A french dinner party

One of the big parts of the homestay agreement is that every student is entitled to two dinners a week with the family. With Jacques, my dinners have often been my taking part in dinner parties he throws.

For example, last night, Jacques informed me that dinner would be at 9pm with some other friends from the apartment building. I showed up downstairs at 8:45 to meet his friends, and he poured me some of his family's special recipe punch (read: rum with a taste of bitters). I took care sipping the punch in front of the fire he made, because I didn't want to be that American guy who drinks way too much. I soon looked over to find the two sixty-something women sitting next with empty glasses, asking Jacques for a refill, which he happily obliged. After my second glass of punch, and plenty of conversation (mostly punch-related, two of the people there had connections to the Antilles). I uncorked two bottles of red wine for our party of five, and then sat down to some amazing soup that was made using ox tail (more on that later...). After that, Jacques went in to the kitchen and brought out an "aperitif," a plate of what appeared to be large cow bones. I found out, yes, they were large bones. I was supposed to eat the marrow, something I'd heard about doing in France, but had yet to try, thankfully.

The way one eats marrow, at least according to one of my new french friends at the table, is you scoop it ouf of the bone, spread it on some bread, and then sprinkle a bit of salt over it, and voila. All eyes were on me as I stuck my knife into the center of the open bone and took out some marrow. I spread it gingerly on my bread and then put on a lot of salt. For those that haven't eaten marrow before, I won't ruin the surprise. Suffice to say, it's a unique experience. Kind of creamy, but not in a delicious, buttery, foie gras kind of way.

After the marrow, out came the beef, potatoes, peppers, carrots, and several other vegetables, plus plenty of different kinds of mustard and pickles. In addition, off to the side was a metal pot containing another surprise for me. After going through as much beef and potatoes as I could stomach, I found out what the other metal pot contained. Jacques had luckily saved the ox tail he had used to make the soup. These were pieces of tail, cut up in sections. Each piece is circular, with a bone in the middle, a bit of meat, and then the intact skin of the cow around the outside. Did I eat it? Hell yes I did. Ox tail is chewy. I think that's honestly the best word to describe it. After cutting off a piece, and then removing the thick skin, it took me a good amount of time to chew one piece. The taste is basically beef, but not nearly as flavorful as a filet mignon.

After that, there was cheese. Lots of cheese. Two different types of goat cheese, plus plenty of other varieties. This whole time, I was in a race to keep up with wine consumption. After the two glasses of punch, I had four glasses of red wine and two glasses of white. It shouldn't come as a shock to anybody that I am currently nursing off a slight hangover.