Ma Grande Bouffe

It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep.  Why?  Maybe because yesterday I had the longest meal of my life.

For months we've been hearing about the neighbors' annual get-together that is held the first Sunday of July.  It takes place in the barn directly across the road and from what we understood it involved drinks, lunch, and then some more food later in the day. 

At about 10:30 AM I was opening the shutters, and as I leaned out the window about ten people greeted me from in front of the barn. They were already gathering! Shit. This was going to be a little overwhelming.  I mean, since we got here everyone has been very nice.  But they've all known each other for years.  Having lived in  cities all my adult life, the concept of neighbors is kind of alien to me.

I'd said I would bring a gateau and had really wanted to try baking a cake myself, but at the last minute I chickened out and ran to the new patissier in the village to get something.  A risk, because the jury's still out on whether the bakery's any good but I thought if I dropped it on the pile with the others, no one would have to know it was my contribution if it turned out to be lousy. 

Eric and I were dragging my daughter Hazel to this thing even though we'd been warned she was about forty years younger than most of those attending but we figured, hey, you're in France!  It's a once in a lifetime cultural experience.  And that it was for her. She fled during the main course, never to return, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When everyone had assembled we were introduced to the whole gang, with a round of kisses and handshakes that I have yet to decipher.  I think the kissing is for peers and handshakes more a matter of respect for elders but perhaps it's all just up to personal taste and I'm reading too much into it?  Anyway, after the introductions, everyone enjoyed an aperitif.  A big favorite was the "Jesus" which was grapefruit syrup and rose wine - delicious.  I wouldn't normally drink at this hour on Sunday, but it was, after all, a Jesus.  Little salmon sandwiches and a regional sort of olive cake were passed around.

We all took our seats and made conversation with the neighbors next to us at the table.  The younger people told us that the soup course was an old tradition to be endured rather than enjoyed and sure enough it was a strong tasting cabbage broth eaten with bread and finished off by dumping red wine into the bowl.  Everyone laughed at my face when I tasted it.

Next came some nice salads of tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and couscous.  Then a little bit of fanfare because they were bringing out the farci.  The description of this Limousin specialty was a little frightening, and sure enough it was kind of the hugest stuffed cabbage I've ever seen in my life.  They plopped a big slice on our plates, and that was eaten along with petit sale which is almost like pork barbq.  They passed around a bowl of potatoes, carrots and more cabbage and all this was eaten with red wine and lots of hearty bread. Hazel, looking traumatized, had excused herself at this point.  She said she'd be back soon but somehow I doubted it.

They passed around the fromage and then the singing began.  Janette, who drives the ambulance in town, has a lovely voice, as does Sylvie the chauffagist's wife.  In fact, a lot of the neighbors seem to be able to sing.  Janette brought out some notebooks with all sorts of French pop songs.  Then Jacky, who lives down the road, brought out the accordian.  Of course they wanted Eric and I to sing so we ran and got the guitars and did a few songs, promising that next time we would know something in French.  When we sang it was a relief in a way because it was the only time during the day that I was using my own language.  In conversation I stumbled along in French because there's really no choice around here.

They served up very sweet, meringue-heavy gateaux next, and coffee and lots of conversation and a little dancing.  People were kind of drifting in and out at this point, and we had to sing another song or two.  An older professor did some comic readings in the Occitane language which is still used by some older people and could almost be a mixture of French and Italian.  He'd then translate into French which was now sounding comfortingly familiar, even though it was not possible for me to get the punch lines.  But he was a very animated, expressive reader so I enjoyed it anyway.

Eric and I took a walk around 6 PM and returned at 7.  This is around the point when I thought things would wind down with a light snack.  No.  More soup, more plates of salads, slices of roast pork and more petit sale, a green salad, another cheese selection.  The bottles of red wine by now had dust on them, as people were heading down into their cellars and bringing out what they happened to have left from the last half century.  I was discussing global warming with the chauffagist, the neighbor up the road was offering to cut our grass for us, Janette was loaning me the book of 60's pop songs. It was now after 10 PM and they were bringing out more gateaux.  I think the one I brought was actually pretty good but after almost twelve hours of eating it was hard to tell.