Christmas Treats

Here's a picture from a recent sale flyer from our neighborhood grocery store. 

The flyer is filled with special Christmas treats including these cute little glazed ducklings and snowmen...

Now let's guess what they are made of...

Chocolate covered in caramel? Nope.

Ice cream? Nope. 

Cake with a drippy glaze? Not even close.

Here's a hint...it's on the meat page...yikes...

And the answer is...

Duck liver, of course.  Small rabbits, ducklings, and snowmen made out of duck liver. Only a euro fifty each.

I imagine that this is based on a traditional French delicacy, and I am trying to keep an open mind à la Babette's Feast. However, all of my American cultural baggage is screaming, "Small rabbits and ducklings should be made of chocolate, or at worst, marshmallow cream. Never, ever made of meat, and certainly not mashed up organ meat. Ever."

And I just don't think anyone should be eating those soulless snowmen.  Take another look at their scary, empty eyes. My sensitive child would weep if I served these up.

Merry Christmas from France!

Expanding Horizons

This is a poster that went up at school last week during the annual "Week of Taste".  Parents were invited to bring in food--in particular regional or international dishes.  This poster is from Anna's class.  It says, "Today, Mexico.  We tasted tortillas and Mexican chips.  We found that it was a little spicy and salty.  Some thought that it was potatoes and meat, which was not the case.  There was cheese, red beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes and cumin."
So, I was the one who brought in burritos and chips and salsa.  I did specify that this was Tex/Mex, but labeling it all as Mexican was probably easier for little French first graders to wrap their minds around.  The kids all had a piece of bean burrito and then the teacher had them guess what was in them as she wrote their responses on the board.  It was extremely entertaining.  Over half of them liked it, which I was impressed with.

After the burrito guesswork, I went around with chips and salsa.  I had warned them that the salsa was a little spicy (although I did tone it down), but they were so afraid to taste it that I had Anna demonstrate the proper piling on of salsa on a chip.  She was happy to do it.
Parents aren't generally as active in French classrooms as they are in American classrooms.  So, it was nice for me to be able to see the class and interact with the kids.  And it was delightful to see how the teacher gathered the kids responses and artwork together to celebrate the experience.