When I visit the south
of France
This goose has been richly-fed;
over-fed; polite can’t-say-no-fed; fed more than my weight or size require; fed
later in the evening than my body can process; fed and fattened like a
gluttonous last supper.
Like the hapless goose, I
can’t seem to avoid the situation. My
hosts don’t open my mouth and physically force the food down my gullet… but the
moral pressure, the sense of courtesy, is so strong that to not partake heartily in the French feast
generously prepared would be churlish. Features of the feast have also been presented
specially in my honour, so open my mouth I do… smile and swallow, smile and
swallow… without the diversion of conversation because I speak little French.
If you struggle to believe
the extent of these offerings, thinking multiple courses means small portions, then
imagine the giant-purple-berry-girl in Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and you’ll get the idea. She at least had the luxury of the Juicing
Room for relief, whereas I am left on the verge of explosion… desperately needing
to run… run like Forrest Gump… but know it’ll be days before I can sufficiently
digest the excess of riches to manage exercise.
This lavish banquet was not
all bad of course. The food was
delicious – every morsel. I started
hungry, as aperitifs went on for ages, gobbling up the first course with relish. My hosts had gone to such trouble to welcome
me back to France
Blogs are about sharing so
I’ll give you the low-down on the menu.
First Course: platters of
cold and cured meats, bread and pate.
(There’s always bread.) Don’t
picture a modest meat platter. Picture
an extravagance of choice – twelve varieties, spicy and sweet, the biggest
chunks of pate you’ve ever seen, sausages and salami as big as a weapon, prosciutto
and ham so scrumptous you simply have to go back for seconds.
Second Course: Salads. Two dishes sounds moderate but they weren’t
average salads. One was French radish
and grilled liver (lambs fry), tossed in a sauce which convinced you sweet and
extremely-savoury go well together. The
other salad was an unusual blend of wild asparagus, potato, egg, bacon, and again
an interesting sauce and embellishments.
Was I drinking too much – you know, to wash it down – or was my brother
telling me this was ‘asbergers salad’?
“Seriously?” I mocked, “asbergers?”
“Yeah” he replied. “It grows in
the fields, really tall, and you just snip off the top. It’s savage asbergers”. That made me laugh so hard I nearly spat it
out. “Don’t you mean wild” I asked. “And ‘asbergers’ is a form of autism… I think
you mean asparagus, wild asparagus”. “That’s what I said” he replied, turning
aside to rattle away in French to others; my chances for future translation
blown.
This kept me amused a while
so I probably ate more salad (and bread) than necessary. I sincerely respect my bro for so deeply adopting
a foreign language and culture that he forgets his mother tongue, but I relish
the chance to tell my other brother about it as he’s a merciless tease.
Third Course: it turns out my
host has gone fishing just for me. He has
sat by a lake for hours that morning, freezing in wind and cold, determined to
wait until he caught at least one fish.
He knew I liked fish and would appreciate it, so of course I did; deliciously
and beautifully presented on the plate.
But having learnt my host had weathered the cold to catch this trout, I
daren’t leave a bite. I took the odd
pause to digest more effectively, my stomach struggling with an excess of aspergers
salad and cured meats, but these pauses were taken to signify reluctance (or
NOT très bien) so I hurriedly smiled, nodded, swallowed, smiled, nodded,
swallowed.
Small woman that I am, I
felt done. Well and truly
satisfied. It was a whole fish.
Then came the Fourth Course:
the smoothest mashed potato I’ve ever eaten… with large chunks of baked pork
fillet… all wrapped together in a spectacular sauce. The rest of the table had watched me eat my
trout, so they were ready to dive in. But
my plate was passed back with a helping as large as the next persons… and still
the bowls from which these luxuries had been removed appeared full, like the
Loaves and Fishes. Repeat helpings were
proffered with enthusiasm and an expectation of acceptance, and again I became
the goose destined for foie gras.
My brother was no help. He knows these people well so he doesn’t feel
the same pressure to oblige (if ever he did), and when he leaves the table to
catch up on the football he doesn’t even notice what hasn’t been eaten. I start to wonder if the female geese are
more imposed upon than the male geese?
Though I guess it’s got more to do with the size of your stomach before
it’s forcibly stretched.
Now you’d expect at this
point something of an interval, right? A rest?
No. Out she comes again, though thankfully this fifth time with a bowl
of fruit.
Soon after it’s time for the
Sixth Course, and she reappears with the largest selection of cheese you have
seen outside a deli. Seriously, there is
as much choice and volume of cheese ‘after dinner’ as there was cured meat and
pate ‘before dinner’. How can anyone fit
it in? How can we do justice to this
fabulous platter, with more bread, when I love cheese and ordinarily find it
hard to resist?
Back the boys come to the
table and in they go again – bread sticks and chunks of cheese passed up and
over heads like a rugby line-out. Before
I know it I’m again nodding and swallowing, nodding and swallowing… the
perennial goose. Then, after squeezing
in a morsel of the last variety of cheese, I wipe my mouth and put down my
napkin with satisfaction. I’m bloated, uncomfortable,
but I’ve managed. Just. Back goes the last of my wine in readiness to
clean up.
Well, if the SEVENTH COURSE
didn’t then appear. Seriously? Dessert after all that cheese? And the bowl is huge. Some say no, but our host looks at me with
such a big smile I suspect she’s made it especially for me… how can I
refuse? The small bowl I request is not
small, and it is rich and full of custard, toffee and gooey stuff I can’t name. I eat it.
It’s lovely. But by now I’m
envious of my brother who is away again from the table dozing in an
armchair. Of course I have to eat, someone
has to show good manners!
As the French women clear up
around me, struggling as I am to stand, I feel considerable empathy with geese. Yet I can’t bear to think about the
practicalities as it’s too distressing.
Instead I wonder if I might not have adopted the boarding school
practice of sneaking food off my plate into my school satchel; the only way, as
I found, to escape a battle of wills with the nuns supervising refectory. Alas the difference is obvious. Boarding school food was hideous. In the south of France
And that’s the love-hate of gluttony.
That’s the life of a foie gras goose.
That’s a……... burp.
