). After opening the gifts found under the tree on Christmas morning, the family shares the Christmas Day luncheon / dinner, which nowadays usually includes turkey. New Year's, on the other hand, is an occasion to make merry with one's friends. New Year's Eve festivities (le reveillon de la Saint-Sylvestre) are generally devoted to eating, drinking and partying well into the morning hours. Many restaurants have special menus for both the Christmas and New Year's reveillons and it is not unusual for childless French couples (or emptynesters !) to simply dress to the hilt and go out for a great meal and celebration at a nice establishment – sometimes at considerable expense.

Given the vast variety and top quality of French foods, the American expat rapidly discovers - depending on the region and the weather - that traditional fare such as smoked salmon, caviar and foie gras can be amply complemented by simple boudin (blood sausage) or boudin blanc (white pudding), escargots (snails) and specialties such as cornues, springerle, Winachtsbredele and fougasse (one of the thirteen traditional Provençal desserts).

In Amerloque's experience, the expat adopts the partying and the food with nary a qualm – and why not ?


The cornucopia of French foods is huge and takes more than one lifetime to discover. A French food tradition worthy of note – and adoption if one wants to be part of French life forever - is the inordinate attention paid to the price of the truffle (la truffe), an essential ingredient in many a holiday dish. Weeks before Christmas, the media begins speculating on the quality of the truffle in the current year … Was there enough rain ? Was it not too dry this year - almost droughtlike – for a bumper crop ? Are there fewer truffes this season, or will it be a bounty year ? The focus then shifts to the local farmer and his truffle-sniffing animal, traditionally a pig. More and more dogs are being trained as truffle hounds, and the media is always ready to run a report on a local rustic (usually down Sarlat way) who has switched from pig to canine. Then come the inevitable reports about "foreign" truffles, from China, Italy or an unnamed "Eastern European" country, and their perceived – or real - lack of quality. The culmination of the truffle saga, every year, is inevitably the first day of the truffle market in the Perigord at the beginning of December: a secretive business run on words and handshakes among those in the know, virtually closed to outsiders – but one which the media penetrate so that the price per kilo can be triumphantly announced to the waiting world. Knowing the (usually astronomical) price of the bit of truffle one is eating adds a decided fillip to the Christmas boudin and paté.


Not yet a nationwide tradition – but rapidly becoming one – is the Christmas Market. Based on the German Christkindlmarkt with its Saint Nicolas, glühwein, gingerbreads, wooden market stalls, Black Forest-like Christmas decorations and inimitable folksy atmosphere, the marché de Noel is particularly well developed in Alsace and Lorraine, in the east of France – for obvious historical reasons. The attentive marketgoer can find glassblown ornaments, holiday handcrafts (including puppets and nutcrackers and cuckoo clocks), jewelry and, naturally, a staggering assortment of cookies, cakes, muffins, strudels, nuts, crepes, chocolates and beverages. In the past decade or so, millions of tourists have been drawn to Alsace to visit the numerous Christmas Markets in season; in recent years, municipalities and organizations throughout the France have jumped on the Christkindlmarkt bandwagon. Instead of lasting weeks, though, local markets might last an afternoon, a day or a weekend. They vary widely in quality and commercialism and, while most cannot but weakly rival the "real" markets in Eastern France and Germany, they offer a uniquely French and European experience for American expats who wish to deviate slightly from the beaten track. Sometimes one will even find that any profits from a city-organized marché de Noel are used to help the less fortunate: solidarity in action.

Finally, the French economy takes a significant breather during the Christmas season. Moreover, school holidays usually begin on the weekend before Christmas and generally end several working days after New Year's. In America, members of a given family might arrange to "be home for Christmas" for a few days. Here, with five weeks paid vacation the general rule, many families arrange things so that members can take the entire Christmas week off together, perhaps on a skiing holiday, ... or simply at the country house (la résidence secondaire). Amerloque, among other expats, has wholeheartedly adopted this French tradition.

Of course, each American expat has her own story, his way of celebrating Christmas, depending on factors such as job, current financial circumstances, family ties, location in France, interest in Christmas and time spent in both the USA and France. More or less emphasis is placed on American and French traditions, local and national - choices are much more personal and relevant, when two cultures coalesce in celebration. Amerloque has found that binational families try to combine the best of both worlds and develop unique traditions, so that each Christmas past - and each holiday season - can be remembered with happiness as each member grows older.

Joyeux Noël ! Merry Christmas !


L'Amerloque

This is an updated repost of Amerloque's 2005 Christmas entry.
He is currently overwhelmed.
Text © Copyright 2005/2007 by L'Amerloque
Images © Copyright reserved to copyright holders, including Amerloque

Escadrille

As every year, November 11 is the commemoration of the Armistice which put an end to World War I, that most terrible of conflicts. Not too much appeared in the French media in June and July of this year, which was the 90th anniversary of the arrival of American troops in France to fight at the side of the French to save civilization. A genuine oversight, or perhaps a reaction against the media presence of Sarko l'Américain ?



Of course before the arrival in France of General "Black Jack" Pershing and the vanguard of his army at Boulogne-sur-Mer on June 13, 1917 (Lafayette, nous voila !) there were Americans in France fighting and dying at the side of French troops and civilians. Probably the first American organization to help the French was the American Field Service, a group dedicated to supplying ambulances and other humanitarian vehicles. Originally created as an ambulance arm for the American Hospital of Paris, the AFS severed its connection with the hospital to become a volunteer organization providing ambulance and transport services to the Allied forces. Over the duration, the American Field Service had more than eight hundred volunteer ambulance drivers and a number of transport sections. It actively recruited its drivers from the campuses of American colleges and universities, with individual ambulance units made up exclusively of drivers from particular universities. American Ambulance vehicles were invariably in the front lines of the fighting, picking up the wounded and taking them back to the field hospitals in the rear. There were 151 drivers with the AFS who were killed - and a number of others earned the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d'Honneur for their selfless actions.

Another civilian organization coming to the aid of French troops was Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, a smaller unit. The Corps was created through the merger of the Harjes Formation of the American Red Cross and the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps organized in 1914 by Richard Norton, son of Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton. Harjes was A. Herman Harjes, a French banker. (Norton-Harjes reported no fatalities among its drivers). Some alumni of the various ambulancier organizations in France were soon to become famous individuals: Louis Bromfield, Malcolm Cowley, Harry Crosby, E. E. Cummings, John Dos Passos, Dashiell Hammett and Robert W. Service spring to mind. It should be noted that Ernest Hemingway was an American Red Cross volunteer in Italy, not in France.

There were also American volunteers in French fighting units, including the French Foreign Legion. One very special group of American fighters has come to signify bravery, commitment, and gallantry. When pronounced, its name alone is enough to make American expatriates in France stand a bit straighter - all the while asking themselves whether they, too, would have been able to demonstrate such courage and mettle when faced with such a war.


The Lafayette Escadrille (L'Escadrille Lafayette) was the name of this group of men, formed in April, 1916. The original name, which prompted German diplomatic protests, was L'Escadrille Américaine. The members of the Escadrille were fighter aircraft pilots, trained and equipped by the French to fly against the Germans, including their feared pilots Max Immelmann, Oswald Boelcke, Ernst Udet, and the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen (known in Germany as Der Rote Kampfflieger, i.e., the red fighter pilot). In 1917, the USA entered the war, and the Lafayette Escadrille was eventually absorbed in February, 1918, into the U.S. forces as the 103rd Pursuit Squadron. Many Americans flew with other French units; in general, these volunteers were called the Lafayette Flying Corps.


When Amerloque was growing up in the early 1950s, the vast majority of stories and anecdotes dealing with World War II had yet to be written. Certainly their wartime experiences were fresh in the minds of those who had been there, in the European and Pacific theaters of operations, but only major stories from the period 1939 through 1945 had really been treated in any depth by the media. Memoirs had yet to be written; legends had yet to be spun. One of the most famous films about World War II, From Here to Eternity, was only made in 1953, while the film The Caine Mutiny, from the eponymous 1951 novel, made it to the Hollywood screen in 1954. Furthermore, television was but a nascent medium; only major American cities, such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, had more than two or three TV channels. The weekly warzone sitcom had yet to become popular. What war literature, legends and anecdotes for young boys that did exist dealt primarily with World War I, not World War II.

Thus it was that Amerloque grew up conversant with stories about Sergeant York, the Argonne Forest, the Saint-Mihiel salient, Belleau Wood … and the Lafayette Escadrille, which to Amerloque's way of thinking has always perfectly symbolized one facet of the special relationship that links France and the United States.


Several films have been made about American Lafayette Escadrille pilots in World War I. The earliest was Wings, a silent opus made in 1927 by the legendary director William Wellman. In point of fact, it was the very first film to win an Academy Award ("Oscar") for Best Picture. Until the 1960s, Amerloque had never seen it, but had only heard about it. An opportunity to see this mythical opus finally presented itself while he was attending a University on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay. On October 25, 1965, Amerloque unhesitatingly took an "F" bus across the Bay Bridge to attend a special event at the San Francisco Film Festival: the American Director Interview, which was basically a panel discussion followed by a screening of a feature film. Wings was the film scheduled that day. To Amerloque's vast astonishment, the auditorium was virtually empty; there couldn't have been more than ten or twelve people in attendance. When the time came for questions from the audience, such as it was, Amerloque didn't hesitate one minute ! Ever gracious, William Wellman - who had himself served in the Lafayette Escadrille –delivered a lengthy, detailed answer to Amerloque's query about "what it was really like being in an aircraft in France back then, during the war". A question which was only tangential to the topic of filmmaking !


Over three decades later, William Wellman made another film about his beloved group of flyers: his black-and-white Lafayette Escadrille, starring Tab Hunter - with Clint Eastwood in a minor role - came out in 1958. Although the film is ridden with clichés, there are some marvelous shots from the air. Of interest to American expats, too, is the fact that the film opens and closes with views of the Memorial to the Lafayette Escadrille, located in Marnes-la-Coquette just outside Paris, where every year on November 11th American and French organizations and individuals lay wreaths to commemorate the ultimate sacrifices made. Along with many other pilots, Raoul Lufbery, a commander of the Escadrille, is buried there, in the crypt under the Memorial itself, which is a triumphal arch inscribed with the names of the sixty-eight members of the Lafayette Escadrille and the Lafayette Flying Corps who were killed during World War I.


More recently, a third film based on the Escadrille came out: Flyboys. Amerloque must confess that he was quite prepared not to like it – from all the reviews he had read, it sounded as though it were a simple Hollywoodian hagiographic effort destined to glorify the American heroes in the air at the expense of the poor benighted French infantry on the ground. Yet when Amerloque fired up the DVD in the original American version, he was quite pleasantly surprised. The producer and director make no bones about it: the film is fiction. They state that the characters were inspired by the American Flying Corps and the Lafayette Escadrille. The scenario is straightforward and hews to the generally accepted histories and memoirs of American pilots participating in the War To End All Wars. An admirable inclusion is the role of Eugene Skinner, based on real life Eugene Bullard, the "Black Swallow of Death”, who was the first African-American military pilot. There are some clichés, of course; there always seem to be, in films about France made by foreigners. A couple of technical glitches crept into the film concerning the German aircraft, most notably the portrayal of an entire German jagdstaffel of Fokker triplanes as being painted red ! A full squadron of Red Barons is hardly designed to increase that suspension of disbelief so necessary when watching a historical opus ! However, the aerial combat scenes are excellently filmed and it is quite difficult to determine how many of them use the twenty-five or so aircraft constructed by the producers and how many rely exclusively on digital imaging technology. By the way, Amerloque was particularly impressed by the performance of New Zealander Martin Henderson, who played the role of squadron commander, loosely based on the real-life Lufbery. Henderson's performance as Darcy in Bollywood's Bride and Prejudice, a remake of the Jane Austen story, was one highlight of the film. It is reassuring to see that Henderson has apparently chosen at least two of his roles carefully - and is able to deliver credible interpretations on screen. One could do worse than to see Flyboys, if one is interested in World War I and what a handful of Americans did in France.

Every November 11th Amerloque thinks about how American pilots left hearth and home to join the Lafayette Escadrille in France. It's surprising how many expats Amerloque runs into in Paris have never even heard of it.



L'Amerloque

Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Images © Copyright reserved to copyright holders, including Amerloque

October

October is undoubtedly Amerloque's favorite month of the year. It contains quite a few milestones, and among them are family anniversaries, birthdays - and a traditional daylong family endeavor, one which is dear to Amerloque.


Twice a year – in the spring and in the autumn – the Amerloque family reserves an entire day for the making of traditional Eastern European sausage. Certainly one could go to almost any boucherie or charcuterie and purchase splendid French sausages, but these sausages are a very special kind. They are called kielbasa: traditional Eastern European sausages from Poland, Lithuania, Bielorussia and the Ukraine.


Every spring and every autumn during Amerloque's childhood, his Grandma would prepare her kitchen for sausage making. From under the sink she would pull out her old newspaper-wrapped meat grinder, the one that she had bought in 1917, just after her marriage. She would affix it firmly to a corner of the scarred wooden worktable in her kitchen. She would then produce cutting boards of various sizes, all reserved for the ceremony of sausagemaking, and place them carefully on the work surface. The appropriate cutlery was taken from a special drawer. Grandma's brother - that is, Amerloque's great uncle, a blacksmith in the old country before he came to the USA in the late 1920s - would handle the various knife- and blade-sharpening chores. When all the equipment was to her satisfaction, Grandma would remove serious quantities of fresh meat from the refrigerator and the cooling boxes behind her house: pounds and pounds of pork as well as bits of beef and veal.


After cutting the meat into pieces and adding various seasonings, including onions, Grandma would - as she always did - delegate young Amerloque to turn the handle on the sausage machine, while she or her brother fed the cut meats into the top of the grinder. Of course, it seemed a chore and rapidly became boring after the first hour or so. Why so long? Two passages of the meat through the machine were required: the first to grind the cut meat and the second to stuff the well-washed sausage casings with the seasoned meat, after the appropriate sausage horn had been attached to the grinder. At the end of the day, the sixty or so pounds of finished sausage, in links ranging from one to three feet, were hung for a couple of days to dry out in an old cupboard converted by her brother. As Amerloque grew older, he began to appreciate Grandma's sausagemaking sessions more and more, as she spoke nostalgically and volubly in her native language of the past and of the family both in the old country and her country of adoption. Of course, eating the sausage which had just been made that very day was always a special treat, well worth the hours of handle turning, while at Thanksgivings and Christmases the autumn sausage was always a big hit with family and guests.


When Amerloque had children, he decided to uphold the tradition passed down by his grandmother. Certainly it would have been easy enough back at the beginning of the 1980s to purchase an electric grinder, so as to save valuable time and to produce impressive quantities of kielbasa. Yet both Mme Amerloque and Amerloque, not for the first time, were immediately of one mind: a traditional hand grinder would be purchased and used, not a modern, efficient, electric machine. The point of the entire activity wasn't solely to make sausages; it was also to spend quality time together with other family members - talking, laughing, communicating - while one of the children turned the handle and the other fed meats into the top of the machine and tied off the casing ends. With that in mind, Mr. and Mrs. Amerloque marched down to the Samaritaine department store (closed down some time ago) on the Right Bank and purchased the best sausage machine they could find: a Spong, which has been in regular use down to today.


As the years went by, making sausages from scratch in March and October became an Amerloque family activity, one eagerly looked forward to and planned for by all. Many have been the problems solved, the decisions taken, the experiences shared, and the laughs echoed, around the sausage machine. This October's production is particularly tasty; Amerloque's children came back from university to cut meats, turn handles - and celebrate the family. Where travel is concerned, Amerloque has always felt that the voyage is as important as the destination itself, and so it is in the realm of sausage making. The sausage for Thanksgiving and Christmas is ready.


One peculiarly American event taking place in the autumn– one which Amerloque never really replaced by any other sports entertainment in his French expatriate life - is the Major League Baseball World Series. In spite of its somewhat pretentious name, of course, the best of seven series always pits one North American team against another, to the delight of those Americans and Canadians who have patiently followed the season since its beginnings in April. October, too , has always been the month of
US style football (not soccer !), with both professional and college seasons reaching their cruising speeds, after an exciting month of September during which each team harbored dreams of postseason Bowls (Rose, Cotton, Orange ! ) and fine-tuned their various offenses and defenses. Of course, there was no BCS (Bowl Championship Series) when Amerloque came to France. Moreover, state universities and colleges recruited players almost exclusively from their own states and population basins, rather than shopping for the best players throughout the country, as is done nowadays. Out West, for example, there were indeed serious differences in the levels of USC, Cal and UCLA compared to teams such as Boise State, Arizona State, and San Jose State. The latter three weren't even deemed fit to tread the football fields of the first three. When the Midwest champion from the Big 10 met the PAC 8 (now PAC 10) laureate in the storied Rose Bowl on January 1st, it was more than a simple meeting of teams: it was an encounter between two football philosophies, two ways of seeing the world, two discrete parts of the United States.


Before the 1990s, it was impossible here in France to watch a baseball game or football game in anything like real time unless one lived near the Belgian or German borders, where the Armed Forces Network (also called the AFRTS) TV broadcasts could be picked up, if one were lucky. Radio broadcasts, however, were another story entirely: after sundown, one could turn on a short wave radio (SW), or a decent medium wave set (MW), and pick up US armed services programs from the occupying forces beyond the Rhine. Frequently the programs from the military bases were static ridden, choppy, and fading in and out – but they were there. That was the most important thing for Amerloque.


Amerloque remembers staying up quite late one blustery October evening to listen to a crucial World Series game, he and a few other expats polishing off a hearty meal of filets d'hareng, filet mignon de porc, pommes de terre and cheese, all washed down with a bottle of allegedly down-market Préfontaine table wine. Few expats are really aware of the urban legend (?) that the wine in the Préfontaine bottles was not necessarily undrinkable plonk, but was generally a bordeaux déclassé ! For the French, by the way, filet mignon in the vast majority of cases refers to pork and not to a tender but tasteless cut of beef. One most assuredly wouldn't enter a French butcher shop - even today - and expect to receive beef if one requested a filet mignon ! One can be grateful for some limits to Americanization and globalization.


With the advent of satellite and cable TV in the latter part of the 1990s it became easier to watch US football and baseball. The French subscription channel Canal+ introduced football to France on a regular weekly basis, and even went as far as to show summaries of World Series games. In the past two or three years, the French Sports+ channel – available on cable – has been showing one NFL and one NCAA game per week in season, as well as a selection of bowl games at the beginning of January: one per week through the end of February, as a matter of fact. Sport+ broadcasts are not live: they are simple two-hour resumés, using French reporters who generally have more enthusiasm than knowledge. Alas, Sports+ has one big drawback: it is unable to keep to its posted programming times. A broadcast set for 22h00 might start at 21h30 – or 22h25 – or not at all ! This lack of reliability is hardly a manner of building customer loyalty, but it is guaranteed to engender deep frustration chez les téléspectateurs américains expatriés. One tremendously positive aspect, though, is that there is virtually no advertising in the two-hour programs. Each game is broadcast as a continuous thread from the opening kickoff to the final whistle, with only a quick break between quarters and at halftimes.


A major event this autumn in France is the arrival of a brand new TV station called NASN, which is short for North American Sports Network. It is available through many cable and satellite providers. Amerloque first heard about this station in September, when his cable provider offered a three-week trial period, at the conclusion of which he signed up immediately. This September and October Amerloque was able to watch all the American League and National League playoffs and all the World Series games – in their entirety ! For the final World Series game, he invited a couple of other expats over … for a 2 a.m. dinner of filets d'hareng, filet mignon de porc, pommes de terre and a variety of cheeses. Préfontaine having gone to that Brand Graveyard in the Sky, it was replaced by a very nice 2002 Côte de Nuits-Villages.


Traditional French life continues to fade into memory. This October has seen the disappearance of many courts (tribunaux d'instance) and commercial courts (tribunaux de commerce) throughout France, under a reorganization scheme being put into effect by the Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati. The plan calls for more than 10% of the courts to be merged or simply eliminated. One is treated on the TV evening news to the rare spectacle of lawyers in their formal robes demonstrating in the streets and in the courthouses - and sometimes being earnestly manhandled by the French riot police, as the Minister of proceeds on her tour of France, making announcements as she goes.


In recent years, many (thousands) of municipalities in France have lost their a) train stations (no more train services, period !) , b) post offices, c) schools and d) tax offices. City and town centers are being gutted, as local and national services pull out and shops close for good. Yet successive administrations in Paris – both on the left and right - have promised that government would be "closer to the people" and "more modern".


Will traditional French life – with all its strengths and weaknesses - have to be destroyed in order to be saved ? Or will only one of the best parts of French life – the proximity and responsiveness of its public services - be bowdlerized, expurgated, or downright eliminated so as to reach some ignorant European bureaucrat's idea of the lowest common denominator ?



L'Amerloque

Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Images © Copyright reserved to copyright holders, including Amerloque

Return

As the summer of 2007 drew to a close and the daylight began to shorten, the seriously inclement weather improved. Far fewer al fresco meals were taken in the Normandy gardens this year, though. Nevertheless, at the end of August, as every year, ripe apples were on the trees, ready for picking and sorting.


Years ago Amerloque planted young Normandy heirloom apple trees. He chose the traditional varieties by not only looking at their evocative names, but also according to their harvest periods, so that apples would be ripe and ready for picking throughout the autumn season, well into November. Only apples for eating and cooking (pommes à couteau) were planted – Amerloque is not particularly interested in making cider so there no trees bearing pommes à cidre at the farm. All of these traditional apples have genuine taste and consistency, and are far removed from the insipid fruits available all year long in the supermarkets. How can one not be attracted to apples christened with exotic names such as claque-pépin, court pendu gris, calville rouge coeur de bœuf, benedictin de Jumièges or pigeonnet de Jérusalem ?


Among the first apples harvested this season, at the beginning of September, were the belle fille, the revers, the rambour d'hiver and, of course, the benedictin de Jumièges. Gathering and sorting the apples took up quite a bit of time. The bad apples had to be weeded out and the good ones carefully dried and arranged in a clean wooden crate, so that they could keep for several months. Using these Normandy apples in Sunday lunches and dinners, as well in various prepared Thanksgiving and Christmas dishes, is something that Amerloque looks forward to annually. This year the first applesauces and crumbles were excellent: the unusually wet weather added immense flavor to many of the apples !

Throughout the summer the local farmers in Amerloque's part of the world were tearing their hair out – metaphorically speaking - because of the horrible weather. It was only in the second week of September that grasses in some of the fields could be cut, since there had finally been enough sun over a period of several days to dry them out. One of Amerloque's fields still remained uncut - the neighboring farmer, after doing his own fields, finally found enough time to do Amerloque's last one, too, in early September. Usually this field is cut at the beginning of July, so the delay this year was more than a full two months ! Enfin !


On the surface, the rentrée this year seems to differ little from those of previous years. The media are filled with the usual stories: for example, how much the government's annual back to school subsidy (l'allocation de la rentée) amounts to, how much the cost for various regulated public and private services (such as electricity, gas, and transport) increased over the summer, and how many parents are upset about the closure of one or more local classes due to the failure to reach the minimum number of students. These issues all belong to what the French term la rentrée sociale and la rentrée scolaire. If one is an attentive expat with children, one pays close attention, naturally.

There is also, of course,la rentrée littéraire. The média has already begun speaking of the possible winners of literary prizes (les prix littéraires) later in the fall, the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Renudot allegedly being the most sought after, although there are others, most notably the Femina, the Médicis, the Interallié and the Académie Française. If one follows - or is tangehtially interested in - Parisian intellectual life, the nominations and subsequent jockeying for a prize is the subject of many conversations in café and salon.

Newly elected Président Sarkozy is bound to have an effect on the rentrée this year, since he now has to fulfill his campaign promises, has to fish or cut bait. At least one of his initiatives, the proposition for more independence for the universities, was seriously watered down during the summer Parliamentary sessions. It remains to be seen whether other of his promises receive the same treatment – and which ones, and by whom !

As always, the vendanges have begun, somewhat earlier in many parts of France due to the weather. Though the French wine industry is in crisis, quite a few young people still make a September pilgrimage to the vineyards to pick grapes, especially the university students whose classes don't begin until October. If one has other plans, one can also wait for the vendanges tardives, the late grapepicking season. In any event, the pay is minimum wage, the working conditions tough, and the labor backbreaking: Amerloque went down to the south of France to work in the fields, once, many, many years ago in his youth and can testify from personal experience. Actually, the best times are the mealtimes - at lunch but especially in the evenings, when the winemakers and owners generally feed their vendengeuses and vendangeurs very well. It is definitely the kind of experience to be fondly looked back on when one is older and wiser, in front of a nice roaring fire on a chilly autumn evening, as one sips a glass of a vintage wine that one could never have afforded back then !

The various alarums and excursions on the international financial markets do not seem to have thrown a damper on any French activities, at least not yet. Perhaps it is simply the calm before the storm – or perhaps the media are simply not doing their job, preferring to concentrate on the pipolisation of French society, on affairs of pedophilia and/or child abandonment, on dogs running amok, and on other issues of lesser but spectacular, paper-selling, audience-building importance. France is changing: the increasing dumbing down of the country seems more obvious at this rentrée.


Is it because of newly-elected President Sarkozy and his ministers, one of whom asserted back in July that "the French think too much" ?

Or is it, perhaps, simply that Amerloque has aged another year, and that his cynicism quotient has increased markedly ?



L'Amerloque

Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Images © Copyright reserved to copyright holders, including Amerloque

Selections

The horrible summer weather, with its overcast sky, brusque winds, and unpredictable rains continues apace, as do indoor and outdoor maintenance activities at the farm, broken by trips to Paris and back. Yet there is one pleasurable summertime task which doesn't depend on the weather: slowly going through the stock of wines, reverentially rotating a couple of bottles - and carefully choosing the ones to be consumed during the year.

Amerloque has a collection of wines which in France is summarized by the word cave (wine cellar): there are well over three hundred bottles of reds and whites, along with a smattering of rosés. Starting up and sustaining a serious cave over the long term implies a level of enthusiasm and interest in the subject that sometimes borders on fanaticism, and Amerloque is not a fanatic wine drinker by any means. His cellar is simple in the extreme, literally a dark basement with a constant temperature. In keeping with French mores, Amerloque simply feels that wine is not just a beverage: it is a food, with its own well-defined place in the scheme of things. He and the Amerloque nuclear family don't drink wine every day but only with meals that might be termed special: those that require lengthy or complex preparation, or those in honor of a memorable occasion, such as passing an exam, receiving a promotion, celebrating a birthday, or observing an anniversary. Inviting guests over for lunch or dinner implies serving wine, too; during the holiday season offering a crate of wine as a year-end gift to the concierge or to the chef d'atelier at one's garage is rarely taken amiss.




Since the French consider wine to be food, one of the advantages of living in France is that there are literally thousands upon thousands of different, reasonably priced French wines to choose from – almost at arm's length. Practically speaking, one does not have to spend $40 or $50 per bottle (€25 to €30) to obtain a high quality wine or a perfectly respectable vintage. For under $10 (roughly €6) one can usually find a truly decent VDQS (or even an AOC) wine for the day's lunch or dinner - and for about $25 (€15, say) one can purchase a top quality bottle which can be put away and drunk in several years' time, if not in a decade or more.

It is when one lives in France and starts purchasing and putting wines aside for future consumption that one realizes exactly how much a wine's price to the consumer is determined by transport costs and various middlemen along the way. One also realizes how high the quality of life in France can be ! Just as many French people do, Amerloque buys his wines in different venues - always with a view to obtaining the best price/quality ratio possible.




Amerloque learned years ago, during the 1970s, that one excellent place to purchase was chez le vigneron (at the winemaker's). Driving through the wine regions, one was able to stop and to taste various offerings chez le producteur and discuss them with the winemaker himself; one would usually go away several hours later with one or more six-bottle crates of the vintner's best, to be respectfully consumed in the fullness of time … while simultaneously offering an excellent topic for dinnertime conversation. (Ah, oui … ce vin, nous l'avons déniché chez un certain Monsieur …). 'Way back then there were fewer winemakers offering sales on their premises than there are today, of course: addresses of allegedly reliable winemakers could sometimes be found in various gourmet and other special interest magazines. The names of winemakers and their domaines were exchanged among friends and business acquaintances, religiously updated – or thrown away – as the years passed, or replaced by others when the circumstances warranted: it was not unusual to find out that a given vineyard had been sold off or been closed down because the owner had encountered hard economic times, or because the heirs were uninterested in carrying on the family tradition.

Today there are many, many vignerons all over France who have arranged facilities for on-site tasting and direct purchase - without reaching the proportions of wine tourism as practiced in the Napa Valley region of California, with its frenetic sales of baseball caps, tee-shirts, knapsacks and wine tasting paraphernalia emblazoned with the name and logo of the winery. With the improvements in road infrastructures, one can now easily drive from Paris to Burgundy or down to the Val de Loire and back in the same day - during which one can discover the wines at one or two vineyards with similar but not precisely identical terroirs. The French have a saying: Le vin est le reflet de la terre et d'un climat. L'homme n'existe pas. ("Wine is the reflection of the earth and of the climate. Man does not exist.")




There are also many local wine cooperatives throughout France, which make wines (usually VDQS or vin de pays, but sometimes AOC) from the production of many winegrowers, bottle them and sell them. A visit to such a well-run cooperative frequently enables one to stock up on top-notch table wines: excellent for drinking on a daily basis, although perhaps not quite memorable enough for that very, very special occasion. The price/quality ratio can't be beat, though: usually one can purchase ten-liter or twenty-liter jugs of wine, which must subsequently be rebottled at home using a corking machine. As one peels vegetables or grinds meat, so can one bottle wine …

In Paris, buying directly from the producer is actually quite easy, if one is willing to wait for one of the regular wine shows (Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants) to come around. There are two major ones in Paris, in the Spring and in the Autumn, at which independent winemakers run stands displaying their wares. The atmosphere is generally far less relaxed than at a vineyard, of course: Amerloque finds the noise level is staggeringly high, and, as the day wears on, it increases to an almost unbearable cacophony. There are definite bargains to be had: one is not buying blindly: tasting is de rigueur. Frequently the price/quality ratio is astounding. One of the better times to taste and buy can be the end of the show, when winemakers might be somewhat reluctant to pack up all their bottles and crates and haul them back home. There won't be huge reductions in price, though one can reasonably expect a reduction of something like 10% if one buys in quantity.




Alternatively, one can attend a salon simply to taste and buy a few bottles – and make a fistful of worthwhile contacts for a subsequent trip to the winemaker's domaine. Calling up and visiting a winemaker after meeting him (or her – there are more and more vignernonnes) on a stand at a Salon means the initial ice has been broken, and that one is not just another customer, but genuinely interested in what the winemaker is offering: what goes into the wine – including the degree of personal commitment - and exactly how it is produced. In Amerloque's experience, winemakers usually make an extra effort for such customers, perhaps by granting an extra discount or by throwing in a few free bottles (le treize pour douze), or even inviting the customer to share the family meal. Usually a customer purchases at least a case of twelve bottles: four different vintages, from different parts of the domaine, is a common choice.

Another excellent place to purchase wines is at the Foires aux Vins (Wine Fairs) held by the hypermarket chainstores every autumn (2007 dates). The range and number of wines presented is staggering, the prices are keenly competitive, and the crowds are fairly heavy, at least on the initial days. Several weeks before the fairs, a printed catalog is distributed: the wines are photographed and listed: the prices displayed. If a wine has won an award at a show, the fact is prominently indicated: Medaille d'or Macon 2005, for example, or Medaille d'or Concours Mondial Bruxelles 2006. If a wine has received a favorable mention in one of the numerous annual guidebooks, that is stated, too: something like *** La Revue du Vin de France or ** Hachette Vins 2004 might be seen. There is also information as to whether a given wine can be drunk immediately or be kept a number of years before consumption.

Amerloque has found that the trick – at least to his way of thinking – for making the most of a given Wine Fair is: preselect several wines that appear attractive because of producer, vintage, terroir, or price; hustle over to the Fair on the very first day; purchase one or two bottles of each preselected wine; at home, look over the labels and bottles to see if there are any surprises (bottling by a négociant rather than a producer as expected might be one of them, as might having a screw-top cap rather than the traditional cork); open the bottles and taste them carefully, even though one or more wines might be "too young"; choose which wine(s) one is prepared to buy; return to the Fair and pick up one's chosen wine(s) – if there are any left, since other consumers are doing precisely the same thing ! Unless one is willing to "buy the labels and not the wine", as the old saying goes, there is really no other way to proceed at a Wine Fair, in Amerloque's view, especially if one intends to put the wines aside for a number of years. Amerloque has found that there is rarely anything more disappointing than to open a bottle of wine some years after purchase - only to find that the wine inside is not very good.




From time to time, Amerloque enters a wine merchant's shop (of which there are fewer and fewer, alas) to see what is on offer. Sometimes he even purchases several bottles on the recommendation of the person behind the counter. Amerloque has found that independent winemakers are turning increasingly to the internet individually to make their products known, and that initial contacts can be made quite easily. He also visits major websites on line, not necessarily to buy but more to see which vignerons and negociants are being featured, which terroirs are fashionable, and how prices to the consumer are faring. Nevertheless, he would be lying outright if he said that he hasn't been bitterly disappointed at times by some bottles recommended by the wine merchants. Yet he never loses sight of his goal: finding good wines with best price/quality ratio possible.

Of course, "buying the labels" is an easy way to purchase wines – millions of people seriously interested in wine do it every day of the year ! There frequently is no other way to judge just how good a wine is or will be: one pays attention to the winemaker's name and label as a criterion of quality. The same for recommendations: from a specialized publication such as The Wine Spectator to general interest newspapers, wine critics share their tasting notes and selected winemakers with readers. Wine connoisseurs (and social poseurs, of course) pay attention to – and sometimes act on - what is written as though it were Gospel. At a particularly chic dinner en ville one might hear "Oh, yes, the wine you're drinking was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal recently …" or "Oui, GaultMillau en a parlé …". However, the degrees of one upmanship, their desires to keep up with the Joneses, among many of these same wine connoisseurs (the same desires are found in, say, the realm of exotic cars or of vacation rentals) can be a bit offputting at times … especially when the meal is not up to the standard of the wine !




Amerloque appreciates wine hobbyists and connoisseurs tremendously, for they, like all enthusiasts in whatever field of endeavor, tend to pull the market upward for everyone. He also admires those who come to France to "do a wine tour", who seek their Holy Grails in Burgundy or Bordeaux: the French offer the whole gamut of wine touring products, from short trips to the Champagne country to luxurious sojourns aboard a barge. Under the enormous pressures of globalization - driven in some respects by these very same wine enthusiasts - some French wine producers have been modifying their labels, adding varietal information so as to be plus lisible (more readable) for the foreign consumer (it was illegal before the year 2000, by the way). Some have deemphasized the traditional terroir, while still others have even gone so far as to industrialize their production by calling on a consultant to "improve" the taste. The traditional French wine industry is suffering: there is no doubt about that. The recent (2004) award winning film Mondovino describes the crisis forthrightly; Amerloque advises those interested in France and the French not to stop with the film, but move on to the DVD television series, which admirably fleshes out the issues.

Amerloque - living in France and being interested in wine as food, and not as a measure of social status or peer interaction – invariably finds that his usual summertime task of gently turning a few wine bottles and selecting those to be drunk in the forthcoming year is a real pleasure, not a chore. Rain or shine.



L'Amerloque

Disclaimer: Amerloque is not involved in the wine trade in any way whatsoever. This post should not be considered as an encouragement or recommendation to purchase or to sell wine in Paris or anywhere else. Readers are advised to seek independent and competent professional advice before acting on anything concerning wine contained herein. Caveat emptor. "L'abus d'alcool est dangereux pour la santé. A consommer avec moderation."



Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Images © Copyright reserved to copyright holders, including Amerloque

Maintenance

Every decade or so, at least in Amerloque's experience, summertime temperatures in France take a dive. Unseasonable winds cause the clouds to scud rapidly across the skies and sometimes the same clouds deliver masses of unwanted rains in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, these make excellent excuses for remaining indoors a bit more than usual, doing things that must inevitably be done.


Old farmhouses - and their contents - require maintenance, for example. A traditional wood framed house, whether in Normandy or Alsace, needs to be carefully inspected every summer. Sometimes the torchis filling between the vertical timbers needs to be reworked and resealed with a layer of natural limestone-based plaster. Anti-termite and other anti-borer treatments must be applied to most timbers at regular intervals, too. Slate roofing tiles that have moved or shattered are to be replaced. Finally, the fireplace chimney needs to be swept - if for no other reason than to be in compliance with the typical French homeowner's insurance policy. Amerloque is content with leaving the roofs and chimneys to the professionals, while family members contribute to redoing the walls and applying various products in a safe, environmental fashion. In many cases, bad weather turns out to be an incitement to good maintenance - as long as the weather is not too bad, and as long as mealtimes are not given short shrift !


Interested as he is in food and cooking (ah ! the quality of life in France !), Amerloque a long time ago decided that if one is to be serious about cooking, one must be equally serious about the tools used. A good stove, as well as high-quality pots and pans and proper lighting, makes cooking a pleasure rather than a chore. Cookbooks and recipes must be chosen carefully, too. Yet it has been Amerloque's experience that amateur chefs – and Amerloque himself is no more than an amateur, make no mistake about it ! - frequently overlook one vitally necessary tool: cutlery - including the knives used in the kitchen.

In the Anglo-Saxon world he grew up in, there were two inescapably famous knifemaking centers in Europe: Sheffield and Solingen. Sheffield, in England, was already famed for the production of knives in the Middle Ages. It was even mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. By 1600 it had become the main centre of cutlery production in England. In Amerloque's youth, a good kitchen knife necessarily came from Sheffield. Sheffield's main competitor was always portrayed as being the German city of Solingen, where to this day something like 90% of German cutlery is produced. The town's fame dates from medieval times, too. During the second half of the 17th century, a group of swordsmiths from Solingen did break their guild oaths and take their sword-making secrets to County Durham in England, thus contributing to the rivalry between the two countries.


After coming to France, Amerloque continued to use Sheffield and Solingen blades in the kitchen, although his table coutellerie was French and, in some cases, American, since he had quite some of the family cutlery sent over bit by bit. As he learned about the realities of French life and became more a part of it, he discovered that a city named Thiers, in the massif central, has for over 500 years been the capital of French cutlery manufacture, with over one hundred companies producing fully over two thirds of French cutlery. He also found that the French town of Laguiole was well known for knives. So Amerloque motored down to Thiers one fine summer day during the 1970s and spent a week or so touring the town and the shops. He purchased several robust kitchen knives, which stood him in good stead for years and years. Generally stainless steel (inox), dishwasher safe, and fairly well-balanced, French kitchen knives from Thiers are readily available, at all prices, for individuals as well as for professional chefs.

As with automobile and small arms enthusiasts, people involved in the knife world tend to have strong opinions. After visiting Japan over a decade ago, Amerloque realized just why one of his acquaintances had been swearing (both literally and figuratively) by Japanese kitchen knives for years and years. In Kyoto, Amerloque was given the opportunity to try out several traditional knives, as well as several series of mass-produced Japanese knives, and was very, very impressed. As a matter of fact, he became a convert.

Apparently today’s Japanese knives are fashioned using techniques that were originally developed for making katana, traditional samurai swords. The change to knife-crafting began in the mid-nineteenth century, and, when after World War II General Douglas MacArthur banned Japanese sword-making nationwide, numbers of highly skilled craftsmen turned their skills and attention to kitchen knives. Dedicated sword craftsmen began studying the ambitious creations of creative chefs. Japanese knives soon attained universal renown - the "unforgettable sharpness" of the katana is still the identifying mark of the Japanese knife and distinguishes the inimitable Japanese blade from its Sheffield, Solingen, and Thiers counterparts.

Over the years Amerloque has found that Japanese blades simply are sharper and are able to cut thinner slices of various meats, fowl, vegetables and fruits. However, what the Japanese call kirenaga, the "duration of sharpness" factor, must invariably be factored in when dealing with Japanese knives: they do not hold their sharpness as long as might be desired. Although today's knives – especially chef's cutlery - are forged with methods similar to those used by traditional sword craftsmen, using "white steel" (shiro-ko) and "blue steel"(ao-ko), they still must be re-sharpened more frequently than Western blades.

Yes – there's the rub: Japanese knives are high maintenance tools. They are definitely not dishwasher safe – they require careful had washing and hand drying, to avoid rust (depending on the steel "sandwich", of course) and possible putrescence in the wooden handles. The traditional sharpening process is no mundane affair, either: three different sharpening stones are used: it took Amerloque quite a bit of practice to get the hang of it. Furthermore, he has found that one can expect to sharpen a Japanese knife … every one or two days when used intensively in a home cooking environment and that the necessarily fastidious, frequent sharpening takes up a lot of time.


Genuine traditional Japanese knives can be quite expensive, too. One can easily pay well over €250 (250 euros - say US$325/350) for one good santoku, an all-purpose chef's knife used for slicing, dicing and mincing meats and vegetables. Nevertheless, if one is serious about cooking, one can do worse than to invest in a top flight santoku. With proper care it will last a lifetime, although tying up that much capital in a knife might not be everyone's cup of tea - unless one is involved in cooking professionally, of course.

Amerloque decided some time ago that he would use both Western and Japanese blades in the kitchen, the latter more sparingly than the former. He has the normal range of relatively easy maintenance French kitchen knives – a Sabatier does the job quite nicely – and a cleaver from Solingen. (By the way, if one is interested in personally choosing French knives - and other serious kitchen utensils - nothing can beat a visit to La Bovida at 36 rue Montmartre, 75001 Paris. )

Given the maintenance required, the Japanese contingent of knives is reserved for more difficult tasks and special occasions: cutting very, very thin slices of beef for barbecued-beef sandwiches, for example, and perfect slices of turkey on Thanksgiving, goose at Christmas, and gigot d'agneau at Easter. They are also peerless for cutting virtually almost transparent slices of tomato and cucumber for salads. Finally, they come into play when the Amerloque family gathers round the hand operated meat mincer for one of its semiannual sausagemaking sessions (La Bovida sells sausage skins, too.).

Amerloque uses knives made by Hiromoto, who has been producing professional quality knives for some decades in Seki City, Japan. Seki City, in Gifu Prefecture, is today considered the home of modern Japanese kitchen cutlery, where state-of-the-art manufacturing and technology has updated ancient forging skills to produce a world class series of stainless and laminated steel kitchen knives famed throughout the world. Hiromoto's workmanlike knives (santoku, deba, and yanagi) are forged from high carbon steel, chromium and tungsten. They are advertised as being " easy to sharpen … durable … perfectly balanced … can hold a razor sharp edge". Amerloque has found this to be true and can recommend Hiromoto unreservedly. He finds them particularly well balanced and the price is right. He keeps a second, more upmarket Hiromoto santoku for truly special occasions.


So the currently miserable summer weather makes it a good time to do maintenance in the kitchen, too: cleaning and sharpening knives is a profitable way to spend one or more rainy afternoons … before finishing the day by curling up in front of a warm fire in the evening.

Amerloque would prefer normal summer weather, of course. However, one can't have everything !



L'Amerloque

Text © Copyright 2007 by L'Amerloque
Images © Copyrights reserved to copyright holders including Amerloque