3 American foods I took for granted , and 3 French foods I will miss

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Bonjour à tous!

The other day I was just having a nutella banana crêpe and suddenly I realized, holy cow, it's going to be quasi-impossible to find this in America after I leave this beautiful country in less than two months! And that thought, my friends, inspired me to write this post.

3 American foods I took for granted:

1. Peanut butter

I can't tell you how stunned I was to be unable to find this little delicious jar of brownish thing called peanut butter. I personally feel that my astonishment is justified because even back in China, I could find peanut butter in supermarkets, so I didn't even think that it was a possibility that it doesn't exist in France. (Okay, it does, if you go to stores that sell foreign imported foods, but it's rare.) In fact, when I lamented this absence to a few of my French friends and colleagues, they were like, ew (yes, they said that), peanut butter? Which is interesting; because it is true that French people deteste foods that are artificial and overly processed. Tant pis that there's no more pb & j's, but I've got enough Nutella to get me occupied...

2. breakfast foods

Cinnamon rolls, muffins, donuts, omelettes, pankcakes, French toast (this one is quite ironic), waffles... you name it. After coming to France, my breakfast  became more or less 'nonexistent' in comparison with American standards. Here, for breakfast, French people usually just eat a small croissant with a small cup of espresso (think very small). I'm not saying it's unhealthy, I just miss the chocolate chip pancakes from Le Peep's diner in Evanston.

3. burritos

Okay, this is technically not American, but with Chipotle and the like being so popular and ubiquitous in America, parting with burritos in France turned out to be kind of hard. Mexican food in general is not very big here, therefore it is also pretty hard to make it at home- words like sour cream and jalapeno will earn you strange looks from the supermarket staff.

Okay; now that I kind of vented my food cravings, let's get on with the literally endless list of French foods that I will miss. For the sake of being succinct, I'll just share 3 from the list.

3 French foods I will miss:

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1. salade de chèvre (Goat cheese salad)

I could literally eat this thing all day. Warm fresh goat cheese on baguette slices on a bed of greens and thinly sliced tomatoes - what's not to love about this dish. It is super filling, super healthy, and ridiculously tasty. I'd love to recreate this after I return to the states, so wish me luck on finding the right kind of goat cheese. The goat cheese in France - oh la la, it brought my life onto a whole new level.

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2. confit de canard 

This duck dish that I don't have words for will for sure make me have drooling dreams after I leave France. My best experience with it was once at this obscure little bistro down the street I live: it was late into the evening, the duck meat was perfectlly soft and soaked through with flavor, add to that a bed of tenderly mashed and buttered potatoes. I think that first bite counts as one of my happiest moments in life.

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3. Religieuse au chocolat

I believe that everyone who has ever tasted this heavenly creation understands why it's called 'chocolate religious' (okay, the name makes more sense in French). A bite of this beautifully shaped dessert will send you straight to the high heavens with your mouth full of thick, creamy chocolate and puff pastry.

About time to wrap up this post, otherwise I fear I'll drool all over my keyboard. A la prochain!

xx

Vanessa :]

Grandmas, durians, and soy sauce everywhere: on cultural curiosity

Emilie made me sushi

Bonjour à tous!

For the past two evenings, I've had dinner at two different Arlesien families, and I gathered some highly intriguing observations and impressions. 

Let me start with what we had for dinner first: Sunday evening I had sushi made by the family's fifteen-year-old daughter Emilie, with quiche lorraine, something that cannot be more typically French, and ice cream, a worldwide favorite; yesterday evening I had omelette "done the French way," which really tasted astonishingly like the eggs cooked by my Chinese grandmother, along with fried spring rolls dipped in fish sauce and Japanese lettuce salad. 

I was amazed to find that these French people were bothered by mixing cuisines, which they totally did (and did it well!). And what was more surprising to me was how everyone just seemed to pull out these typically Asian ingredients or condiments such as seaweed, and soy sauce, from their kitchen pantries! I couldn't believe my eyes that these things were common items in the kitchen in French families! 

spring roll, Vietnamese fish sauce, Japanese salad

In contrast, from my four years of living in America, I find that it's extremely rare for non-Asian families to have Asian ingredients or condiments in their kitchens. The American families that I have had the chance to know more or less tend to stick to, for the lack of a less generalized term, the Occidental way of cooking. The only times they would venture out into the foreign, or what a lot of people consider as "exotic," cuisines, is when they eat out at restaurants.

French omelette that tasted Chinese

Throughout both dinners for the past two evenings, everyone asked so many questions about China, and none of those were questions that I was commonly asked about in the US, which are "Do you guys really eat dogs" and "What's your opinion on Taiwan/Tibet." (To which the answers are, "Yes, we do eat dogs in certain regions, but it's not the domestic pet dog kind of dog;" and "I think they are part of People's Republic of China.") At those dinners, the French families asked me about how Chinese people ate their food, "if there were many dishes and everyone shared," or if we ate desserts ("Not often; we tend to end meals with hot soup."). The grandma that cooked me the French omelette said that when she lived in Paris, she went to the Chinatown there very often, and loved buying Durian and silk pants there. What random yet so deeply culturally immersed actions! It amazed me how casually she talked about these things, how familiar and at ease she was with them, as if they are nothing to be surprised about. It made me realize that these people are truly curious about my culture, about where I come from, and about my life, not just about politics or stigmatized topics in Asia that are blown out of proportion over the news in America. 

I'm not saying either interest is wrong, I just personally appreciate more the genuine interest that the French exhibit toward my culture, their constant awe and wonder when I tell them some little thing that is so familiar to me in my life in China, and overall their generally open minds, their reservation of remarks or critiques. One perfect example to end this post: when I told one of the French families I dined at that in China people put tomatoes in one of the very common soups (西红柿鸡蛋汤, for those who speak Chinese or are familiar with this delicious dish), the hostess said "Oh that's bizarre!" But then quickly corrected herself and apologized to me, saying how she shouldn't have said that, and that it is only bizarre to her but not to people who are savvy about Chinese culture. It was a touching moment for me because I didn't take offense at all, but her apology just goes to show how much she, as one French person, keeps her mind open. 

Let's hope that more people worldwide can be like that.

xx

Vanessa :]