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| Food Stories
Eating Fish
By grabbing the fish fork firmly in the left hand and the fish knife
in the right, pencil style, one arms oneself for a fair contest with
any fish. Without them, the fish using its tiny white bones as
darts, is likely to win in the end. Some people believe in
decapitating the fish first and detailifying it, too; others
preserve its form, placed across the plate, head to the left and
tail to the right. To eat a whole fish that is facing to the right
is disgusting and vulgar. The method of attack, which dear Evelyn
Waugh called ichthyotomy, is to use that knife to slit the fish from
gill to tail just about the middle of its side, where it keeps its
backbone, before it has a chance to realize what is going on. If you
then lift the fish meat off carefully, it should be bone-free. The
backbone may be removed so that the entire fish skeleton may be
place to the side of the rest of the food. Sometimes that doesn't
work, however, so one waits until no one is looking and then flips
the fish until it again presents a whole side, which is slit as the
first side was.
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Twelfth Night, sometimes called the eve of the Epiphany, falls on 5th January, and proceeds Twelfth Day, which is commonly regarded as the end of the Christmas Season. According to Christian tradition, Twelfth Day, on 6th January, was the day when the Wise Men visited the Christ Child, and in Tudor and Jacobean times it was celebrated just as much as Christmas. In manor houses all over Britain, Twelfth Night was a
time for feasting and merrymaking.
Farmers in Devon and Somerset would wassail their apple trees on this night, hoping to ensure a good harvest for the next year. This tradition is reflected in the customs of drinking a warm, spiced beverage from a wassail-bowl and eating special confections.
Mulled white wine is a modern interpretation of the usual iced wine, more suited to our lighter eating and drinking preferences. It should be served in a glass punch bowl surrounded by greenery and lemons. Float several lemons, whose rinds have been decoratively studded with cloves, in the warm brew for a wonderful effect. Twelfth Night Cake is also traditional, as is hiding trinkets or a bean and a pea, both wrapped
in foil, inside the cake. Whoever finds the trinkets will have good luck; whichever male finds the bean is King, and the female who finds the pea is Queen for the evening.
Classical French Menu
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Hor-d'oeuvre froid (cold hors d'oeuvre)
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Potage (soup)
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Hors-d'oeuvre chaud (hot hors d'oeuvre)
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Poisson (fish)
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PiŠce de
résistance (main course)
piŠce de r‚sistance
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Entrée chaude (hot entr‚e)
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Entr‚e froide (cold entr‚e)
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Sorbet (sherbert)
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Rti, salade (roast, salad)
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Légumes (vegetable)
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Entremets de douceur (sweet)
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Fromage (cheese)
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Dessert (small pastries and candies with coffee)
Mizer, David A., Porter, & Sonnier, Food Preparation for the Professional, second edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York. 1987. page 478.
- l'entrée (starter_
- le plat principal (main course)
- le fromage (cheese)
- le dessert (dessert)
http://www.ffcook.com/pages/Frenchmenu.htm
Food Ingredients
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