by Ann Mah
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I had come to Alsace with the intention of eating choucroute at every meal. But whenever I sat down in a Winstub, the same thing happened: I looked at the menu, resolved to order the choucroute garnie, summoned the waitress, and asked for . . . something else. I was cheating on choucroute with tarte flambée.
Despite its fiery name, tarte flambée is not a pie filled with burning embers. It’s a sort of pizza with crisp edges, topped with crème fraîche, onions, and bacon, cooked in a wood-burning oven. In Alsatian it’s called flammeküeche, or “flame cake,” and was traditionally a plat du pauvre, prepared every two weeks on bread-baking day, when the village’s communal wood oven was lit.
“They made it before they baked the bread, while waiting for the temperature of the oven to cool,” Lydia Roth told me.
At L’Aigle, Roth’s sprawling tavern in Pfulgriesheim, a village outside Strasbourg, she still prepares flammeküeche using the recipe of her grandmother, Mamama Anne, who opened the restaurant in 1963. A lump of dough is rolled thin, spread with luscious crème fraîche, strewn with slivers of raw onion and bacon, and singed golden in the kitchen’s ancient wood oven. “It only takes one minute to cook,” Roth said. The restaurant also serves a nontraditional version, sprinkled with grated Emmental cheese.
I ate both the plain and gratinéed varieties under Roth’s watchful eye, savoring the contrast of tangy cream against the luxuriant salty-sweetness of smoked bacon and onions. Roth brought them out one half at a time, waiting until I’d finished the first to produce the second. “It’s best eaten hot!” she admonished me when she caught me photographing my food instead of eating it. And when I had finished both, she wanted to know which I preferred.
“The first one, without the cheese.” The flavors had been cleaner, the crust a little crisper.
She nodded. “Moi aussi. La gratinée, c’est plus bourratif et moins traditionnel.” More filling, less traditional. It sounded like the slogan for a beer commercial. And then Lydia Roth whirled off into the crowded dining room, to deliver a stream of perfectly charred flammeküeches to her eager customers.
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The village of Truchtersheim is close enough to Strasbourg to be considered a suburb, a small hamlet of half-timbered houses boasting steep-pitched tiled roofs. I parked my rental car and crept along narrow streets, feeling a little like Goldilocks among the bears, peering at the chinks of light escaping from behind closed window shutters. A heavy door opened, emitting a gush of warm air and a rush of voices—the Truchtersheim cooking club was waiting for me.
There were six of them, six women with short, graying hair, broad smiles, and old-fashioned names—Anne-Marie, Suzanne, Georgette, Andrée, Maria, Yvette—names that could have been German or French. They had gathered in Anne-Marie’s home, along with her son René, perching on the velour sofas of her Winstub, not a tavern this time but the farmhouse’s living room, a wood-paneled refuge stuffed with framed sepia photographs and bits of antique china. These women had known one another since childhood, their lives forever entwined by their village, first as schoolgirls, then as brides, mothers, wives, and now widows. For more than forty years, they had met once or twice a month, to eat good food and drink good wine, to prepare and enjoy a feast together. Today they welcomed me, too, to share a choucroute garnie, une vraie—or, according to René, loyal to his mother’s cooking, “la meilleure,” the best. The Choucroute among choucroutes.
At the table, Anne-Marie delivered The Choucroute, a casserole dish heaped with cabbage and meat, followed by two smaller platters of sausages and boiled potatoes carried by Suzanne and Yvette. Little murmurs rippled across the room, sounds of enthusiastic appreciation, as if these women hadn’t seen the dish for decades, instead of dining on it at least once a month ever since they could chew. Anne-Marie served each of us, dishing up all the classic elements: slow-simmered sauerkraut, plump sausages, fat-striped hunks of pork belly—both salted and smoked—rosy slices of smoked pork loin, and boiled potatoes. It was farm fare, honest and robust, eaten with a dab of mustard. I alternated bites of pine-scented, tangy sauerkraut with cured pork belly and the high-spiced savor of sausage, enjoying the contrast of tart cabbage against smoked meat.
“When I was growing up, every family had its own stone barrel of choucroute in the basement,” said Yvette, who was sitting next to me. “It was the only vegetable we ate for the whole winter.”
The others agreed with a chorus of “Ja.”
“But on the farm we didn’t have so many kinds of meat.” Georgette gestured at her plate. “Only pork belly.”
“I remember on Sundays,” said Andrée, “my mother would simmer the choucroute for hours. None of this precooked stuff.”
The table erupted in exclamations of horror, which René attempted to translate into French, because when these women talked among themselves, they did so in their mother tongue, Alsatian.
“I always add a glass of Riesling to the cabbage,” Suzanne said eventually.
“Only a glass? I add half a bottle!” said Georgette.
“My grandkids don’t like the taste of wine, so I use water,” said Maria. “You can’t tell the difference.”
Everyone else looked a little skeptical.
We continued eating The Choucroute. At one point Anne-Marie threw up her hands and exclaimed, “Oh, the knack!” and then rushed to the kitchen. She came back bearing a plate of skinny hot dogs, which she passed around the table. I declined—already I feared that I might have to discreetly undo the top button of my trousers, and we hadn’t even gotten to dessert—but she looked so disappointed that I took a half.
The conversation undulated between French and Alsatian, the two languages washing across the table. The women tried to remember to speak in French, but I could feel them struggling not to lapse into Alsatian. Sometimes they would stop midsentence, sifting their minds for a forgotten French word. “How do you say . . . ?” they’d murmur urgently. And then the word would appear: “Cloves!” they’d exclaim in a triumphant voice. “That’s the spice my mother always added to her choucroute.”
These women were old enough to remember the stories of their grandparents, tales from the late nineteenth century, when Alsace was ceded to Germany, part of the spoils of France’s humiliating defeat during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Under the new regime, any reference to France was banished, the language erased, school textbooks rewritten, street signs reprinted. Thousands of Alsatians sought exile in France or in her North African colonies in order to remain French. Those who stayed were required to become German in loyalty, manner, and speech. No matter that the region had been French for centuries or that it had, in 1792, inspired the French anthem, “La Marseillaise,” or that an Alsatian, Baron Haussmann, had redesigned the French capital.
Less than fifty years later, the entire process happened again—in reverse.
In 1918, France defeated Germany in World War I and reclaimed Alsace. Everything German became French: textbooks, street signs, the lingua franca. Germans who had settled in Alsace were expelled, Alsatians in exile returned home. France enfolded her lost region (but delicately—the government declined to impose certain laws, notably the 1905 edict that separates church and state; even today there is no policy of laïcité in Alsace). The members of the cooking club were born during this period into a bilingual world: French at school, Alsatian at home. Until World War II.
La guerre. I mentioned the words, and everyone’s eyes lowered a fraction. In 1940 the region switched back to German control when Hitler annexed Alsace. As girls, these women had seen German soldiers occupying their region, laying claim to their village, appropriating their crops, banishing French, forcibly conscripting their fathers and brothers to fight against France. The Alsatian soldiers were called the “malgré-nous”—against our will—and more than forty thousand of them died fighting on the
Eastern Front.
“During the war we weren’t allowed to speak a single word of French,” said Georgette. “Not even behind closed doors. After the war I had to relearn everything.”
After World War II ended, Alsace shifted yet again, back to France and her language. German and Alsatian were banned from schools and discouraged at home. “When I was a boy in the 1960s,” René told me, “the teachers would punish you for speaking Alsatian. I still remember the slogans painted on the school walls: ‘C’est chic de parler français.’”
“What about today?” I asked.
“They teach Alsatian in school, but most young people don’t speak it,” René said. “My son doesn’t.”
“Ohhh, c’est français. Français, français!” the ladies chorused sorrowfully.
It seemed ironic that after surviving so many radical shifts in power—four in only seventy-five years—that the Alsatian language should begin to vanish now, swallowed up by the trappings and convenience of modern life.
“We’re a mix of two cultures,” Maria said to me.
The other ladies protested. “No, we’re our own culture,” said Yvette. “Not a mix of the two but something else, unique to us. It’s kind of like . . .” She hesitated, her eyes scanning my face.
“Like me,” I offered. “I’m ethnically Chinese, but I was born and raised in the States. And now I live in France.” Even as I said it, I realized it was true. I’d lived in all three countries, and each had left its mark on me—America most widely and deeply, of course, but also France and China, too. I would always define myself as an American, and I would always fold dumplings at Chinese New Year, and I would always enjoy a bit of cheese between my main course and dessert. The home that Calvin and I shared was its own cultural island, not uniquely of the country we lived in or the country we came from but a third place with its own identity. Like Strasbourg, our home was nowhere—and everywhere—to me.
Before we could get too philosophical, the front door opened and René’s son, Franck, appeared, a tall, thin young man with dark hair and a shy smile. A little frisson ran around the room as he stooped to greet each woman with two polite kisses.
“Are you hungry?” asked Anne-Marie, hovering by his side with grandmotherly concern.
“I’m starving. I just came from playing volleyball.”
“How about some choucroute? There’s tons left over.”
He hesitated. “It’s kind of late for a heavy meal. . . .”
Anne-Marie looked a little deflated.
“Bon, ben, vas-y . . .” he conceded. “Pourquoi pas?”
He went into the kitchen and came back holding a plate loaded with an enormous pile of choucroute and sausage. Everyone fell silent as he started to eat.
“C’est trop bon!” he exclaimed finally, his words muffled a little by the food. I felt the room exhale at his praise.
The Alsatian language may be disappearing, but love of Granny’s choucroute is still alive and well, at least in one tiny village in far eastern France.
Choucroute sans Garniture
I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to make a traditional choucroute garnie without Alsatian charcuterie, but it would involve the difficult process of curing many cuts of pork yourself, a long and intense labor of love. Instead I’m offering you the recipe for slow-simmered choucroute, sans meaty garniture. You’ll need raw sauerkraut (sometimes called “lacto-fermented” or “wild” sauerkraut), which can be found in the refrigerated section of your gourmet or health-food store. This is delicious paired with baked ham, grilled sausages (like andouillette, if you’re brave), or poached salmon fillets, and boiled potatoes.
Serves 4
2 pounds raw fermented cabbage
1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon goose fat or any mild-flavored oil (goose fat is traditional)
1 bay leaf
5 juniper berries
1 whole clove
1 clove garlic, crushed and peeled
5 to 10 whole black peppercorns
3 coriander seeds
1 cup white wine (preferably Riesling)
Salt and pepper to taste
Rinse the fermented cabbage in cold water once or twice, depending on the season (the older the cabbage, the more rinsing it will need). Drain in a colander, squeezing out the excess water.
Heat a large pot over a medium flame and sauté the onion in the fat or oil until it has wilted. Add the cabbage and the bay leaf, juniper berries, clove, garlic, peppercorns, and coriander seeds. Moisten with the wine and add enough water to barely cover the cabbage. Lightly season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer gently, covered, for about 1 hour.
Stir the choucroute and check the liquid level. Some people like their choucroute crunchy and white; others prefer it soft and melting, lightly golden (I prefer the latter). Add up to a cup more water, depending on your taste. Cover and continue to simmer for another hour. The longer you cook choucroute, the more acidic it becomes, so start testing it for tenderness after 2 hours.
Before serving, remove as many of the whole spices as possible. Choucroute can be made in advance and reheated.
Chapter 8
Savoie & Haute-Savoie / Fondue
It’s hard to believe that I, a child of the 1970s, reached adulthood without tasting cheese fondue. But combine a father prone to high cholesterol with a mother who abstains from cheese and you can probably understand why I missed out on an entire cultural phenomenon.
Perhaps this explains why, on a limpid summer morning, I found myself in the French Alps at sixty-five hundred feet trying to discover the true story of fondue. Like all stories about food, it began with basic ingredients—in this case cheese: large wheels of aged cow’s-milk Beaufort produced in distant meadows. I had rented a Smart car and urged it up a sinuous mountain road in search of cheese-making chalets and herds of cows grazing on the flowers, grass, and herbs of the Savoyard summer landscape. (Though fondue is eaten almost exclusively in the winter, I decided to visit the region in the summer because Beaufort is produced during the warmest months of the year.)
In the French Alps, elevation is everything. Numbers divide villages—Courchevel 1,300, Courchevel 1,650, Courchevel 1,850. They refer to meters above sea level, and the locals pronounce them with elegant languor—Courchevel mille trois cents, Courchevel mille six cent cinquante, Courchevel mille huit cent cinquante—a mouthful of words that’s difficult to follow if, like me, you still have a little trouble counting in French. From the highway the signs read like a Jackie Collins novel with names like Megève, Chamonix, and Val d’Isère evoking images of luxury hotels and après-ski furs. High in the Alps, the atmosphere felt wintry even in full summer—not just the temperatures, which were markedly cooler than in the valley below, or the air, which breathed thinner, but also the hot-chocolate-colored chalets topped with sloping roofs, the empty ski lifts rising above grass-covered slopes, and in the distance the famous bulk of Mont Blanc capped, even in late August, with a ring of snow.
I crept around a hairpin turn, climbing from 1,300 to 1,650 and downshifted when I felt the car’s laptop-size engine strain. On my left a Renault sedan passed me with barely a flick of the gas pedal, and I eyed it with envy. Not for the first time, I cursed my inability to drive a stick shift; it meant I always got stuck with the only automatic vehicles on offer at the rental agency, a series of ragtag, rattletrap jalopies.
At 1,850 meters the paved road ended and I veered onto a dirt path, snaking across slopes that in the winter are part of some of the world’s most famous ski resorts. In my left hand, I clutched a vague set of directions that I’d scribbled while on the phone with an alpagiste, or local cheese maker. In less than half an hour, I was due to meet him at his cheese-making hut. That is, if I could find it. The notebook paper began to soften under the nervous sweat of my palm, the words
growing blurry: “Head toward the Belvédère restaurant.” I scanned the distance. I saw dark groves of pine trees above pale green grass, butterflies fluttering in fields of wildflowers, saw-toothed mountains that appeared close enough to snap at the hem of my summer dress. But I didn’t see a sign.
With my mind on the clock, I bounced along the dirt track as fast as I dared. At a fork in the road, I finally spotted a wooden board that blended into the landscape—and through some panic-fueled, superhuman effort I managed to make out BELVÉDÈRE, 5KM inscribed in microfont upon it. I veered in the direction of the arrow, feeling decidedly more cheerful. See? I thought. You’re a navigational genius! You’ll be there with time to spare.
But before I could scale the pinnacle of self-congratulation, a car appeared in front of me. It crept along with meticulous care, slowing nearly to a standstill at the barest hint of dust. Creep, creep, creep. Its wheels kicked up a tiny puff of dirt, and the brake lights illuminated. Inch, inch, inch. It was a silver VW convertible Bug, the modern kind, with a dirty back window and Swiss plates. A couple sat inside, a man and woman who, judging from the driver’s fondness for the brake pedal, were either irrationally neurotic about their car’s paint job or had been specially hired to drive me insane.
The seconds ticked by. I considered passing the Beetle, but the dirt track was too narrow. I could feel my punctuality leaking away. I was ten minutes late. Twenty minutes. Half an hour. I flexed my fingers and fantasized about reaching through the windshield and wringing the driver’s neck.