Christmas Eve is the most important date in the Provençal calender. It is when the family gets together to eat le gros souper, or the big supper before going to Midnight Mass. Most people I know skip the Mass but still get together en famille to eat the supper. Like most traditions around the World, it is the culinary ones that survive.
Last Tuesday I went to my weekly market to find out what I should be buying for the traditional Provençal meal.
My first port of call was the man from outside St Remy. He had the longest leeks, story intact with their roots, huge blettes, or chard in English, which are more stalk than leaf, a long thin orange marrow, which he told me was called le gourd de Nice, carrots, turnips and cardes, cardoons to us, which look like large, misshapen celery stalks.
Cardoons are part of the artichoke family, they grow tall with beautiful silvery stems and leaves and have blue thistle heads flowers; we had them in our garden when we lived in Shropshire before moving to Provence, but I had never tried to cook with them. I asked the man how to prepare them. He told me you have to cut away the stringy backbone of the stalk, breaking a stalk in half to show me, you then have to cut it up and cook it in boiling water for five to ten minutes and then cover it with a béchamel sauce and some cheese, gruyère or Parmesan and put it in the oven.
He said it is often eaten as part of the Christmas supper with anchovy. I then asked him what else was traditionally eaten on the night and he thought for a while, scratched his beard and said different people ate different things, but the main thing was, that you only eat vegetables and fish, no meat. He added that snails were often eaten at the meal, along with fish soup and of course there were the treize desserts. I thanked him, wished him a happy Christmas and moved on.
I went to the fish stall and asked them the same question, they too were a little non-committal. The fishmonger was shucking oysters and gave me one to try. It was very tasty and quite salty, I felt I’d gulped a mouthful of the seawater that it had came from.
I asked him if it is traditional to eat oysters on Christmas Eve and he told me that it had become so in later years, but was not typique to Provence, where escargots had been the more traditional thing to eat. There was a pile of small-assorted fish, some little live crabs and a fish head with a sign saying pour la soupe and so I asked him if fish soup was traditional for Christmas Eve. He said not particularly, but as it was fish some people included it in their meal. As I love fish soup, I decided to buy some along with a small pot of their homemade rouille.
I moved on to olive stall where they also sell dried fruits and salted fish. I asked the woman serving what I would need for les treize desserts and she very kindly wrote down the 13 ingredients that I would need. From her I bought dried figs, almonds, hazelnuts, dates and raisins. She also told me that Morue en Raito, dried salt-cod with a wine and tomato sauce with capers and olives, was a traditional dish eaten on Christmas Eve. She gave me the recipe for this and I bought the ingredients from her, along with a small quantity of salted anchovies for the cardoons.
With my ingredients in the bag so to speak, I went home and did a little further research on Christmas Eve in Provence and this is what I found.
MENU FOR A PROVENÇAL CHRISTMAS EVE SUPPER
There is much symbolism attached to the Christmas Eve meal. The first course must comprise of seven different dishes which do not include meat and which relate to the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary. The dessert, les treizes desserts, has thirteen ingredients relating to Jesus and his twelve Apostles. Traditionally this meal was eaten before going to Midnight Mass and called Le gros souper. The ingredients of the first courses differ, but this seems to be a popular selection:
- Oysters, served with small rounds of bread and butter and vinegar with chopped shallots and wedges of lemon
- Soupe de Poisson – Fish Soup, recipe here
- Escargots – these can be bought prepared from your Butcher and heated up in the oven.
- Cardoon and anchovy gratin
- Salt Cod with a tomato and wine sauce – Morue en Raito
- Green Salad with garlic croutons
- Cheese, including Goats cheese
Dessert – Les Treize Desserts
- Oranges, tangerines, pears, apples, grapes. The fruit varies and sometimes quince or grape jelly substitute some of the fresh fruits.
- La Pompe a L’huile – a type of Fougasse a pastry made with olive oil, orange flower water and brown sugar and can be bought at your boulangerie
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. Please comment and tell us what you will be eating this Christmas where you live.
I attend my friend’s German Christmas, so it’s meat and dumplings and red cabbage. How interesting that the rest of the world avoids meat but the Germans do sauerbraten.
My mother was German and the family tradition on Christmas eve was. Potato salad and frankfurters followed by German Christmas biscuits.
Very nicely written Ange and very interesting. I think you need to increase the volume of recipes that you put up and really focus around provencal. This is the most interesting and useful information.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
HOPEFULLY SEE YOU NEXT TIME YOU ARE OVER.
TXXXX
Thanks Tina. Lovely to hear from you. Will be posting the above recipes in the next post. Look forward to seeing you soon.
Wonderful post. I could really enjoy all that seafood. Since all my cousins live in the north, I’ve never been farther south than Paris. I’d love to visit down there and try all those so different and lovely sounding dishes.
When my daughter lived in Switzerland, I visited her one Christmas. We had Fondu, naturally, it is quite traditional, there for Christmas eve.
When I was a young, we always went to a party given by my Godfather, who was Chinese. After we moved far away, it was so sad not to be able to go to his party, so we ate out at any local Chinese restaurant on Christmas eve. It continues all these years later. On Christmas day I prefer a nice standing rib beef roast with roasted veg and Yorkshire puds. I make a christmas cake on the first Sunday in Advent and serve that and mince pies for afters.
I wish you and yours a very happy Christmas season.
Hi Priscilla
Thanks so much for commenting. I find it fascinating how family traditions are born and maintained. Love the idea of a. Chinese meal.
I always love your posts, Angela! We have tamales on Christmas Eve. My husband’s sisters and I used to make them a few days before Christmas, and then the big Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve. This year we aren’t traveling, so I bought frozen tamales (!) and will serve them with some Mexican rice! Still need to do so much tonight (why am I writing this??) so going for an easy meal, with a little tradition.
Re: cardoons. I made some nice celery hearts in a similar fashion–Split them, browned them in olive oil, added wine and stock and braised them for quite a while, removed them to baking dish and thickened broth with beurre manie. Then poured it over the celery, topped the dish with breadcrumbs and cheese and baked it. I could eat it as a meal all by itself!
Re: salt cod. Learned from my chef/mentor to make brandade de morue–soaked in several baths of water, cooked in milk, mixed until soft in mixer, added mashed potatoes, garlic and tons of olive oil. Wow. Served with poached eggs or on croutons. I might just have to do it for New Year’s since it’s now way too late to be absorbing any new ideas. I wish I wasn’t such an eleventh hour-er. All this to say: Merry Christmas (or as you would say, Happy Christmas!) XXOO
Sally. Thanks do much for commenting. Love the tamale tradition in your family. Nothing like that here in Provence. Would love your recipe. My French friends love to try new foods!
Interesting and very similar to what our friends in Apt, France for their Christmas eve except he being Danish and she French. It is a little different. They have Plum Pudding or a similar pudding that he orders from the UK where he lived when younger. For Dessert they have the Danish dessert nougant brod. They have a fish soup and this year a Danish Roast Goose.
About what we have here in the North Country of Minnesota. In the morning, we have a Swedish coffee cake with cinnamon, allspice, cinnamon, sour cream and lots of fresh (frozen) blueberries topped with butter. That afternoon we are busy still shopping and in the evening on Christmas Eve, it all depends upon what we want to eat. This year we are having a pork-beef meatloaf with mashed potatoes, green beans, and a cream of carrot soup. Dessert will be a Key-Lime Pie. Tomorrow on Christmas day we will have salad, beef kabobs with peppers, onions and tomatoes, a hotdish (unknown as of yet). Hotdish is what they call a casserole in this part of the States. There will be dessert of cookies, candies and puddings. Wine will be served at both meals.
Love your blog. We have spent two weeks in St Remy so enjoy the pictures and remembering that beautiful place. Provence is truly a heaven for food and all the wonderful markets.
Hi Karen. Love the sound of the Swedish coffee cake. I’m getting the idea that peole take a little bit of their favourite bits from Christmas traditions round the world and make them their own. Thanks for your kind comments.
Thanks for sharing. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it.