Cultural Blunders
French Cultural Lesson: French meals shall always remain the same. Do not presume that one can interchange side dishes and vegetables as one pleases.
We were gathered around our table, as our small group does every Wednesday night. Thinking ahead to the next week, I thought it would be easier to determine who was bringing what the following week while we were all face to face. Mistake number one.
We were planning to eat raclette, a traditional cheese meal from Switzerland and commonly eaten in our region of France. The word raclette means to scrape (it's also the word used for a squeegee). From my understanding, traditionally, the large wheel of raclette cheese was left by the fire to melt; people would then take their plate to the fire and scrape the cheese on top of their dried meats, potatoes, and bread. Today there are electric griddles used to melt slices of the raclette cheese as people sit around the table.
Everyone in France, especially our region, knows raclette. They know what is needed, and it's an easy meal to share as a large group. As people [finally] volunteered to bring cheese, wine (because if you drink water with raclette, it will cause the cheese to harden in your stomach and make it difficult to digest), meats, and potatoes, I asked about bread. "Bread?!" they all said. "No! You eat bread with fondue, not raclette. We don't need bread." Jordan and I were baffled. We thought the French ate bread with everything! Mistake number two.
As we finished making the plans for the raclette meal, someone suggested a salad. "We can cook some broccoli," I said. Again, they all stared at me in disbelief and in unison said, "Broccoli?! You can't eat broccoli with raclette!" You would have thought that I'd suggested putting wine on cereal. Mistake number three.
In the end, they conceded that we could indeed eat bread with raclette, but they are still laughing at me about the broccoli. Apparently we only eat broccoli with cheese in America.
Maybe we'll stick to cooking American dishes for Wednesday night small groups; that way they can't tell us that we've picked the wrong side-dishes. ;)
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We were gathered around our table, as our small group does every Wednesday night. Thinking ahead to the next week, I thought it would be easier to determine who was bringing what the following week while we were all face to face. Mistake number one.
We were planning to eat raclette, a traditional cheese meal from Switzerland and commonly eaten in our region of France. The word raclette means to scrape (it's also the word used for a squeegee). From my understanding, traditionally, the large wheel of raclette cheese was left by the fire to melt; people would then take their plate to the fire and scrape the cheese on top of their dried meats, potatoes, and bread. Today there are electric griddles used to melt slices of the raclette cheese as people sit around the table.
Everyone in France, especially our region, knows raclette. They know what is needed, and it's an easy meal to share as a large group. As people [finally] volunteered to bring cheese, wine (because if you drink water with raclette, it will cause the cheese to harden in your stomach and make it difficult to digest), meats, and potatoes, I asked about bread. "Bread?!" they all said. "No! You eat bread with fondue, not raclette. We don't need bread." Jordan and I were baffled. We thought the French ate bread with everything! Mistake number two.
As we finished making the plans for the raclette meal, someone suggested a salad. "We can cook some broccoli," I said. Again, they all stared at me in disbelief and in unison said, "Broccoli?! You can't eat broccoli with raclette!" You would have thought that I'd suggested putting wine on cereal. Mistake number three.
In the end, they conceded that we could indeed eat bread with raclette, but they are still laughing at me about the broccoli. Apparently we only eat broccoli with cheese in America.
Maybe we'll stick to cooking American dishes for Wednesday night small groups; that way they can't tell us that we've picked the wrong side-dishes. ;)
Photo Credit, top
Photo Credit, middle
Photo Credit, bottom
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