king for a day

sunday, we were invited over to the beaulieus. i have a bit of a link with the family beaulieu, just like i have a sort of connection with the branch president. the older of the two sons at home (i’m not sure if they have any other children besides the boys...) was in my mission. we were only serving in the mission together for a month and a half, and he was on the other side of the mission, so i never met him. but, i heard the name of elder gregory beaulieu several times through the course of my mission.

so... like i was saying... we were invited chez beaulieu for lunch. it was quite lovely. like a lot. one word sums it up: raclette.

for those who are not familiar with the marvelousness of raclette, a brief explanation follows, complete with pictures!

raclette means scraper... or something to that extent. it’s also a kind of cheese. the name of the cheese comes from the dish, which comes from the small wooden scraper that you use during the course of the meal.



to truly have eaten raclette one MUST have a raclette machine. (there’s a microwave version out now... but i’m not sure you can do that. it’s like saying mashed potatoes and instant potatoes are the same thing. lies!)

one places one’s cheese in the small tray, which is placed under the grilling surface. there’s a heating element under this last, which serves to both melt your cheese, and grill your cold-cuts and vegetables. sometimes there’s a place to cook crepes too.

the cooking surface is usually non-stick metal, but there are stone ones... and i've seen glass.



while the cheese is melting, you take one or more boiled potatoes (the potatoes here are a yellow potato... very moist and dense, with a slight buttery flavor...) and commence to cut or mash it on your plate. you can also add cold-cuts and vegetables, grilled or not.



when the cheese is bubbling and melted, you proceed to pour it over you potatoes. if the cheese sticks to the tray... you scrape. hence, raclette. then... before you do anything else, you put more cheese in your tray and place it back under the grill. there’s nothing worse in this world than having to wait 2 whole minutes for your cheese to melt, while your meat and potatoes get cold... and your belly is yelling “FEED ME, YOU IMBECILE!” bad form. cheese first, then eat. trust me... it’s for the best of everyone.

we then had some salad (what french meal is complete without it?) and bread... and then dessert (what french meal is complete without it?), which was a sort of creamy pastry thing. it had a puff pastry type crust, with a pastry cream inside (like in a bavarian cream?), and a whipped topping on top, vanilla or praline flavors. good.

and that’s how we spent our king’s day. though we didn’t figure that out until monday... because i couldn’t remember when it was exactly, and so i had to ask folks. (at least in france, it’s the first sunday of january... other sources tell me other things... but i’m in france... so i’m better than you, and that’s that.) so we had to eat our king cake on monday night. (which isn’t so big a deal, because i don’t think we’d’ve been able to down another thing that night...)

king cake, or galette des rois, is eaten on king’s day, or la fête des rois. it’s another puff pastry (i’m not sure i’m describing that properly... very much the same dough that a croissant is made with... buttery and flaky) filled with frangipani, a sort of almond paste. on the inside, there’s a fève, or bean, (which is actually a little porcelain figurine...) hidden in the pie (it’s more of a pie that a cake...). you cut the confection, and tradition says that the youngest person, usually while hiding under the table, dictates at random who will receive which piece. whoever finds the bean (chew carefully...) wins the crown that comes with the cake, is named king/queen for the day. the tradition celebrates the epiphany, or the moment when the magi kings (the gentiles) had the christ-child revealed to them. it’s a catholic thing. it’s also a louisiana thing. but, i think that it’s done during mardi gras in that part of the world.