Joyeux Noël !

Joyeux Noël everyone! In case you didn't know, my family (including my grandmother, Mimi C), just left Cincinnati on their flight to Paris! They arrive tomorrow morning and I will be joining them there around 11am. I can't wait to see them! It's quite surreal that they're going to be here in France, and that we'll be celebrating Christmas somewhere other than Cincinnati. But it's going to be great! Besancon has been bustling these last couple of days as people get ready for Christmas. We got some snow over the weekend, which made it feel a little more wintry. Unfortunately the snow melted pretty quickly and has turned into rain again, not nearly as festive.

I thought I would share some French Christmas traditions with you, since many of them are quite different from ours.


Papillotes

The lack of candy canes is quite startling. Last night the Ultimate team had a Christmas party and being the good God-fearing, chocolate-loving American that I am, I planned to bring brownies with peppermint frosting. Not only could I not find the candy canes to crush for decoration, I couldn't even find peppermint extract to make the icing! And I looked in multiple stores! It worked out just fine because my mom's brownie recipe is so rich that the frosting would have been too much, but I was a little bummed that they could have been more seasonally-appropriate. So what's the holiday candy? Papillotes! The name actually refers to the form: "en papillote" is a cooking preparation term meaning "in parchment" and can refer to any kind of food baked in a folded pouch. But in this case the folded pouch is foil and the food is chocolate, usually with some kind of filling like nuts or praline.



Bûche de Noël  

Chocolate cake not enough for you? Try an entire log of cake, chocolate frosting, and chocolate ganache. I love this tradition, and not just because of my gustation-related attraction. It comes from the time when the winter solsitice was the major seasonal celebration and each family would decorate a log that would then be added to the huge communal bonfire. Now we just use central heating, and if you're me, complain about how short the days are. And we bake cakes in the shape of logs ('bûche' means log), rather than decorating a real log. Wood to cake: that definitely counts as evolution.

*Note: I found this picture on Google Images, it was the best, although none of them are nearly as good as the bûches I've seen in patisseries around here. If I get a chance I'll take some pictures in Paris.



Le Réveillon 

So here the big celebration often occurs on Christmas Eve. This comes from the Alsacian tradition where, at least beginning around 1200, December 24th was dedicated to celebrating Adam and Eve -- the creation of man -- via religious plays and a huge feast. Then, Christmas Day, was slightly more austere and dedicated to celebrating the birth and arrival of Jesus. So the carryover is that many French families have their big Christmas celebration on the eve of Christmas, called "le réveillon." The same term is used for big dinners held on New Years Eve, or special dinners offered at restaurants on the same night.


New Years cards

So instead of sending Christmas cards (or Hanakkah cards, for my Jewish families are more likely to send a New Years card, which might read "Meilleurs voeux," meaning "best wishes." I would say in the stores where I have seen holiday cards for sale, the ratio of News Years cards to Christmas cards for sale is probably 10-1. But to my knowledge Steph and Charly haven't received any of either, and from what I hear sending holiday cards of any kind isn't quite as common here as it is at home.

 
Marché de Noël  

This one constitutes a pretty big difference in my opinion. THE Marché de Noel, or Christmas market, is in Strasbourg, which is now about a 2-hour train ride away, thanks to the new TGV line. They have the gall to call the city "The Capital of Christmas," a moniker I find both pompous and a little disheartening. Is Christmas so commercialized that there's a city claiming to be the official Magic Kingdom of yuletide cheer? Apparently. I love Strasbourg, but I think once was enough for their Marché de Noël. When we visited Alsace as part of the Wake program in Dijon, I much preferred the Christmas market in Kaysersburg. Many French cities and towns have their own Marché de Noël; in the smaller towns and villages, the Christmas market lasts one weekend, or a long weekend. But Besançon is big enough that they've had a few little markets set up since the beginning of December. The main one is in Place de la Republique, in front of the Musée de l'art et l'archéologie. It's also where they set up the giant Ferris wheel. Apparently this is the second year they've had the grande roue, and they brought it back because last year it was such a success. It's quite kitschy, but I like it anyway. And I may or may not have convinced Colin to go on it on Sunday when we explored the Marché de Noël.


Going to the Marché de Noël, at least in Besançon, is sort of like going to St. Gertrude's Festival (for you Cincinnatians), but without the warm summer weather. There's always less to see and do than you think, and really it's just an excuse to eat the unhealthy but delicious food they sell there. In our case, hot wine and morbiflette. Hot wine may sound funny, but it's really yummy and completely ubiquitous in western Europe beginning in, say, mid-October. Usually it's made with red wine and cinnamon-type seasonings, but I've seen hot white wine too. Morbiflette is the Franche-Comtois version of tartiflette, a Savoyard/Swiss dish involving potatoes au gratin with an incredible amount of cheese, in this case, using morbier, a local type of cheese.

I really can't tell you how much the Franc-Comtois love their cheese and potatoes (and don't forget the lardons). And, while sometimes it's starts to look an awful lot like the last iteration of cheese and potatoes, the cheese is darn good, that so far, I'm still eager to try more. Check back in with me in February.

*Note: I found both of these pictures on Google Images, but they look just like what I had at the Marché de Noël on Sunday -- it was being sold out of a giant skillet like the one above, and the food itself looked like the picture below.

Fêtes

So this one isn't uniquely French... I think Christmas parties happen just about everywhere people celebrate Christmas. But I needed a heading for the pictures from the UC Vesontio / Friz'Bistonin Christmas party which took place last night. It was so much fun -- I feel really lucky to have found such a great group of friends.