One of the many martello towers dotted around the coast of the island, built to help protect against French invasion. This tower dates back to 1778.
Imagine being garrisoned here – not nice.
Posted for Unknown Mami’s Sundays in my City:
French
All posts tagged French
Firstly, any genealogists out there: I was on Ancestry.com this week and came across what could be the birth records of two recently found and personally significant relatives. The only way to prove their connection to my tree is by ordering their birth certificates, which I notice you can now do directly from the Ancestry site. I clicked on the link but lo and behold, Ancestry were anticipating charging me £20 each for the pleasure of receiving these certificates and then quoting a wait of 16 working days. Being a pedantic soul when it comes to family history research, I’ve collected the BMD certs of all direct family members where possible and I knew that I wouldn’t have done so at anything near £20 a pop. So I went on over to my usual source for these, the UK Government’s ‘General Records Office’. Sure enough, certificates are still available there for £7 each and the quoted wait is 4 working days. Moral of story? Don’t even think of ordering documents from the Ancestry site. It’s shiny, it’s happy and helpful but it’s also horrendously expensive.
For anyone new to family research, to order a UK certificate it’s best to have the GRO index reference and this is something that you can look up without membership to Ancestry and better still, it’s for free. Just head on over to the aptly named FreeBMD and key in your relative’s details. You can then order the certificate from the General Records Office here at a much more reasonable rate.
Secondly, has anyone else noticed that the French have an entirely different approach to the construction of many of their websites? Where English speaking sites are all about speed in leading you from page to page, the French sites I’m referring to like you to stay a while and read through oodles of verbiage. I’ve noticed this on several sites but the biggest offender I’ve found so far is Geneanet whom I rely on for finding my French relatives (of which there are many). I recently made the mistake of forking out money on up-graded membership, so that I can view documents. The trouble is, I’m having such huge difficulty wading through their clunking site that I haven’t made any headway yet. If it all worked in a similar way to the English sites I might well have traced my family back to the year dot by now. As it is, I’m thinking that a trip across the water and some serious leg work would probably yield swifter results.
By the way, if anyone knows of a smokin’ hot site for European research, please share! I’m currently going nowhere fast with this.
It’s ‘Quatorze Juillet’ (’14th July’ or what is often called Bastille Day) in France today. It’s a national holiday – the day that commemorates the storming of the Bastille Prison in 1789, the start of the French Revolution and so the day that is seen as the birth of modern France.
This is also a day that has only had any relevance to me in recent years. It’s probably hard to believe, but my parents spoke so little about their families and their background that I only discovered through family history research after their deaths how French I am – and the answer is that on my father’s side I am 100% French (and now, coincidentally, married to a Frenchman). Knowing this honestly explains something about my personality. More than that I am not willing to say …other than that if you think of those people in 1789 who had the courage to storm that prison in Paris, ending the reign of Louis XVI and bringing down the ruling aristocracy, then you have a good idea of one of my personality traits (…’a tendency towards bolshiness’…) Oops, did I just say that out loud)?
Chateau de Montignac in the Dordogne region of France. This Chateau, with extensive gardens, sits on its own plateau high above the surrounding plains. It’s one of my favourite buildings – if I could move in tomorrow, I would.
This video is apparently causing a sensation in France at the moment. Carla Bruni was conducting an interview with journalists from women’s magazine ‘Femme Actuelle’ when the French President accidentally wandered in. Whether this chance meeting was staged or not, and whether you speak French or not, the body language and glances show the true story – a couple very much in love. Quite charming and a very welcome change from everything else that is going on in politics elsewhere at the moment.
This video is apparently causing a sensation in France at the moment. Carla Bruni was conducting an interview with journalists from women’s magazine ‘Femme Actuelle’ when the French President accidentally wandered in. Whether this chance meeting was staged or not, and whether you speak French or not, the body language and glances show the true story – a couple very much in love. Quite charming and a very welcome change from everything else that is going on in politics elsewhere at the moment.
I think I may be actually addicted to tea. How do I know this? Every time I go on holiday outside the UK I get ratty and distracted by the damned awful versions of my national drink that are marketed and sold as ‘tea’. In France, which as one of our closest neighbours tends to be a regular haunt of mine… oh have mercy….in France they are more used to delicate ’tisanes’ – herbal teas that are merely politely introduced to very hot water for a nano-second and the anaemic result is what you are supposed to drink, and presumably enjoy. France, and I can say this as basically a half-French woman, is a lost cause. In the world of general cuisine I will concede that they are amongst the front runners. For making a good cuppa? Forget it. Order tea at your peril. What you will get will be gnats’ pee.
I’ve singled out France but really the story will be the same for most of Europe. There is one exception – Ireland. You want tea? You’ll get a proper brew, one that you could stand your spoon in. I once stayed in a hotel in central London and was served what I can only describe as dishwater, cheekily passing itself off as tea. As I’d noticed a good southern Irish lilt in my waitresses’ voice, I asked if it was possible to have a stronger pot of tea, to which she replied ‘yes, of course, we only give out this rubbish because the tourists like it’. Do they? Do they really? Nations who are coffee addicts make properly brewed versions of the stuff for visitors because that’s what they themselves drink. They wouldn’t dream of handing out the weaker instant coffee version because they assume that ’the tourists like it’.
I have to say that one of my biggest frustrations is when I travel to the U.S. because this nation understands their own addiction to the coffee bean only too well. In fact, Americans are so rabid about their own national drink that it features in popular culture, it is the birthplace of the ubiquitous Starbucks, Americans are seen everywhere clutching ‘half-gallon’ canisters like bottles of formula, and coffee percolators (not instant coffee sachets) are available in fairly mundande hotel rooms to allow for that early morning fix. The national addiction to coffee is so recognised, and so ingrained, that if you visit any restaurant or diner before lunch time the waitress will come to the table already armed with a steaming hot pot of the drink and be pouring it out before you have even glanced at the menu - before you have had time to say whether you even want it. And herein lies my frustration. The Americans fully understand this addiction to the bean. They know that consumers get ratty without their caffeine fix and so they anticipate and pre-empt any troubles by offering it up before any conversation takes place. However, woe betide you if you don’t drink the stuff, if in fact your morning fix is from the rather more gentle, but still caffeine laden tea leaf.
In even expensive hotels I have been advised to use the coffee pot/percolator to heat water for my morning cuppa. 
Have you any idea how much coffee taints the flavour of the water in those coffee makers? No? Well try to imagine if I told you to make your morning coffee in the pot normally reserved for onion soup. Yes. It’s about as pleasant as that. Even after flushing it through several times with plain water, you can still taste the coffee so that what you are left with is weird ‘co~tea’ in the a.m. and, trust me, it’s naaasty. When I’ve asked for boiling water to make my tea it comes in a coffee pot which, in case you hadn’t twigged yet STILL TASTES OF COFFEE!
When I’ve ordered tea in a restaurant, I have to wait for tea-like paraphernalia to appear, as though I wish to perform my own version of the Japanese tea ceremony. Do I want lemon? Do I want silk tea bags? Do I want to rifle through and pick from this entire 50-strong tray of tea bags, including mint, chamomile, lemon verbena….? No, fer cryin’ out loud! I want tea! The brown stuff that comes out of generic bags from makers like Typhoo, Tetley and PG Tips! I don’t want silk, I don’t want herbs, I don’t want lemon and trays and pots and pans and, by the way, I don’t even want ferkin’ Twinings which, in case you didn’t know, is barely drunk in Britain because it’s strictly for Wishy Washy Wimps! I want TEA!!! The caramel golden nectar which keeps the fabled British Army marching ever onwards! That glorious brew that stains your teeth brown, you can stand your spoon up in it and it makes you feel like you’ve had a great big enveloping hug from your ever-loving Mummy who adores you like no other. T. E. A. I want tea. Please.
You can read a few interesting facts about my favourite drink over at my other site here.
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There are plenty of fine teas out there but what I’m referring to above is the bog standard ‘cuppa’ as consumed by millions of Brits every day. Snobs will tell you that these blends are the ‘sweepings off the floor’ but that’s them just trying to prove that they’re a cut above the rest of us and, frankly, they’re talking rubbish. Millions of us can’t be wrong and, in fact, I read recently that the Chinese are now starting to import English bog standard blends, of the type mentioned below, because they too have realised what a little gem we have.
Therefore…To make a delicious, bog standard cuppa, as drunk by all good Brits:
Look in the ‘English’ section of your supermarket if there is one. (I know, for instance, that such things exist in Florida). The tea brands to look for are Tetley, PG Tips, Yorkshire Blend and, our favourite, Typhoo.
Put one tea bag in a [preferably] china cup or mug. It is true that tea tastes better in china rather than plain pottery because china holds the water at a better temperature … and by the way, there’s no need to be snobby with this tea, serving it in mimsy little cups, unless you want to impress your guests. I’m a ‘mug’ person myself.
Pour on a little cold milk (about a tablespoon, no more). Boil a kettle and pour freshly boiled water over the milk and tea bag. Colour will immediately start to flood out. Use a teaspoon to ‘mash’ the bag until you have the desired colour. ‘Serious’ tea drinkers will want their tea a golden caramel colour.
Beginners might want to add sugar, although ‘serious students’ (myself included) know that totally swamps the flavour of the tea.
Sit down and enjoy.
Good in the afternoon with plain biscuits dunked in it (another joyous English custom designed to pile on the pounds because once you develop the technique of a perfectly dunked biscuit, you cannot stop).
By the way, there’s a quirky little site about tea, biscuits and our national drink called a Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down that you might like to visit.
Mise en place (pron: meez on plass, translated as ‘put in place’)
Occasionally cook books will refer to having everything ‘mise en place’. As the translation above infers, this just means to have everything in place before you begin – so prepare any fruit or vegetables, weigh out ingredients and preferably have any utensils that you might need to hand. If you can get into the habit of doing this all the time you’ll find your cooking becomes more 0rganised, less messy and ultimately less time consuming.
Beurre Manie (French, pron. burr man-ye, and meaning ‘kneaded butter’)
Beurre manie is simply a mix of equal quantities of flour and butter and is used to thicken sauces and gravies, giving a lovely glossy finish.
To use: in a bowl, mix flour and butter (say an ounce of each), mashing it together with a fork or your fingers to give a lump free paste. Then just add, preferably in small dollops, to your hot liquid, whisking all the while. You’ll see the liquid thicken almost instantly. Demo video at the BBC food website here
I don’t mind gourmet cooking, in fact I quite like it … as long as someone else is preparing it for me. The style of food I love is probably best described as ‘good home cooking’. It’s rustic, simple and full of flavour – I think of it as the kind of thing your Mum would have prepared 30-50 years ago (and Mums probably still do in parts of continental Europe). In other words, it’s ‘love on a plate’.
From time to time I’ll include here recipes that have worked well for me and are easy to put together. Today’s is that French classic Boeuf Bourguignon. I’ve adapted this from a recipe in ‘Sophie Conran’s Soups and Stews’ (pub. by Collins, ISBN 978-0-00-727991-3) – a book that has many easy to follow and very tempting recipes and I therefore highly recommend. This adaptation came about simply because I live in a place where ingredients mentioned in recipe books are sometimes hard to come by.
Boeuf Bourguignon
(To serve six)
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
1.5 kg / 3lb 15oz chuck stewing or braising steak, cut into 4cm / 1-1/2 in cubes
30g / 1-1/4 oz plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
125g / 4 oz smoked bacon lardons / bacon bits (or pancetta)
1/2 bottle of full-bodied red wine such as Merlot or Burgundy (don’t skimp on quality)
300ml / 10fl oz beef stock
1 bouquet garni***
3 red onions, chopped
225g / 8 oz brown mushrooms, thickly sliced
25g / 1 oz butter
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
***I had no bought bouquet garni. You can just tie a bundle of herbs together but instead, I cut a celery stick in half and stuffed a bay leaf, some sage, thyme and parsley stalks between the the two halves of celery and tied together with string.
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Method
Preheat the oven to 150C / 300F / gas mark 2. Coat the beef cubes thoroughly with the seasoned flour (I do this by tossing them with the flour in a plastic food bag). Heat half the oil in a large ovenproof pan or stove top casserole with a lid on high heat. Fry the bacon in the oil until browned, then remove it from the pan. Add the meat and fry, adding a little more oil if necessary. Fry the meat in batches, putting in just as many pieces as will cover the bottom of the pan, until browned. (Putting in too many at once means the temperature of the pan will drop and the meat won’t brown properly). When the meat is browned, set aside with the bacon.
Reduce the heat to medium to low, pour in half the wine and bring to the boil, using a wooden spoon to scrape up the gubbins that has stuck to the bottom. Return the meat and bacon to the pan. Pour in the rest of the wine and just enough of the stock to leave the top halves of the uppermost pieces of meat showing above the liquid. Add the bouquet garni, stir and season with pepper. Pop the lid on the pan and simmer in the oven for two hours, checking the liquid levels after one hour and adding more beef stock if necessary.
Meanwhile, gently fry the red onions in the butter for 15 minutes. Add the mushrooms and continue to fry for a further 10 minutes. Set aside until needed.
When the casserole has finished its two hours, remove the bouquet garni and stir in the mushroom and onion mix.
Good served with mashed potatoes and buttered cabbage.
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Adapted from: Sophie Conran’s Soups and Stews
Art:Rene Gruau
Art:Rene Gruau
