from Lucy's Kitchen Notebook

FROM LUCY'S KITCHEN NOTEBOOK

LES TRÈIZE DESSERTS: POMPE À L'HUILE

The whole idea originates from the number at the table at christ's last supper, a spread called les trèize deserts. A platter or sometimes even a special table is devoted to regional specialties like nougat along with a healthy selection of dried fruits and nuts like figs and prunes. Some enjoy it after Christmas mass, others after the holiday meals. 

We often find ready-made versions of this regional holiday platter of treats in specialty shops throughout France and even at the grocery store, although most families put them together at home as a holiday activity something like making Christmas cookies. 

Sometimes people don't even know why they do these things, it's just the custom. you may see any or all of the following list making the rounds after holiday meals if you spend Christmas in Provence. this year I will share with you the recipes for creating your own trèize desserts platter.

1. Pompe à l'huile, a local olive oil based bread (recipe below)
2. White nougat
3. Dark nougat
the 4 mediants, fruits and nuts:
4. Walnuts or hazelnuts, to symbolize the Augustines
5. Dried figs, to symbolize the Franciscans
6. Almonds to symbolize the Carmes
7. Raisins or prunes to symbolize the Dominicans
FRUITS :
8. Dates
9. Oranges (at our table we sometimes see candied orange peel instead)
10. Clementines (candied are lovely)
11. Apples 
12. Pears
13. Grapes

Of course, les trèize desserts are never quite the same from house to house, or even from year to year. for example, who can resist slipping a few Calissons, almond paste candies local to Provence or favorite cookies onto the platter? Prunes are stuffed with colorful almond paste to make them more appealing to children, and the trèize desserts start to take on a life of their own. 

Before I understood the meaning of this tradition, I just thought it was a great idea to pass the prunes around - it just seemed the healthy thing to do, if you know what I mean!

RECIPE:  LA POMPE À L’HUILE

4 cups / 480 grams flour (ap or type 55)

1 cup / 250 ml hot water
1/2 cube moist baker's yeast (20 grams) or about 7 grams yeast powder
5 tablespoons / 65 grams granulated sugar
1 teaspoon / 4 grams salt
2/3 cup / 160 ml olive oil (the best, fruitiest one you have)
zest from 1 untreated lemon
zest from 1 untreated orange
1-2 tablespoons / 5 grams poppy seeds

- Combine half (240 g) of the flour, the sugar, the yeast and the salt together, crumbling the yeast into the mixture.

- Add enough hot but not boiling water to the mix to make a smooth homogeneous somewhat moist dough (this usually takes about a cup). Let this rise for 45 minutes.

- Incorporate the olive oil, the remaining 2 cups of flour, the lemon and orange zest, and poppy seeds, if you are using them.

- Give it a good knead (5 minutes) form the dough into a ball, and out in a large bowl in a warm place free of drafts, covering the bowl with a sheet of baking paper, plastic wrap, or a folded towel to keep it warm.

- Leave it alone to rise for 3 hours.

- Turn the dough onto a floured board, knead very briefly just to get the big bubbles out, and pat it out into a flat circle.

- Make slits in the middle, so that it will cook through when you bake it, and let it rise another hour.

- Bake it in a hot oven (400f/200c) for 20 minutes.

- Paint it with a thin coat of olive oil when it's done. 

FROM LUCY'S KITCHEN NOTEBOOK

Lyon 2ème: Ampère Victor Hugo

Plunge down the presqu'ile three subway stops down the line from Hotel de Ville and step out onto the cobblestone there. Not as young and eclectic as La Martiniere, but with a steady Mary-Janes and lipstick style charm, Ampère Victor Hugo is replete with gourmandise. Get off rue Victor Hugo and get lost in the details.

FROM LUCY'S KITCHEN NOTEBOOOK

Lyon 1er, Les Pentes de la croix rousse

25 years ago, when I did my initial exploring of the neighborhoods, I found myself particularly in love with the lore of La Croix Rousse. The area was not urbanized until rather late in Lyon's history, during the first half of the 1800s. Originating as private church property, after the Revolution, green rolling orchards, vineyards and walled monestary vegetable gardens were transformed into a concentrated public urban center for the newly industrialized burgeoning silk production in Lyon. Over a period of 50 years the construction of homes and workshops for 28,000 master craftsmen, workers, and their families was completed. The silk working industry, which had been segmented and dispersed throughout the city for centuries, centralized to form a community.
 

This enclave of master surface pattern artists, thread workers, technicians specializing in loom maintenance, the weavers themselves, came to live and work together in a rather contained community. With new technology invented by a Lyonnais named Jacquard, Lyon produced silk was the official supplier to Napoleon's public palace works and to the courts. This dense community of interdependent like-minded craftsmen and their eventual organization to look out for each other, fight for their rights, ability to unionize under difficult conditions and live a co-op centered lifestyle, not only gave birth to one of the most progressive social movements in Europe at the time, but would also institutionalize a unique style of cuisine - one that made an important statement - and leave a lasting mark on Lyon's gastronomic identity.

In a genre of dishes unique to Lyon, ones that had their own histories with the people but came to be staples in the workers canteens, the cuisine embodied an allegiance to the working class by remaining simple, rustic and firmly based in the local economy. This style of charcuterie production and cooking would eventually co-exist and intermingle with La Cuisine Bourgeois, which had its own parallel establishment in Lyon. The dense new urban working class community and their tastes made it easy for the establishment to embrace a conduit, a special environment where the upper crust could enjoy, even if precariously, the earthly delights of the best of both worlds. This marriage would eventually be served forth pat and parcel by Les Mères Lyonnaises; their offering added a layer of dimension to the gastronomic landscape quite unique to this city. One that would open doors, if only in principle, for a flowering of ideas that was destined, through events here in Lyon, to change the face of French cuisine forever.