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Post by geordy on Aug 1, 2010 10:07:27 GMT -5
Now this is obviously for those of us who didn't grow up eating mostly French food! Inspired by something in Bonjour Paris.
What was your first French food experience? I certainly didn't get any at home and there were few French restaurants where I grew up in Central NJ in those days(there are now! ;D)
I probably didn't have anything until College..I don't recall what was served at the 1964 World's Fair French Pavillion..but I'm fairly certain I didn't have it...the Belgium Waffles were the talk of the Fair though!
Maybe Onion Soup somewhere...then I recall thinking Veal Cordon Bleu was the chicest thing....had that at the Shadowbrook Inn in Northern NJ at my celebratory graduate school graduation dinner!! But by then I had been in NYC for a year and a half...but with a very limited budget...Steak and Brews(unlimited beer and wine! ;D were more my speed.(and Happy Hour free bar food!)..but fondue was very popular then too.
And Coquille St. Jacques...I made it myself before I actually had it at Maison D' Alsace in Paris ...but that's another story.....
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Post by PariS on Aug 1, 2010 10:22:05 GMT -5
That's a tough one for me, Geordy. I can't pinpoint The First. I know I didn't grow up on it, that's for sure! Though in the 70's there were some French-inspired dishes that were popular (but you can hardly call Chicken Cordon Bleu stuffed with cheddar cheese "French"!). My parents used to travel an hour or so to the nearest French restaurant occasionally when I was a teen, but they told me I wouldn't like it! LOL
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Post by joan1 on Aug 1, 2010 11:48:13 GMT -5
I grew up in Canada,, to a Canadian mom and French dad. I assumed I grew up eating what everyone else in school ate. I was wrong. I had never seen bottled salad dressing till I was 7 or so and invited for dinner at a friends house, we always had a homemade vinigrette , and it was always served on lettuce only ( to this day my dad does not like a bunch of stuff in his salads) ,, and it was served after main course.
Most telling difference though, was when I was in grade one, I was excited becuase it was some special night at our house( birthday or something) and we would be having snails. We all loved snails, and had contests to see who ate the most in our family. I told my friends " oh goody we get snails tonight" and the looks of horror,, and then them all laughing at me and saying " the Dumas's eat SLUGS" ... I never forgot how embarrassed I was.
My first different french food ,, eaten in FRance, when I was there visiting family , was when I was ten. Rabbit pate,, which I loved, but still thougth was weird as my friends kept PET rabbits back home. Trick is ,, I ate it without knowing exactly what it was at first. Then when I went into my grandmothers yard to see the rabbits that she kept as pets( I thought!) ,, noticed they were gone. They had been sent to be fininshed!!!
Frist really gross( in my opinion) dish I had served to me in France was calfs brains. AT 13, staying with family friends. Wandered into kitchen and could see exactly what was on menu. Lady of house saw my look of horror and said not to worry, I didn't have to eat them. She served my dinner sans the meat,, but it was the same cream sause she had cooked the brain in,, and served over puff pastry,, sort of looked like chicken a la king. I knew she had just picked out the chunks,, and that I was still eating "brain broth" as I dubbed it, but the fear of being offensive or troublesome had been drilled into my head by my parents( who were not with me) and I knew to smile, and swallow it regardless. Yeck. It didn't taste bad,, but it was not something I would ever want to order again.
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Post by mossie on Aug 1, 2010 13:25:01 GMT -5
First French food. Long story. At age just 20, when I had been out in Egypt for a few months on my first squadron, I had to navigate a transport plane home to England. First day slog up via a refuelling stop at El Adem near Tobruk in Libya, to Malta, where we spent the night. Second day up to England, with a refuelling stop at Istres near Marseilles. Istres was a large French Air Force station and the couple of NCOs on the aircraft with me had been there before, and took me up to the sergeants mess for our meal. What a shock, I don't remember what the food was except that it was perfectly edible, but down the centre of the long refectory table, at close intervals, were open, unlabelled, bottles of red wine No wonder I don't remember what I ate, but it sure helped the day go by Mind you an essential part of our flying training was how to drink and remain sober, or apparently so.
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Post by Jody on Aug 1, 2010 14:39:32 GMT -5
I'd been eating rognons since I could chew! My father loved them , prepared any way!
I was a very spoiled only child! My parents went out to dinner every Saturday night and from the time I was 2 I went with them. I was taught to twirl spaghetti on my fork almost before I could walk by the waiters at the Italian Village restaurant in Pittsburgh. And my parents alternated that resto with Frenchies, where I had my first snail and begged for more. It might have been the garlic rather than the snail !
BTW, I no longer eat rognons! YUCK! But the Dh alwyas usually has them as his first meal in paris cooked blood red . Double Yuck!
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Post by Jody on Aug 1, 2010 15:04:59 GMT -5
Another part of the story
When my parents first took me to Italian Village, they did not have high chairs or booster seats so my mother was prepared to hold me when she ate. But the owner snatched me up and told her to eat and he danced me around the room singing Italian songs. On their next visit he had a high chair especially for me!
Can you even imagine htat happening nowadays?
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Post by sunshine817 on Aug 1, 2010 15:24:07 GMT -5
I can't remember when I had my first taste of French food...but I *do* remember the evening my dad came home with a cooler full of fresh rainbow trout.
He carefully cleaned the fish, then cooked them whole. My sister and I were mystified as to how we should go about eating them (we lived on a large inland lake, so fish was a favorite, but filleted, never prepared whole!)
That meal was a lesson in how to remove the skin, and to carefully pull the flesh away from the tiny bones...enjoying every tender bite...
When my sister asked why we ate fish that way -- he told us that this was a lesson so that when we were grown-up ladies and went to Paris, we'd know how to eat the fish that would be served to us in restaurants.
When I was a grown-up lady and went to Paris, I ordered trout just so I could eat it the way I'd been taught.
My mom made terrific frogs' legs -- in the part of the Midwest where I grew up, hunting by night for bullfrogs was a fairly common activity -- and it meant the legs were big and meaty...we didn't know at the time that it was French...it was sort of a redneck thing, if you really want to know!
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Post by geordy on Aug 1, 2010 15:47:05 GMT -5
" I assumed I grew up eating what everyone else in school ate. "
LOL We all do Joan!
I had a Chinese roomate in college who never ate with a knfe and fork until she went to a school chum's house. She had never seen anything like the 1/2 lb. box of Carolina rice I brought to our campus apt...then I went to her house and saw the huge sack of rice they kept in a plastic trash can!
My best friend growing up spent a good part of one summer at her Father's family farm upstate NY. Her parents brought me along when they went tp pick her up. We were told she wasn't feeloing well and was in her room as we joined the rest of the family for a Sunday Ham dinner. Found out later she was crying and upset because dinner was the piglet she played with all summer!
And Annette my Mother used to tell me I wouldn't like things too...we didn't eat out much but I usually as a kid was limited to hamburgers, turkey dinner, and hot turkey or roast beef sandwiches!! I recall feeling sophisticated when I ordered a fried clam platter at HoJo's! (influence of my sis in College!) ;D
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Post by holger on Aug 1, 2010 16:16:28 GMT -5
My first really French food was when I was in College and a classmate during a vacation when we were both in NYC took me to a restaurant called Charles a la Pomme Souffle. I had a cheese souffle and a chocolate souffle for dessert. I still enjoy both.
We had always had omelettes at home but they were presented as American. Then in Paris in 1957, we primarily ate various versions of egg dishes as we were on a very limited budget. Also had pates and once steak with fries.
Have been making up for my early deprivation ever since.
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