A French Christmas

I wanted to make a post on what is typically munched in a French Christmas. Despite being French-Japanese, for christmas my parents always tried to keep it European, if not French. This is probably because the ingredients are obviously easier to find and also because Christmas is more of a European tradition :P.

Anyways, so almost every year we start with…. FOIE GRAS. If you've never tried it then you definitely should. It's goose liver that is extra fat (foie gras literally means fatty liver). It has become illegal in some parts of the US but we won't go into the debate of whether this is right or not. Foie gras is part of the French culture and I am definitely not giving that up. Imagine it is like pate but a billion times more delicious. And expensive. Which is why you only eat it on special occasion. The best is to eat it with toast or toasted brioche (my fav *drool all over keyboard as I write this*). I know you can also make foie gras yourself but since I don't know how, I will only talk about the already prepared ones.

 You drink sweet wine called sauterne, it really goes perfectly with foie gras!

Christmas is also associated to sea food and French people eat a lot of oysters, langoustines (scampi in English), etc. We don't usually have this at home since we don't live in France. 

Next, poultry is served with some stuffing (a mash of turkey, raisins, chestnut and some spices).

Instead of poultry you can also have boudin blanc with truffles in it (alleged truffles, the black dots on the little sausage are supposed to be the infamous truffles. Could also be pepper. Who knows :P). I prefer this boudin more (It's not made of blood and milk and some bread is also added) as it feels lighter than the normal one. Here we have it accompanied with rosti (it is originally swiss and it consists of potato and it's super yummy :P)

Then you ALWAYS finish a french meal with a plate of CHEEEESE. This is my favorite part (not only am I a nomster but also a cheese addict T.T). So here are a few of the cheeses we had for Christmas… What to drink with cheese? Good red wine, of course. Usually, cheese comes accompanied with a nice refreshing salad.

Then you finish your dinner with a buche de noel, which is the typical desert you have for christmas. It looks like a log! Only have a picture from a few years ago… We don't always eat this since it's pretty heavy (lots of cream and what not) even if my mum's is the light version of it! How to end your night? Drink some champagne! Yey!

Hope you have a better idea of what French people eat for Christmas. What do you have in your country? :)