A Paris Christmas: An improbable tale of good food and true love
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Marie-Dominique’s Vinaigrette Superieur
Ingredients.
(enough for a green salad for four, or a dish of lukewarm steamed vegetables, e.g. asparagus or leeks.)
Olive oil.
Cider vinegar.
1 egg yolk.
French mustard.
Honey.
Pinch salt
Method.
In a small bowl, use a hand whisk to blend a teaspoon of mustard with a teaspoon of honey. Add the raw egg yolk, a pinch of salt and about a tablespoon of vinegar. Whisk together while trickling in some olive oil. Continue to whisk until the ingredients achieve liaison, and the dressing becomes golden and creamy. Test the seasoning by dipping in a finger and licking (also works if the finger belongs to someone else). Leftover dressing keeps well in a jar in the refrigerator. If it separates, a brisk shake restores homogeneity.
Pork Chops with Calvados and Apples
This dish works best with thick chops that retain their fat. Thinly cut chops dry out. It also works well with veal chops. Slow cooking is the essence of the dish, which will burn at anything but the lowest heat. If your stove top is too hot, cook it in a medium oven.
Ingredients.
1 thick pork or veal chop per person.
Apples, ideally Clochard or Chanticleer, but Granny Smiths at a pinch, in the proportion of half an apple to each chop.
Calvados apple brandy.
Unsalted butter.
Salt and ground black pepper
Method.
Peel and core the apples and cut into eighths. Heat a generous quantity of butter in a wide, shallow pan with a lid, and sauté the chops until sealed on both sides and just beginning to brown.
Place the pieces of apple around the chops in the pan, cover, and reduce the heat to the minimum. Cook, covered, for 20 minutes, not lifting the lid unless the butter appears to be burning.
At the end of that time, the meat should be tender, and the apples partly caramelised. Transfer the chops and apples to a serving dish. Pour off any excess fat in the pan and deglaze with Calvados. Allow the alcohol to cook off, season with salt and pepper, and pour the sauce over the meat.
Appendix 2
A Parisian Christmas:
the ten commandments
If you’re invited to a French home for Christmas, take it as more than a compliment. It signifies you are almost a member of the family. But before you accept, think about the following.
1. Are you sure your French is up to it? Few French people speak English, and even they prefer not to do so on family occasions. You risk being seated with an elderly gentleman who demands your opinion of Clemenceau’s policy on the entente cordiale.
2. Conversation is a minefield. Subjects shunned in the Anglo world, like politics, religion and money, are embraced; but never ask a French person what he or she does for a living. Inquire of a man about his children or his car, and compliment a woman on her dress; nobody has such an eagle eye for labels as a française.
3. At Christmas, as on any other occasion, never bring food or drink. To arrive with a bottle of wine implies you didn’t think your host would provide any. As for a cake or cheese, proffering these may be construed as a mortal insult. (Imagine turning up at an English house with your own knife, fork and plate.)
4. If you feel you must offer something, choose a neutral item—chocolates, flowers, or some item for the house. But it’s far safer to come empty-handed. It implies that your presence is the greatest gift—a very French attitude.
5. No matter how close the relationship, avoid any gift that might be thought intimate. This includes clothes, particularly robes, pyjamas, nightgowns, and, naturally, lingerie. Also items relating to the body: lotions, creams, perfumes, and soaps. (“You think we smell bad, M’sieur?”) When I suggested offering a Waterpik toothbrush to my mother-in-law, my daughter blanched. “It would be like giving her …” She groped for some sufficiently horrible comparison. “… toilet paper!”
6. Don’t offer to assist in the kitchen—help the host carve, or distribute the plates. Above all, do not propose toasts: to the cook, your hosts, the French Republic, Anglo-French friendship or the immortal memory of Jim Morrison. As outsiders, you are guests of honour. It’s more likely your host will toast you. If he does, a responding toast isn’t expected. A simple “merci” will suffice.
7. If you’re vegetarian, vegan, or allergic to anything edible, you shouldn’t be at a French table. Having accepted, however, you must eat what’s put in front of you, or at least toy with it. To refuse is to reject the most important element of the invitation—hospitality. Likewise, if something is particularly delicious, don’t ask for the recipe. It probably came from a traiteur or Picard, the gourmet frozen-food chain, and the hostess just added a sprig of parsley.
8. Diplomats traditionally leave after the second cup of coffee. Wait an hour, then suggest you should be on your way. You’ll soon gauge whether your hosts want you to stay. Mostly they won’t. Christmas, like Thanksgiving in America, is a time for thrashing out family matters and catching up with relatives seen only once a year—not things one does in front of strangers.
9. Never invite French people to Christmas dinner. Chances are they’re expected at the home of their parents, or an aunt from whom they hope to inherit a château. Your invitation will interrupt their plans, and arouse only resentment. Also, not knowing Anglo-etiquette, they will spend the meal worrying about how to behave, and hate you for ever. Send them a nice card instead.
10. That said, few French people bother with Christmas cards. If they do, the correct time to send and receive them is not before Christmas but around New Year, and they continue to arrive right up to Twelfth Night. On consideration, it’s safer to meet them for a drink in mid-January.
In fact, maybe that’s what you should do, rather than accept that invitation to Christmas dinner in the first place …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Baxter is an Australian-born writer, journalist and film-maker. Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as his native Sydney, but has made his home in Paris since 1989. He is married to the filmmaker Marie-Dominique Montel, and they have one daughter, Louise.
Also by John Baxter
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World
We’ll Always Have Paris
A Pound of Paper
Science Fiction in the Cinema
The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg
Buñuel
Fellini
Stanley Kubrick
Steven Spielberg
Woody Allen
George Lucas
De Niro
Copyright
First published in the US by Harper Collins in 2010
Previously published in the UK in 2011 by Short Books with the title Cooking for Claudine
Published with the title A Paris Christmas in 2015 by Short Books,
Unit 316, ScreenWorks, 22 Highbury Grove, London, N5 2ER
This ebook edition published in 2015
Copyright © John Baxter 2015
The right of John Baxter to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
All interior images courtesy of the author’s collection.
ISBN: 978-1-78072-026-5
Cover illustration by Vince McIndoe
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