Les uns se rendent à l'église,
Les autres dans les restaurants.
That is the way one French poet describes Christmas Eve, meaning that for some it is a very solemn night, for others a very gay one. But my memories of Noël in the land of my birth are that it is usually both. The solemn Christmas mass is followed by gay parties, sometimes at restaurants, sometimes at home.
In country places, like the town I came from, there are no big restaurants, but every household has its array of charcuterie, pâtés, terrines of game, brioche, crème vanilla, and other favorite regional specialties laid out on the table before the family sets out for church. And the bottles of vins du pays to be opened after returning from mass! They are both generous and good. In Paris, however, the great restaurants are ablaze with light and crowded with beautifully dressed women and men in formal evening clothes. The parties start gathering about ten o'clock, and after the midnight service every place is crowded to capacity.
French holidays are always an excuse for feasting and certainly Noël with its gay réveillon suppers at midnight and big family dinners on Christmas Day is no exception. But Noël is not much of a time for giving presents—at least it wasn't when I was young. Gifts are distributed at New Year's, when Père Janvier leaves the children a few small toys and fills the wooden sabots, put out on New Year's Eve, with the traditional orange, nuts, and bonbons. During my many years in New York I've been interested in noticing how many French people in this country and Americans who have lived abroad combine the French tradition of feasting with the American custom of gifts by remembering their friends at Christmas with food specialties. The scores of terrines and pâtés that I have made and the baskets of gourmet shop delicacies I've given have long been the delight of my friends. I am sure Mr. Goelet, who owned the old New York Ritz, and his French wife would have been very disappointed had I neglected to send a Christmas pâté for their repas de réveillon, Mr. Goelet always remembered his friends each year with a gift of food too, usually a brace of pheasants raised on his estate at Sandrincourt, not far from Paris. Each year about fifty brace, a male and a female, packed in one of those huge baskets used in France for transporting perishables, were sent over on the ship that would arrive in New York nearest to Christmas, the so-called “Christmas sailing.”
The réveillon dinner or supper starts the Noël feasting. Served at about midnight, it often lasts well into the small hours of Christmas morning. So for December I give you a menu for a typical réveillon dinner, typical, that is, of la haute cuisine. It is also a menu from which those who prefer a light supper can choose just a few of the season's specialties.
There are two facts that I would like to call to your attention in this menu. One is that all the foods, with perhaps the salad greens as an exception, are seasonal ones, at their best in December. Oysters are traditional at Christmas not only in France, but in this country, too. Many food-loving families, even in bygone days when salt-water fish and shellfish were infrequently seen in the Middle West, always made sure that a barrel of iced oysters was shipped out for Christmas Eve. Game, particularly furred game, is at its peak this month, citrus fruits are at their best, the big shiny brown chestnuts are in season, and baskets of endive, precisely packed by meticulous Belgian farmers, are in every market. The other fact that should delight gourmets is the succession of flavors in this meal. Shellfish, chicken, fish, then beef, furred game, and feathered game; each is laced with complementary foods and flavors—with truffles, wine, and goose liver, with butter cream, brown sauce, or currant jelly. All this is followed, as it should be, by the clean, slightly garlicky tang of a salad and the fine, simple freshness of a tangerine-flavored ice.
Making a menu is, to me, more than a task of assembling foods and dishes that go well together and are suitable for the occasion. I always relive the many times the dishes have been prepared, recalling the people who particularly liked them or the occasions on which dishes that later became quite famous were first introduced. And I recall too the scores of times when a very human concern over whether a new dish would “catch on” outweighed all other considerations. I suspect every host and hostess probably have similar reactions. My advice is to be wary of the exotic in planning menus until you have mastered the traditional. Never be afraid to serve frequently the dishes you do the best and that are known favorites with your guests. But at the same time, don't hesitate to add new specialties to your repertoire as you broaden your own culinary accomplishments.
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