This week I am in Denmark for the graduation from Gymnasium of my grand daughter, Nicole. This event is a huge celebration for the students and is a more important milestone than university graduation. It is a centuries old tradition and certainly a very public spectacle with the population willingly being party to the celebration.
I flew from Toulouse to Copenhagen to be present on this important occasion which marks the end of the three final years of high school study. My “graduate” arrived to meet me for breakfast in town looking very chic and stylish in her graduation cap (literally a graduant's beanie) which resembles a sailors cap. They wear their cap with pride at all times for a week. Capped students are stopped in the street and congratulated on their achievement. Tourist often try to buy the cap but they are a prized possession which the recipients keep, pretty much forever. School friends write messages in the lining and bite the rim and leave their teeth marks for good luck.
Saturday was the formal school ceremony with speeches and songs followed by each graduating student, the girls in white, receiving their diploma. As you can imagine the following drinks and nibbles provided by the school is a noisy affair with a hundred students and their families taking photos and blowing horns and whistles.
Each class then drives off in an assortment of hired and decorated trucks for a day of feasting and drinking. In the "olden days" this was a horse drawn vehicle. Once the trucks leave the school, their journey takes them to the home of every member of the class for sandwiches and drinks. Our job after the ceremony was to hotfoot it home to prepare for the class visit. As Nicole’s truck arrived the loud chanting of Nicole, Nicole announced their arrival, then a rush of girls and boys into her home to be feted, fed, congratulated and photographed yet again. The students drink copious amounts of alcohol during the day and make lots of noise. The wagon, truck or whatever vehicle they’ve chosen is driven at all times by the hired drivvr of the truck so parent worry about the consequences of this orgy of eating and drinking is minimized. The visit to each home is kept strictly to fifteen minutes and they arrive and leave in a great whirl of happiness and laughter.
Last night we went to celebrate at FIAT, a restaurant in Copenhagen. I had booked a table and requested to be seated in the courtyard. We arrived and were shown to what had to be the worst table, in front of the cloakroom and kitchen doors. We asked if perhaps a better table might be possible and a few minutes later were shown to what was arguably the best table in the restaurant. And it was all because of the power of that cap. Thank you and congratulations Nicole.
Walking is taken quite seriously here in the Tarn. One has many choices, from the major pilgrim routes to a leisurely walk in the many nearby spectacularly beautiful forests, lanes and fields.
I recently joined a Walking Club and now go off somewhere different each Monday morning with a very friendly group of people. The familiar tu rather than the more formal vous is used from the first meeting and kisses on each cheek are exchanged all round as a greeting along with lots of bonjours and comment ca va, or how are you? I have often seen such groups here and there and made some enquiries about joining a group but it took an invitation from one of my neighbours to get around to it.
The first week was a little strange as we walked back here to my village of Labarthe-Bleys and took a very familiar walk. Each walk is led by a member of the group and something unusual or interesting is included. During a morning in the Forest de Gresigne we saw a hidden ruined glass blowing factory from the eighteenth century. The characteristically green glass made in this forest was famous in that era. We stopped at a tiny hamlet with lovely church where the mayor came to greet us. Catholics were buried in the cemetery close to the church and the Protestants on the other side of the road. The protestant part now belongs to our guide and forms part of his garden. When he was a child his great grandmother told him that after a big storm they would find bones in their well. It seems that almost all glassblowers were Protestants. Last week we drove about twenty minutes up into the Aveyron and walked through the most beautiful country side imaginable. As summer has not arrived yet, each walk has been in unusually cool weather. Because of the recent rain, we found lots of mushrooms this week. June is the month to find the delicious delicately flavoured girolle mushroom. There are no walks in July and August, normally the very hot months.
A number of friends have taken one and two week pilgrim walks to Santiago de Compestella in Spain but walking the twenty to thirty kilometers a day required is a bit daunting for me. These very important routes cross much of the South of France on their way to Santiago de Compestella to the shrine of the apostle St James. In medieval times the pilgrims wore a cockle shell, usually around their neck to mark them as pilgrims under the protection of the order of St James. It was also used as a drinking vessel. On the road up to the old city of Cordes sur Ciel there is a house with a cockle shell carved above the front door and I have often promised to find out more but so far ....
Coquilles St Jacques although well known was just a delicious seafood dish for me before I came here and learned about the coquille and the pilgrims. My friend Sabine, who lives in Brittany where delicious seafood is part of the daily diet, decided to make Coquilles St Jacques for a special and big O birthday party for her husband last year. We spent a couple of days trying to find sixty real cockle shells and not the plastic serving ones sold everywhere. Usually they are easy to buy but not that year. Here is Sabine's recipe, for six not sixty people. Mushrooms are often included in the recipe for this dish
Coquilles St Jacques.
Half a kilo of Scallops
3/4 cup of white wine
1/2 cup water
Juice of a lemon
1 small onion finely chopped.
6 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup cream
Salt and pepper
Breadcrumbs
Grated gruyere cheese
Scallops
Simmer the scallops gently in the water, lemon juice and wine, mixture for a few minutes. Do no overcook them as they will become tough Sauce
Melt butter and onions and add the flour. Stir for a few moments and then add some of the wine and water mixture. Stir until the sauce is a little thicker than the consistency you want and then add the cream. This is basically a simple béchamel sauce with a nice fishy flavour.
Top with breadcrumbs and grated cheese.
Pop under a griller for a few moments to melt the cheese.
Another very quick and simple variation of mine is to chop an onion finely and cook it for a few minutes in butter. Then add the scallops and gently cook for four or five minutes. Flame the mixture with cognac and pour over a bed of steamed rice to serve.
