Christmas budgets are most likely a bit higher in France than other places in the world. Not because shopping at FNAC, which is France’s answer to Best Buy, is any more expensive to purchase that iPad or bluetooth speaker. It’s because while other people are putting out only cookies and milk for Santa on the night of Christmas Eve, the French are spreading the table with some of the most expensive stuff you can find in the grocery store.
When the clock strikes twelve and a lot of the world is hunkering down under the covers to get a few hours of shuteye before the kiddos rouse themselves at the crack of dawn, in France, the party’s just getting started. The Christmas Eve meal is the culinary highlight of the year for most French families. This is when they celebrate Le Reveillon, meaning "awakening" or "wake up", because it starts sometime close to midnight and normally goes on until the wee hours of the morning.
The whole family is expected to come together (historically after the Christmas mass - back in the day) to slowly and methodically plow through course after course coming out of the kitchen. And they really know how to flash their gastronomical savoir-faire, those French. A sampling of what eventually makes it’s way onto your plate before the night is done would be:
Appetizer: caviar and oysters;
First course: foie gras (think really expensive and unbelievably fatty Underwood liverwurst spread) and lobster;
Second course: escargot and scallops (also known as Coquille Saint-Jacques - just because it sounds more cool);
Main course: roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and some other type of wild bird; (like goose, pheasant, quail or guinea fowl);
Cheese course: a variety of expensive and beautifully aged bleu, hard, soft and goat cheeses served with bread and nuts; and
Dessert: Buche de Noel - the traditional Christmas dessert which is basically a rich chocolate cake wrapped up into the shape of a Yule Log.
If you ask me, finding a roll of Tums in your stocking late Christmas morning might be a necessity after a meal that rich. But it’s also true that good food and great memories go hand in hand in the land of Oh la la. And I think they may have got something right here. A meal that long and that diverse is bound to have all sorts of great conversations, laughter and memories attached to it. It can maybe even bring a greater and truer satisfaction than any floor strewn all too quickly with ribbon, torn boxes and hastily shredded wrapping paper. In other words, big budget or not, it’s probably worth every penny (or sous, as the case may be).
