Our first French Christmas

Four years ago, an out-of-date pet passport meant we spent an unexpected Christmas in France. This week, how we combine our English festive traditions with French ones, plus a recipe for onion soup.

In 2020, we ended up in France for Christmas by accident. We decorated our rented house with lights, of course.

Our first French Christmas wasn’t planned. That December in 2020, we weren’t supposed to be here, on this little port in the Languedoc. After our four-month stay – a hasty escape, seized in that September window when it became possible to travel again during Covid – we planned to return in plenty of time to spend Christmas alone in our London house, with an abundance of solitude to contemplate the table unencumbered by raucous guests and too much food.

But then, the day before we were to drive back, we went to the vet’s office to get the dogs’ passports stamped. Imagine my horror, by which I mean delight, when we discovered one of the dogs’ rabies certificates was out of date. The vet explained he needed a new shot straight away and then we would have to wait for three weeks before he could travel.

Barney, that first Christmas morning in France, entirely unrepentant for keeping us here.

This village didn’t want to let us go and we didn’t want to let it. We stayed. We put up fairy lights. On Christmas morning, we went for a walk on the beach, with a chard frittata (nothing says Joyeux Noël like festive green vegetables for breakfast), a carton of orange juice, a bottle of crémant and a thermos of coffee, and then in the afternoon we drove to some friends an hour north from us in the hills for a Franglais Christmas.

This Christmas, we are slightly more organised.

The village butcher released his festive menu a couple of weeks ago and I’ve only just stopped reading it. There is, of course, a mediaeval merchant’s worth of capons, guinea fowl, geese, ducks, poulet de Bresse, turkeys and wild boar. Under entrées chaudes, there’s truffled boudin blanc, coquilles St Jacques à la Normandie, feuillété de foie gras et pomme au calvados, and all kinds of dauphinoises, all fait maison, naturally.

On Christmas morning, the cheese shop in the halles will be open, along with the shellfish stalls, for all of your oyster platter needs. Of course, the bakery will be open because God forbid a French citizen should mark the birth of Our Lord with day-old bread.

Whenever you speak to British or American people who live here, they tell you that in France, Christmas is much less commercial, Christmas Eve is the big event, and quicker than you can say bûche de Noël, it’s back to business as usual on the twenty-sixth. That’s certainly true, to an extent. A couple of years ago, I remember asking a friend if Pézenas market would happen as usual on Saturday, the day after Christmas. “But of course,” she said, puzzled. “It’s normal.”

But this chic restraint is only half of the story. Because before Christmas, it’s quite the sleigh ride. For weeks now, we could have easily filled every weekend with Christmas fairs in local village halls, or nearby abbeys and chateaux. We could have picked through scented candles of many nations, middle-aged-lady statement necklaces made from driftwood, and mongrammed hand towels for all the family, all the while keeping our energy up with foie gras burgers served from vans that would look quite at home in East London and hydrating on steaming paper cups of vin chaud. So I don’t know who is quite keeping it simple, but it certainly isn’t the sharp-elbowed ladies gutting the three-pashminas-for-100-Euro stalls.

In our village, a controversial new nativity scene in front of the church has replaced the one that used to occupy the covered market – I’ll write about that more next week, it’s quite the hot topic and deserves its own post. A dozen Christmas stalls have appeared in the Place de la République, a cartoonish ten-foot reindeer in ski goggles sits cheerfully in front of the Marine Bar. The streets are lined with wooden candy canes and the port twinkles with white lights. On Tuesdays, the stall where I usually buy olives is now filled with glacé cherries, confit citrus peels, whole sugared kumquats, dates, marzipan, walnuts and marrons glacés.

The Facebook groups catering to British people living in France are busy with chatter about crackers and Christmas puddings and where to get Bisto, Paxo stuffing and mixed dried fruits for baking. These cheerful, mostly helpful, posts are sprinkled with tellings-off from Serious People who think they’re better than their childhood comforts, the sort who clearly spend the festive season gnawing on andouillette and sticking a few candles in their twelve snails of advent. There are palpable waves of relief once Quality Street appear on the shelves of the HyperU, and much swapping of mince pie recipes.

Since we moved here, I’ve kept some of our old traditions and combined them with new ones – Christmas pudding and a bûche de noël, why not? – in this ever-evolving life. Nothing stays the same, even at the time of year when some of us (me) cling to tradition like a raft in the ocean. In so many ways, I am the least likely person to have moved to a whole new country almost on a whim. As I contemplate our fourth French Christmas, our third one on purpose, I am glad we made that leap. If we can do this, what else can we do? How many more possibilities are there? Who knows what next Christmas will bring?

Soupe à l’oignon

It’s been damp, grey and cold here these past few days and I had a longing for onion soup. This soup lives in our collective memories in a way that imbues it with an almost mythic status, which I think makes us believe that it will be complicated to make. It isn’t. You can probably make it from things you have in the kitchen right now. You could have it in front of you in an hour, and an hour implies it’s more work than it is – most of that time is just spent making sure the onions cook down until they’re very soft and lightly golden.

There are few ingredients, but you can certainly play around with what you have. I’d just made some chicken stock, so I used the fat that rose to the top when I chilled it to sauté the onions. If I hadn’t had that, I would just use goose fat or butter. You can use chicken or beef stock. Use some stale baguette if you have it, or slices from some sort of country loaf and if you don’t have gruyère or emmental cheese, grate some comté, cheddar or gouda, whatever you have that will melt deliciously.

Serves 4-6

100g butter, goose fat, or chicken fat scooped from the top of chicken stock
5 medium-sized onions, about 1.2kg, halved and very thinly sliced
100ml dry vermouth, dry sherry or white wine
1.2l chicken or beef stock
2 tbsp white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 tbsp cognac, armagnac or calvados
About 6 slices of slightly stale baguette
About 120g emmental or gruyère cheese, grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large, heavy bottomed casserole (if you’re going to grill the cheese in the pan rather than individual bowls, make sure you use a pan that fits under the grill), melt the butter or fat over a low heat and add the onions with a good pinch of salt. Sauté the onions very slowly, stirring from time to time, until they’re very soft and just starting to become golden. Don’t let them take on any more colour than that. This will take 30-40 minutes.

Pour in the vermouth, sherry or wine, raise the heat and simmer for a few minutes until it’s mostly evaporated. Add the stock, vinegar and cognac then season well with salt and pepper and simmer very gently for 20 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, slice the bread and dry it out for a few minutes in a low oven.

Taste the soup, adjust the seasoning if necessary, then float the bread on the top. Scatter over the cheese and grind on a little black pepper. Alternatively, ladle the soup into heatproof bowls and add the bread and cheese. Place under a hot grill and when the cheese is golden and bubbling, serve immediately.

Market haul: December 10, 2024

This week’s market haul comprises: parsley, spinach, half a dozen eggs, lemons, onions, olive oil, apples and pears, thick-cut ham, emmental, cantal entre deux (between three and six months old), camembert, persimmons, brussels sprouts, Jerusalem artichokes, ginger.