How to Cook Meat in France

First, apologies for not updating this blog recently - I've finally gotten into the swing of things in Paris and have had a bit less time at my computer.

My diet here has become very interesting...At the beginning of my time here, I ate lots of eggs, doughs, chicken, fish...and now, I think I have had enough beef to last me a good month. (That's probably a good thing, because our next beef dish may not come for another month!) We have made several meat dishes (the formal names I can't remember), but in practical its basically boiled down to roast beef (Day I) and beef bourgignon (Today). With both of these dishes, we made potatoes (mashed, and then turned "anglaise" style). Everything has been yummy, and I have been getting good results from the chefs. (Still far far from perfect, or how I would like it, but its better than how I started)

I have now used about half of the tools in the knife kit, however, one that I haven't used is the meat thermometer. During orientation, we were told that we wouldn't be using the thermometer until Intermediate cuisine when it would be important, in one dish, to know the precise temperature of a forcemeat. I didn't quite believe them, but its true - even though we have been cooking meat, we have not yet used the thermometer. Instead, to tell if the beef is done, we feel it. Yes...we touch the meat. Crazy if you ask me, but its a good skill to have since it doesn't require piercing the food.

But here comes the kicker. As I like to do, I prepared dinner for my host family on Sunday. My host-mom bought the ingredients this time, so it was even better :). I wanted practice trussing a chicken* so I prepared a citrus roasted chicken with some couscous and a tossed salad. A very easy meal. But unlike in practical where, since we were boiling the chicken, we could tell the "done-ness" by lifting it and seeing if any blood (or pinkish liquid) ran out, it was more difficult to tell if this bird was done just by visual inspection. So I used my meat thermometer.

The reaction from the son in the host family was precious. (He's 16 by the way). He turns to his mom and says, in French bien sur, "Wow! You should have seen it, she just stuck this metal thing into the chicken!" I showed them my thermometer (which is a fairly standard, but cool, electronic meat thermometer) and they were amazed! They had never even heard of a meat thermometer!!

Its amazing how different the two countries are in terms of cooking meat -- in the US, our "medium" steak, is like their "medium-well" and their "rare" is something that restaurants in the US wouldn't dare serve. Their fear of food-borne pathogens is minuscule (though perhaps it is somewhat warranted because their food tends to be fresher than what Americans find in their local grocery store). The rare-ness of meat is not the only manifestation of the French brazen view concerning food poisoning... Cleanliness is its second victim.

I am my mother's daughter, and when cooking meat, I try to take significant precaution that the table is wiped down with anti-bacterial spray before I start cooking something else in the same space. This is not the case with the French. We cook meat and veggies in the same general area and we just turn our cutting board over when we move onto the veggies. This leaves all of the juices from the meat onto the marble below. At the end of class, this marble gets a quick wipe (hopefully with soap, but no gaurantee....if it doesn't look "dirty" then it usually doesn't) with a wet paper towel. The next class might be rolling out pastry dough on that same marble. EEEK!

The cutting boards, which are seriously contaminated, get a wash from the dishwasher...but its not a machine with extra hot water...instead it is a person. I don't have a chance to see how well they clean the cutting boards, but I don't think that they get anything more than a fairly quick rinse. (I have taken to wiping my cutting board with paper towels before I start chopping on it...)

The Chefs in demonstration don't always wash their hands, and I'm embarrassed to say that even I have forgotten this important ritual before as well. Many of my classmates forget too... The food still tastes great (!) ...but I am a bit scared of what I cook. Therefore I have adopted a 24 hour rule (and this is why I share *all* of my food with my host family): I do not eat food that I have made over 24 hours ago. Within the first 24 hours, I (maybe foolishly) think that I have a lesser chance of getting sick since bacteria hasn't had a chance to grow too much...

Since I'm bringing 4-8 servings of food home after each practical, my diet in the 24 hours after practical is (in general) just that food. I'm back where I started this post...so I'll quit now :) But I'll do my best to update whenever I have something interesting to share.

Bissous!
Daria

* Even the second time around I still had very little idea about where exactly the twine goes....