le procope et christmas markets

One test down! I just took my french food test and it was pretty killer. My teacher told us that it was going to be mostly multiple choice with a few short answers. It wasn’t until she started talking about how hopefully the test would only take an hour and passed it out that we learned the test was entirely short answer. I barely had studied enough to maybe pass a multiple-choice test, I definitely hadn’t studied to take an entire free response test in french! I don’t know how I was able to answer almost every question, some french food god was pulling for me today.

The quality of french I used to answer might make a french teacher cry and all my answers or should I say guesses might be completely wrong but I finished and that’s all that matters. One question was naming three famous french vineyards and all I could think was “damn it I should have listened to my dad’s random wine facts more carefully the last few years.” The test covered french cuisine knowledge from the middle ages to right after the revolution, so basically things not many people just happen to know.

For instance, the fork was introduced to france from italy by catherine di medici, as were pastries. France before pastries, I can’t even imagine. Chocolate was introduced to france by louis 13th's wife who was from spain. Lastly, the whole appetizer, entree, dessert concept was introduced to france by russia after the french revolution. Another semi-interesting tid-bit I learned was that the saying “you are what you eat” came from a french man who studied gastronomy and wrote a book titled “the philosophy of taste.” In that book he wrote a list of “rules” which we read in class, in french obviously, and I got a little excited when I understood the french equivalent or I guess the original of  that line. In french it literally translates to “tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you will be.”

After our test we went to le procope, the first café in france, which opened in 1674. The café was very big for paris standards. It had three floors with a bunch of different rooms. We all sat at one long table on the top floor in the room called mozart’s room. We had a choice between tea, coffee and hot chocolate. I was going to get tea but she asked who wanted hot chocolate first and more than half the class raised their hand so thanks to peer pressure I ordered hot chocolate too. Please remind me to never order hot chocolate in france.

Hot chocolate in france is basically what it sounds like, chocolate that is hot. The french apparently don’t believe in ruining chocolate by adding much milk or sugar or any other thing that might make the drink actually drinkable.  Hot chocolate here is bitter, very thick and very rich, I guess some would say it’s hot chocolate done right but in my opinion it’s done wrong.  Along with our hot beverage of choice we each got this little vanilla and chocolate marble muffin/cake that tasted like a madeleine.  (The madeleines in france are less buttery and moist than the one’s back home so you might not be able to picture what I had exactly.)

After eating we got to walk around the café a bit. The café had a lot of old papers framed, being that they have been around for over 300 years kind of means something. I got to see the table voltaire wrote on as he was a frequent visitor of the café. It is also rumored that ben franklin started writing the us constitution on the very same table.

I felt like I needed a picture of me touching the famous table. I also felt the need to explain that it was my hand and that I'm not that horrible of a photographer.

For some reason I was too shy to ask one of my classmates to take a picture of me there so a sneaky mirror picture will have to do.

The room we ate in was the room voltaire wrote when he visited at the café. They had a bell outside the window he supposedly rang when he was done writing something so that someone would be ready outside. He would then throw down what he had just written to the person below. I might be missing an important fact about the bell somewhere along the line but my teacher was telling us all of this in french so I tried my best.

Once I got home from class and the café outing I told dorene that I wanted to go out and see a bit of paris before coming back home to have dinner, something we don’t usually do on days we have class.  First we went to the opera stop and returned/bought a few things from the only store we actually shop at, zara. I can’t believe that seeing the palais garnier, the famous opera house in paris, is such a normal thing for me now. You know I just happen to pass by it casually now as if it’s just another parisian building. Don’t worry, I still think it’s pretty fabulous for many reasons but I’m used to seeing it, never thought that I would be able to say that.

After we finished shopping I wanted to go visit the champs elysees, the eastern side near the concorde, because dorene told me that there were christmas booths lined all across the street next to the park. The weather today and tonight was very mild (high of 48, yes for paris that is mild) but of course when we got to the outdoor part of our night it got really cold outside.

I speed walked down about half the booths that sold anything and everything from all sorts of santa hats to sausages and cheeses to statues made out of iron parts to all sorts of street food.

 The coolest looking street food was this one place that used this heater that they would place near a half wheel of cheese in order to get it all hot and melty. Then they would scrap the melted part off the wheel and put it on a sausage sandwich they had made. It looked interesting but smelled funky to me, dorene thought it smelled delicious.

I couldn’t resist and ended up buying a little russian wooden doll type keychain that was painted like santa claus. I figured the santa claus portion would remind me of where I got it and when.

We took some pictures and then speed walked back home. 

I had been craving a croque monsieur (a melted ham and cheese sandwich, an amazing french specialty) all day and decided to make my own. Okay well I cheated and just bought the already set up kind that you just grill at home but I still technically made it. It turned out great and tasted as good as I was hoping it would.

Off to finish my french homework, I have to write a paragraph about my perfect guy, this should be interesting. Until tomorrow, a demain!