Late last year I took a trip to France. It was a much anticipated
trip, as I had only briefly visited Paris on a
stop-over to England
a few years ago. During my travels in Paris,
I met a local foodie, P. P is a friendly and quirky
Parisian around my age who lives and breathes food. I was excited to find out
that P was in the process of relocating to Sydney. There is never enough foodie friends in the world, I was cheering.
With the blink of an eye, my month-long vacation to foodie
heaven was over. The trip has inspired my quest to learn more about the rich
culture (food and otherwise) France
hides behind her 21st century veil. 3 months after my epic trip, P
landed down-under to start a new life. I invited P to spend a weekend in my
‘hood’ and cook together.
I had been operating under the assumption that I already know enough about French food to feel good about myself. Unsurprisingly, P, being as out-spoken as he is, challenged THAT assumption, and promised to teach me how to make ‘real’ French crepes to start my
French cooking education 101. While my initial thought was “surely I know how to
make crepes, who doesn’t?”, I suspected that there might be something P knows
that I don’t. P laid out the list of ingredients on my kitchen bench, and I was
slightly baffled by the presence of a potato, sliced in half. What on earth
would you need a potato for? To test the
temperature of the pan? To add to the crepe batter? It turns out
that the potato half is traditionally used to evenly spread the cooking oil in
the pan! How ingenious! P combined plain flour, sunflower oil, eggs, milk,
cooking rum and vanilla sugar (caster sugar infused with vanilla bean pods) to
create a runny crepe batter and left it on the bench to ‘rest’ for an hour.
When the batter is well rested and slightly thickened, P used the potato to spread some sunflower oil evenly in a non-stick pan. I was intrigued like a kid
in a science class – watching P cook brings me back to the Christmas markets on
the Avenue of Champs Elysees in Paris,
where food markets stretch out for miles, and cooks and food producers proudly
showcase their specialty. There are various kinds of foods on display, from
donuts, crepes, churros and sausage sandwiches, to foie gras, pates, salami
sticks, etc – every stall is a heavenly mouth-watering experience. Just as I was off with the food fairies,
dreaming and drooling over Paris, P tapped on my shoulder to inform me that
crepes were ready. I AM THERE! On my plate sat a delicate crepe filled with a
rich dark chocolate and banana mixture.
Being a greedy person that I am, I felt compelled to add strawberries,
cream, icing sugar, sugar syrup, and whatever delicious things I can find to
stuff into the crepe. Luckily, P stopped me in due course before I turned the
crepe into a 3-course dinner, and advised me to learn to appreciate simple
flavours as they are. Initially unconvinced, I rolled my eyes and took my first bite into
the chocolate and banana-filled crepe. Hmmm…the soft crepe with a hint of rum, and
dark chocolate and banana filling, is a marriage made in heaven. It might be a
marriage of a couple of simple ingredients, but that, in no shape or form,
discounts the quality of the union. It was simple but heavenly. They might just
be crepes, and there might just be chocolate and banana, but they taught me a valuable lesson in cooking (and life in
general): do not always try to overload your crepe, learn to appreciate the
simple things, as they are beautiful…
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