As a follow up to last week’s post, I did make Emily Dickinson’s gingerbread. It was dense, thick and dark; it rose but an inch. Et pourtant… I added a whole packet of levure or rising agent, but it proved a rather helpless powder under the weight of four cups of flour and another of molasses. I have to say my loaf looked a bit like the oversized cap of a wild, black toadstool. It tasted quite as an American expects it to taste – sweet but tangy. My French husband commented “c’est quand même bizarre ton gâteau”; our good friend Mathieu agreed “c’est étrange mais c’est bon”. Mathieu, who eats at our table with the regularity of an adopted priest (seated at my right as the Encyclopedia of the Mistress of the House recommends), who complements my cooking by helping himself to seconds and – ma foi – thirds to the detriment of his waistline, polished off nearly half of Emily’s round. I helped myself to a slice and my husband finished the rest over the course of the week, carving off bits to have with coffee. Frenchmen can be very particular about food, especially our “primitive” American dishes. Pumpkin pie poses a problem the French palate cannot easily resolve: vegetables side with savory, not sweet, and if the Asian sweet-and-sour combo does have Gallic adherents, this is because a certain lightness and subtlety prevails in the Chinese method. Neither pumpkin pie nor Emily’s gingerbread rise; this is earth food and it even looks like it came from the garden. In short, I was surprised that the sharp tasting Gingerbread went down the French hatch so easily. There was no triumph in the loaf but it got eaten which is proof of something, non?
Also, I did my boughs of holly:
(To be honest I bought this one. The one I made is not photogenic for some reason…)
Keeping in the Yuletide spirit, I’d like to take you to visit Vieille France at 5 Avenue de Laumière, right near the Mairie de 19ème.
Here they make genuine Christmas cookies like back home, some coated with frosting that has a faint lemony flavor.
I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but these are delicious and every December I make my pilgrimage to purchase a small box of them. I like this shop because it has its own, slightly Alsacienne sensibility; their pastry chef make sablés which I’ve never seen anywhere else and unusual renditions of the classics – mille feuille, opéra, forêt noire etc — that do not seem new and inventive but homemade and traditional-with-a-twist. They make their own chocolates and sell fragrant teas every bit as good as Mariage Frères, as well as dried Marrakech roses in tall glass jars and prettily packaged candies that look very old-fashioned. There, I think I’ve said enough.
They sell these fab Bonnat chocolate bars – expensive but well worth the splurge.
There are numerous, delightful “Paris blogs” that explore the city’s culinary offerings and this is not one of them. What really interests me here is the artisan, or the artisan as resistant. Resistance comes in all forms, even in cakes, I promise you. Vieille France is a tiny, seven-pace shop, but what it does, it does well and like nobody else. Its business thrives in a bearish economy. I find this encouraging and take it as an example of how the small and singular can win out. David did it with a slingshot: why not with a Paris Brest?