Walloon NYE 2014

I had a great New Year's Eve with my friends Nicolás and Catherine (whom I last saw at their wedding, a few years ago in Mexico City). They live in Pasadena, but Catherine is Belgian, and they spent the holidays in Brussels with Catherine's family. Happily, they invited me to join them for New Year's Eve! My flight back to Europe was to Bremen, via Amsterdam, arriving on the 31st. When I got to Amsterdam, I simply abandoned the flight to Bremen and instead took the train to Brussels. ☺

Catherine's mom was from a big family, with 9 siblings. For New Years they have a tradition of getting together at an old farm house in the countryside (belonging to one of the aunts or uncles) for a New Year's Eve dinner and party. This year's was unusually large, with 35 attendees!

First stop of the day was at Catherine's cousin's house, where they baked cookies and bread rolls for the feast to come later. A particularly funny moment was when Catherine's cousin's two little daughters ran up to me with a book, asking for me to read to them: Le parcours de Paulo¹, a where-do-babies-come-from book about a sperm named Paulo. (Apparently this was a practical joke actually aimed at Nicolas.)

Then we drove out into the countryside about an hour distant from Brussels, somewhere near Namur, for the feast. And it was a feast indeed! I'm not sure if I can even remember all of the courses, which were all completely home-made. First there were hors d'oeuvres of cut vegetables, and Belgian endives filled with north-sea shrimps, and beer. There was bubbly wine with cassis. There was white wine. There was smoked salmon, and fois gras² with onion jam and with port jelly and a special white wine. There was venison stew with puff pastry and endives on the side, and a red wine. There were five kinds of cheese with three kinds of home-made bread rolls. There was cut fruit, and there were home-made french maroon cookies (kind of marshmallow-like), there were home-made creme-puffs, and chocolate-almond cookies.

At midnight there was a frenzy of cheek-kissing, as is the custom - three on alternating cheeks, between all present. (With the bonjour kiss and three au revoir kisses, that makes (35-1)×(1+3+3)= 238 kisses per person! A veritable frenzy!)

Outside a hollowed-out log was set on fire. It is called something like a fuseé (rocket?). There's a hole in the bottom of the log, so it acts as a chimney, a self-consuming inferno. I'm told it's a very traditional thing in Alsace. Things are cooked on top of the log; it's like a stove that burns itself up.

After midnight, the music-teacher uncle set to work at the piano, and soon all were joined in a chorus of songs by Georges Brassens. It was about this time that my jet lag began to get the better of me, nodding off several times before crawling under a cozy blanket on a couch in an adjoining room. I drifted to sleep to this joyous French chorus and piano.

A perfect cozy New Year's. Very happy they decided to share it with me.

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[*] Photos by Catherine's dad (link). (Not sure they adequately capture the joyous family farmhouse atmosphere of the event. But they do capture my jet-lagged narcolepsy!)

[1] Originally in English as Where Willy Went.

[2] Re: fois gras. Yeah, it's not something I'd choose to prepare or request or consume regularly, but I was curious to find out what the fuss is all about. Conclusion: it's a fairly neutral paste, greatly enhanced by the flavorful jellies served with it. I could definitely imagine developing a taste for it, but I think this was both the start and the end of my fois-gras eating career. (Although I'm not really sure that force-feeding geese is any more cruel than many other practices of modern agriculture.☹)